What if you just landed from Mars and you saw this landscape? You would wonder if there is life on earth and if there is, what do they do with the funny house, the poles, and the thing with wheels?
You would say, “Let’s leave this odd and boring place and get back home where the ice cream has a high butterfat content and there are dancing girls.” Or perhaps you’ll say to the driver, “Let’s try the moon next.”
SOUNDTRACK. By “Daves True Story” from the movie Jack Goes Boating:
By Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net. Ocean Grove, NJ. USA. 12/24/23
This is one of my favorite photographs, and Diana Krall’s “White Christmas” is also very special. And so is the Christmas season where sleigh bells ring—are you listening?
Christmas music can be monotonous after awhile in December, but so much great music is about Christmas, so I like to post it out of season to show its uniqueness. It’s like the jewelry store principle: just take one diamond out at a time and show it by itself on black velvet in a light that makes it glow —–
“The White Night” Central Park, Christmas Eve, 1932. By Adolph Fassbender Re-posted from Blogfinger. 2014.
This photograph is from the January 27, 1997 issue of the New Yorker magazine. It was part of a photography exhibit review featuring the work of Adolph Fassbender (1884-1980).
He was an artist who followed the romantic painterly Pictorialist style of photography long after it fell into disfavor around 1915. The quote below is from the New Yorker piece about this image. The title of the article was “Slow Dazzle.”
” ‘The White Night,” made on Christmas Eve, 1932, in Central Park, during a late-afternoon blizzard, is one of the highlights of the Fassbender show opening this week at Gallery 292, in SoHo.
“The buildings on the Plaza were invisible but for a faint glow; the artist got off just one three-and-a-half-minute exposure before his shutter froze. Out of raging wind and snow he coaxed this woolly, lamplit nocturne — a tribute not to speed but to contentment and rest.
“Photograph shows a path in Central Park covered with snow, bordered by bare black branches, and buildings in the distance with lighted windows seen through mist.”
–reprinted from Blogfinger. By Paul Goldfinger, Editor.
Paul Goldfinger, MD. This image appeared in a 1988 Pfizer Labs calendar (contest winner) which was distributed world-wide. I was Miss August. It was taken in Tlaquepaque, Mexico—near Guadalajara.. All 12 winners had their bio included as below.
This town is in the State of Jalisco where mariachi music was invented in the 18th century. I love mariachi music–it has vocal harmonies, accordions, harmonicas, trumpets, guitars and strings—it is happy music. And you can dance to it, but you need a big sombrero to fit in.
If you visit Guadalajara and its surroundings, the mariachis follow you wherever you go. This photo actually brought me some fan mail. But after winning this contest 5 or 6 times, I decided to specialize in black and white.
Th reason I was in Jalisco then was to be a visiting professor of cardiology at the Univ. of Guadalajara School of Medicine where there were many American students who were glad to see me. Eileen and the boys accompanied me on the trip which we did three times. The staff took us out to dinner a few times, but it was not Mexican food as we know it in Asbury Park. There is a heavy Spanish/European influence, and the cuisine was wonderful.
Horse Show at Chubb Park in Chester Township, New Jersey. Chester is not far from where the US Equestrian team trains. By Paul Goldfinger. Click image for full view. Reposted.
Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger.net. 10/3/23.
This photograph shows the gentle and elegant sport of horses and all the rituals, postures, clothing and casual styles of these aficionados blended with the formality of it all.
When we lived in Chester, we often saw “horse people” (usually women) shopping or walking around town in their special clothes. I like the black coats and hats on these riders.
That’s why I chose Gato Barbieri’s “Girl in Black” (Para mi Negra) — a tango by the jazz saxophonist (b. 1934 in Argentina) who wrote the incredible score for film The Last Tango in Paris with Marlon Brando.
This song seems to fit for this photo. Argentina is horse country, and the tango is very sexy.
Do you see any of that in this photo? How do those riders get out of those pants anyhow?
RACHAEL CANTU is a 31 year old singer/songwriter from California—-from her 2013 album Colors. “de Colores” is a folk song which means “from colors.” It is a Spanish language song, and the melody is said to go back to the 16th century and brought to colonial America.
Joe Maloney Asbury Park, New Jersey Palace Amusements. 1980. From the cover of “photograph” magazine. (PG) 2013.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.net. 2013.
Photographs below courtesy of Rick Wester Fine Art, New York. Asbury and Jersey Shore photos by Joe Maloney, exhibited by Wester in 2013.
White shoes, Asbury Park. By Joe Maloney. 1979.
Joe Maloney was a pioneer in color photography when he took his 8×10 camera and documented life in Asbury Park and the Jersey Shore, c. 1979-80.
His work was nearly lost to history because his color prints suffered from a common problem back then—archival impermanence. But later his negatives were scanned and digitized, and his Asbury Park work has been receiving recognition.
We learned about his New York City exhibit (2013) when the magazine “photograph” ran an image of the Palace Amusements (1980) on the cover of their July/August, 2013 edition. Of course it caught my eye, and I contacted Mr. Wester who gave Blogfinger permission to show a few of the images.
Asbury Balloons. by Joe Maloney
Lyle Rexer, who reviewed the show for “photograph,” said that Maloney grew up in New Jersey in the 1970’s—a time when some photographers were “taking color to the street.” He referred to Asbury Park as “the working man’s ocean front paradise.”
Regarding Maloney’s images, Rexer says, “You can almost feel the summer heat and smell the zinc oxide.”**
According to Rick Wester, “Maloney documented his sense of a particular time—what the colors were like and how they interacted with the place and people to produce something indelible. I like to think of these as rock and roll pictures.” Maloney liked to photograph teenagers.
Asbury Rockers. by Joe Maloney
Joe Maloney. Seaside Heights, NJ. New Yorker
A New Yorker blogger, Hannah Choi (see link below,) related a quote by Joe Maloney regarding his photography efforts in Asbury Park, “It felt like you were inside a Bruce Springsteen song.”
The Asbury Pulp. (now defunct). has an excellent piece about Maloney dated June, 2013, including an interview with the artist.
Asbury miniature golf, 1979. By Joe Maloney.
The link below gives more information about Maloney’s work and show some great images as well. Rick Wester Fine Art at 526 West 26th Street, suite 417, in Chelsea, will be showing “Asbury Park and the Jersey Shore, c. 1979” until August 16. 2013.
*Re: Zinc oxide. By Paul Goldfinger. Blogfinger.net: When I worked in a Catskill Mountain resort in the 1960’s I was outdoors all day on the athletic staff and needed UV sunglasses and protection for my nose. I used zinc oxide, which I don’t recall having a smell, but my nose was a bright white. The guests called me, “Chief White Nose.”
I loved my nickname because my Mom always said that we were descended from American Indians. Mom had a vivid imagination and she loved cowboy and Indian movies, rooting for the Indians.
