Greetings from Manhattan. I was struck by your quietly beautiful photo, “Beachfront Sunrise,” (posted recently on Blogfinger), and your statement that you preferred sunrises to sunsets because “beginnings are happier than endings.”
Here is the poem, “Dawn,” from my 2008 collection, Father of Water.
Marilyn Monroe, no longer in the dark. Photographer George Barris made Marilyn smile. I always imagined that she was smiling at me.
By Paul Goldfinger, M.D. Editor @Blogfinger.net. Ocean Grove, NJ, USA
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926. She tragically died at the age of 36. She was the pin-up girl for most of the guys from my generation. Marilyn was not only a movie star, but she also was a singer. Remember “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?
Many years ago I found this photo (above) of MM in a shop on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village where they sold photographs of Hollywood stars. I loved her smile, her hair, and her towel. The picture was provocative even though it is rated P.G. (my initials)
Marilyn has been on the wall of my dark room for many years, so she was always smiling at me, keeping me company, while I was engaged in that solitary activity. Now, as I take down that old technology, the photo of Marilyn will remain, as the dark room takes on new digital form.
There were many photographers who were known for their images of her—tens of thousands of photos of Marilyn exist.
Those who were privileged to photograph her included many great names such as Avedon, Bachrach, Eisenstadt and Newman.
We recently wrote a post about the photographers on the movie set of The Misfits, where MM was photographed with Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Arthur Miller, and Eli Wallach.:
She was a passionate and vulnerable person who, like a beautiful butterfly, flitted from one to another without landing happily. Here is a quote from Marilyn herself, “I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
” –From the Unfinished Biography of Marilyn Monroe
Her singing was wispy and sexy. Recently Barry Manilow decided to make an album of “Dream Duets” using technology to bring him together in song with his departed musical heroes. One of the songs was with Marilyn.
Loretta Lynn. “Blue Kentucky Girl” 1994. by Marty Stuart. (from Photograph Magazine, May 2014.)
Paul Goldfinger. Editor, Blogfinger.net
One of my favorite photography books is by Milt Hinton the jazz bassist who photographed all the great jazz stars while he was touring or recording with them. Here is a link to our Blogfinger article about that body of work. . https://wp.me/pqmj2-mfD
Marty Stuart, from Mississippi, has been a professional country musician and song writer since he was thirteen years old. He started out with the Lester Flatt bluegrass band and later played with his ex-father in law Johnny Cash’s band.
One day, Stuart discovered Milt Hinton’s book in a Greenwich Village book store, and since then he has been photographing country music stars on the tour performing or in very personal moments.
He is now (2014) having a show of his photography at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.
I like this black and white portrait of Loretta Lynn. (1939-2022) who was indeed a coal miner’s daughter. She was a great star of Nashville and she recorded 70 albums and has written a number of books.
This portrait captures her as an elegant and pensive woman who is famous for her blue collar country ways. Maybe she was thinking about some of those men whom she tends to sing about.
Mask shop in Florence. Masquerade balls are big in Venice—-since the 15th century. Paul Goldfinger photo. Silver gelatin darkroom print by PG. Blogfinger.net.
Truro Dunes, Cape Cod. Tri-X film. Leica M. Scanned from a darkroom silver gelatin print c. 1993. Photo by Paul Goldfinger, MD Image published on the cover of Internal Medicine News. Click on photo to enlarge.
THELONIOUS MONK SEPTET. “Ruby My Dear.” The tenor sax player is John Coltrane. Monk wrote the piece in honor of his first love Ruby R. (1947)
There is a documentary about John Coltrane who once was part of Monk’s group. It is Chasing Trane.
By James Hill, New York Times. Reposted from 2014 BF
By Paul Goldfinger, photography editor Blogfinger.net
Photojournalism used to be considered a separate discipline from photography in general. For example, fine art photography is all about imagery, so anything goes. But photojournalism has been traditionally about facts. That is why newspaper and magazine editors are fussy about issues such as distorting the meaning of a moment by manipulating the image, for example by cropping. Or else, a news photographer cannot pose a scene. It needs to be recorded just as it happened.
But, thanks to the work of great photojournalists such as Robert Capa who went in on D-Day with the first wave, photographers are given more leeway to have one foot in the news and the other in fine-arts. The best examples not only tell a story but can be objects of feelings and beauty.
The image above is from a New York Times article about a resurgence of figure skating in Russia. James Hill is the photographer and he shot the image in Moscow—November, 2013. The photo is impressionistic and quite beautiful apart from its use to illustrate a sports article.
ALEXANDER MARKOV. “Thais #5 Meditation.” by Jules Massenet
MARIAN McPARTLAND “Blackberry Winter” from her album Twilight World
Editor’s note: Marian McPartland (1918-2013) , a Grammy winning jazz pianist and composer, was one of the few women to become famous in the male dominated jazz star firmament. She lived in the jazz world being married to cornetist Jimmy McPartland. From 1978 to 2011 she hosted a jazz show on NPR called “Piano Jazz.”
We heard her play live in the 1970’s in a small theatre in South Hampton. We became fans immediately and saw her play live on other occasions.
There was a sweet heart-felt romanticism in her music, and I couldn’t help but think that she brought some deeply rooted feminine expressiveness to her playing. She had a long career, and her bio. is worth Googling.—-Paul Goldfinger Blogfinger.net
We recently talked about different schools of photography and we mentioned the latest approach which uses digital cameras and special softwear. Some of those effects can be achieved in-camera by using menus that offer a variety of novel ways to alter your images, but much more can be done with post-camera processing on computers using Photo Shop or other programs. But many photographers today still favor traditional ways to express themselves visually through photography, even though they may still use a digital camera.
The photo above is a straight night image with natural light. New digital cameras allow the ability to do low light images without flash. Post camera adjustments of the above photo were minimal involving some minor cropping and color enhancement.
Below is an example by Moe Demby of digital alteration of a photograph.
The photo below is by Barry Underwood whose work is currently being shown the Sous Les Etoiles GAllery in New York City. It is yet another kind of contemporary photograph where the artist stages the event. In this case he created sculptural shapes as well as lighting with LED’s. He than combined those elements with a regular color photograph to create the finished product “Rodeo Beach 2009”
“Rodeo Beach, 2009.” By Barry Underwood. Photo from the magazine “Photograph.” Image on exhibit in NYC. 2014.
Then there is Gary Winogrand who created a form of street photography in the mid 20th century that paid little attention to composition or image niceties. He was after scenes about how people lived their lives, and he produced hundreds of thousands of pictures. Below is one of his typical images from the J.Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It was obtained with a simple 35 mm camera and black/white film .
This photo is from a current show of Winogrand’s work at “The Getty.” It is the simplest form of photography, and yet it is, in some ways, the most complicated.
LA International Airport 1964 by Gary Winogrand. J. Paul Getty Museum.
Elvis drives into Vegas for the first time. This digital photo is taken off the moving imagery by Paul Goldfinger. Modern camera sensors helped me with this one.
So, if you thought that photography consisted only of snapping pictures, this review gives you a tiny idea about a variety of ways that photography can be used to express an artist’s ideas and to convey them to the viewer.
By Paul Goldfinger, Photography editor @Blogfinger.net
HAROLD HASTINGS AND JILL HAWORTH: If you want to do photography you have to go where the action is–Life is a Cabaret.
By Paul Goldfinger at the New Jersey Cranberry Festival. (This year, 2022, it will be held on October 15 and 16. It’s fun, but get there early. About one hour drive south. to Chatsworth, NJ)
The food stand on the top photo had a sign that said, “Shiksabob.”
We wondered about that dish. Was their word spelling correct for their language, or was this an English misspelling ?
We said it over and over until we figured out that it was a misspelled word: Let’s try “Shiskabob.” No–that’s not a word.
Then we said: “Sishkabob,” but no, that was rejected.
But we finally realized that it was “Shishkabob,” but we tried so many versions that we began speaking gibberish and we seemed to have become fahblunget. Or farblunget. Oh, “farblunget” means hopelessly screwed up in Yiddish.
And, last but not least, the correct word (s) is “shish kabob.” And even though I briefly thought I was having a stroke, we finally became coherent again as we walked to our car.
On the way, there was a row of toilets at the Cranberry Festival with the name “Mr. Bob’s” on each door. A lady came out of one and walked towards me.
I held out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Mr. Bob, and that will be 50 cents. ” She laughed and breezed by. No more Mr. Bob jokes.
