From my iPhone

Harry Benson at his opening at Tomas Maier in Miami.

I'll be the first to admit that the quality of iPhone pictures is at best passable, but this is far outweighed by the convenience of always having a camera with you. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to capture my old friend Harry Benson at his recent Miami opening at Tomas Maier's Miami store.

For those not in the know, Tomas Maier is the photography-loving creative director of Bottega Veneta - and rightfully considered one of the best designers around. In addition to overseeing B.V., Maier produces his own limited line of vacation-y accessories which he shows in the coolest shops you've seen - a shack off the Montauk Highway, a 2nd floor walk up hidden off Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, and a two story building in Miami's design district where he mixes up photography, art books, accessories by people he admires, and his own designs.

Anyway, Maier and Benson became friendly resulting in the Miami show of some of Harry's classic black and whites. Interestingly in light of the previous post on happiness - unlike most photojournalists Benson's pictures tend to record the light rather than the dark side of life as you will see in the selection below. For those lucky enough to be anywhere near Miami the show is up through March 1.

Muhammed Ali

James Brown and friends.

Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra at Truman Capote's Black and White ball.

Dolly Parton

A few other recent iPhone snaps illustrating the difference between New York and Florida

Palm Beach

New York

Palm Beach humor.

New York humor.

The Happiness Project

Happiness is in the air! My wife, Lucy Danziger, who is the editor of SELF Magazine has written a book "The Nine Rooms of Happiness" along with SELF's mental health expert Dr. Catherine Birndorf. The book is officially published next Tuesday, but you can now order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, etc.. Having lived with the genesis, the writing, the editing, and the book party, I can personally attest to it's efficacy and encourage all of you to buy the book. (It's genuinely great.)

It also occurred to me that this would be a good time to launch The Year In Pictures own happiness project - so I am going to encourage all readers to send in their happiest picture to info@danzigerprojects.com along with a caption explaining why the picture is meaningful to them. It can be a snap or a fine art photograph taken by someone else. (Could there be any happier photographer than Lartigue - whose pictures illustrate this post?) Show me what you've got. All published pictures will get a copy of "The Nine Rooms of Happiness".

: )

Lartigue and Richard Avedon

Don't Miss This Show - Cynthia MacAdams at Steven Kasher.

Woman with Mask. 1974

Gallerist Steven Kasher and I were both lunching solo at The Half King and joined up for the usual engaging chat that dealers tend to have with each other. I then walked back to his gallery on 23rd street where I was lucky enough to catch the Cynthia MacAdams show in its last week. It's good to get out of the office sometimes.

This was the first I had heard or seen of MacAdams, but there’s no question that she deserves to be more recognized. In the mid to late 1970s she was apparently the house photographer (so to speak) of the feminist movement, not only photographing the leading women artists, activists, and intellectuals of the time, but doing so from a specifically feminist point of view. Her subjects were portrayed as strong, independent, and self-assured and MacAdams style was refreshingly direct. It's hard to pinpoint exactly but the pictures do have a feminist spirit. Perhaps it's because with photography as with much else in life what you put in does come out.

Anyway, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but if you live in New York City and you hurry, you can catch the show as it’s up through Saturday.

Kate Millet.

Mary Ellen Mark

Michele Phillips

Laurie Anderson

Gloria Steinem

Twinka

Sally Kirkland

Stormy Weather

Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) has always been good at catching weather shots, but he outdid himself this week with the snowy picture, above, which as of this writing had garnered 333 comments on his site!

So kudos to Scott for bravery beyond the call of duty during Fashion Week! And a couple of shots from seasons past, below.

On The Road Again

I'm on the road getting a first look at The Norton Museum's exhibition of Paul Fusco's "RFK Funeral Train" pictures and then moving on to do some business in Miami, so forgive me if there's a slight hiatus in posting.

As regular readers of this blog know, I never tire of these Fusco pictures and in addition to the set of 20 I originally published, the Norton requested some extra prints to help fill the space it was going in, so I had the pleasure of selecting 6 additional images to add to the set. The Norton layout is sensitive and stately, and with the pictures positioned close together like railroad cars it's also quite dynamic - as you can hopefully see from the iPhone shot below. So if you're anywhere near Palm Beach (and I know that sounds la-de-dah), be sure to catch the show which runs through May 2.

Viviane Sassen

DNA

Last month, I mentioned how much I was looking forward to the Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen’s forthcoming show at my gallery. In the cycle of gallery life, we’ve now posted the press release, uploaded the pictures on the gallery website, designed the invitation card, and the prints are at the framer’s. So now it’s time for my blog preview.

I met Viviane Sassen when we were fellow judges at the 2007 Hyeres Photo Festival, but as sometimes happens on these large panels, we barely got to know each other. I lost track of her for a while and then in November of 2008, a show of new work she had done in Africa opened at FOAM (Photo Museum of Amsterdam). A kind of collaborative portrait, these pictures were on one level connected to Sassen’s childhood experience of living in Kenya, and on another level dealt with everything from photography’s depiction of race to an exploration of color, light, and shade. But most importantly these pictures were stunningly alive and they blew my mind for their freshness, power, and complexity. I was also not alone in my appreciation. Sassen’s photographs won the prestigious Prix De Rome and were snapped up by museums and collectors all across Europe.

Then last year Sassen published a book of her African work titled “Flamboya” and after getting the book I immediately e-mailed her to offer her a show. I then had to go through the nail-biting process of persuasion and waiting for her to decide whether to do the show with me. (It’s certainly not always a given.) However, after flying to Paris to meet with her this past fall, we agreed to do a show that will now open on March 4. So mark your calendars – it’s going to be a hot night!

In addition to the pictures above and below, you can see more here and here, and read a little more here.

Entebbe

CMYK

Elvis

Traveler

Valentine Weekend Video - Part 2 of 2

Who has the number one album on the Billboard 200? You’re forgiven if you don’t know the answer. It’s “Need You Now” by the country trio Lady Antebellum. I’ve always been a big country music fan, but somehow Lady A. escaped me until this year’s Grammy Awards where they won Best New Artist and performed the album’s title song with its memorable refrain:

It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now

I said I wouldn't call but I'm a little drunk and I need you now

And I don't know how I can do without

I just need you now.

I’m puttin’ it on up there with my two other country favorites, “If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me” (by The Bellamy Brothers) and “If You Ever Leave Me I’m Going With You.”

Good ol’ country lyrics and the stuff of real-life romance.

Happy Valentine’s Day!