Happy Birthday to Y.I.P.!

One year and 235 posts later, I’m pleased to say that The Year in Pictures has reached its first anniversary!

It’s been a pleasure looking out for things to share, getting down to the actual process of writing, and joining the brother and sisterhood of bloggers and blog readers. As someone who started in the old fashioned print world I am amazed by and grateful for the incredible technology that makes blogging so easy, incorporates such an elegant interface, and above all (and astoundingly) is free to produce and access. Thank you Google (owners of Blogger).

The most frequently asked question I get is how I find the time to blog. The answer is simple - the trade-off has been giving up most t.v.! Not such a loss these days. Perhaps more relevant is the question of how and why to keep it going. Your viewing and comments and the growth of the readership from 0 to over 50,000 a month are the main reason. So please continue to visit and spread the word.

Can I ask one favor? I would love to hear your comments on what you like and what you don’t, and what you would like to see more of. The “Weekend Video” is often the post that takes the most research, and whether it’s because of the natural decrease in weekend viewing or whether it’s like the person who’s always bugging you to listen to their favorite songs even though they’re never to your taste - it seems the least appreciated part of the blog. But do give it a try. In going back over posts from a year ago the videos are still some of my favorites and they’re all there in the archives. Anyway, enough about that.

While we’re all figuring out how to combine being spiritually replenished and financially depleted, let me quote Rahm Emanuel:
“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

Weekend Video - The Graduate

No particular reason or tie-in to this one, the final scene of "The Graduate", other than that it's a great movie with one of the great endings of film.

In Fusco's Footsteps

When is appropriation imitation? When does homage need to be referenced? These kinds of questions come up frequently in art and photography – the most recent case being a photo essay on Time.com that treads closely in Paul Fusco's footsteps.

The pictures were brought to my attention by Michael George, currently a Photography and Imaging major at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Michael sent me a link to his blog, Inceptive Notions, where he points out the more than coincidental similarities between Callie Shell’s “The Campaign from Obama’s Point of View” and Paul Fusco’s “RFK Funeral Train” series, which as many of you know, I just finished exhibiting. Click here to see Fusco’s seminal images.

On Time.com the only words describing Shell’s portfolio are: “TIME photographer Callie Shell shows what the Democratic campaign looked like from the candidate's point of view.” Then there is a slideshow of 14 different images taken mostly through the window of Obama’s bus, but also from a campaign train. The photographs are just O.K., without reaching the poetic or compositional height of Fusco's work. But more importantly, I think it would have been appropriate to say something like: “Inspired by Paul Fusco’s ‘RFK Funeral Train’ pictures, Callie Shell shows what the Democratic campaign looked like from the candidate's point of view.” Otherwise, it's just a rip-off.

Giveaway #2

With a new president comes a new print giveaway!

In 1991, I put on an exhibition called “American Photographs: Traditional Themes by Contemporary Photographers”. The show comprised work by Sally Mann, Lynn Davis, Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz, Richard Misrach, and Robert Mapplethorpe - each covering a traditional American photographic theme - family, natural wonders, clouds, pioneers, the road, and the flag.

In conjunction with the show, I published an edition of 100 posters of Robert Mapplethorpe’s flag picture, of which I have just a few left. Measuring 20 x 24” and printed on heavy paper, one of these is the new giveaway.

As before, the rules are simple. Just post a comment that includes a way to contact you. The winner will be chosen after one week by randomly picking one of the comments posted.

Good luck!

Hope

A personal note:

It’s been worrying these last few weeks to follow the polls and listen to the news and hear the constant stream of negativity and distortion from the right. Democrats have become so accustomed of late to having defeat snatched from the jaws of victory that there’s an underlying sense of uncertainty which I hope is only a precautionary defense mechanism – unnecessary preparation for an outcome that will not come about.

So here’s the good news (as far as I'm concerned). This past weekend I was out at our house in Suffolk County, Long Island - a generally Republican area. To my surprise, however, as I drove around I only saw Obama lawn signs, and when I went out for a run I came across this beautiful tree towering over yet another Obama sign. So I hightailed it back to get my camera and take what felt to me like a symbolic picture of a season of hope and change.

The concept of an intelligent, thoughtful, inclusive, forward thinking, and positive President, who happens to be an African-American, is so true to the promise and nature of this country that before all those golden leaves fall off this tree, I can only hope and believe there will be a new spirit lifting this country.

Crowngate

The British now have a name for it – Crowngate!

As reported earlier, the controversy began when Annie Leibovitz photographed the queen of England. A BBC documentary crew recording the portrait session for a documentary on the Queen, caught a moment when Leibovitz told her royal subject she might look better without her tiara. In a subsequent trailer promoting the film this scene was followed by a shot of the queen walking through Buckingham Palace, saying, "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing up like this, thank you very much." The implication was that Leibovitz had offended the Queen, who then stormed out of the session. In fact, the clip of her walking through the palace was shot before the portrait session but was falsely edited to create buzz and also apparently to make Leibovitz look like a crass American. (This ethical lapse led to the resignation of BBC1 controller Peter Fincham.)

After a regal silence on the subject, Annie Leibovitz finally gave her side of the 'Crowngate' photo shoot last week at the opening of her exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The Queen was, in fact, "storming into the shoot" said Leibovitz. "They could have had just as good a story just showing that she got a little pissed, a little perturbed, a little bit frustrated. That was interesting enough, I think, and they had to go and make something else up."

Leibovitz defended the Queen's right not to be in the best of moods. "Most people don't like to be photographed," she said. "It's pretty normal that you can have that rough start. As she came in she said, 'I don't have much time'." By the end of the shoot, however, everything was fine, however, and apparently the Queen loved the photos.

Meanwhile Leibovitz's use of the word "pissed" in connection with the Queen's mood has given the British press even more to chew on!

Weekend Video - Stacy McQ

Last weekend was parents' weekend at my son's boarding school, and one of our favorite traditions is to go to "Grasshopper Night" - a review/talent show put on by the students. The performances are always of a remarkably high standard, but this time a 10th grade classmate of my son's, Stacy McQ, performed a song she had written that was so good it seemed ready to be recorded by any one of the country/pop stars who regularly top the charts (if not Stacy herself).