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The pics I've been waiting for...
Jan. 21st, 2009 10:55 amBoy, have they been a long time comin'.
Credited to Pete Souza of the White House, so presumably public domain.
Credited to Pete Souza of the White House, so presumably public domain.
Garry Winogrand was known primarily as a "street photographer." This image, taken at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 1960, is atypical.
Winogrand's other work just isn't my cuppa. But this particular image, IMHO, is one of the great images of the 20th Century.
It's been widely written how the US presidential election of 1960 was the first to take full advantage of television. Here, Winogrand shows us that impact. Even though the picture is taken a few yards from the speaker's podium, we don't see Kennedy's face directly. Rather, we see his face in the television. Meanwhile, behind Kennedy, we see the mass of cameras, both still and video, taking his picture and broadcasting it around the country. The audience Kennedy is addressing -- the thousands of Democratic delegates -- are "below the horizon" in the space between the podium and the camera stand.
What's not clear from this scan (nor in the plate in the book I scanned it from -- Winogrand: Figments From The Real World , by John Szarkowski) is how breaktakingly crisp the original black-and-white print is. I first saw this image hanging in a gallery in LA, and the tones were so sharp and so deep that if it wasn't aplatinum silver print, it was surely aiming for that level of clarity.
I think there's a very real visual story being told here. Winogrand is saying that Kennedy's face on the television is more important than Kennedy's actual face. More than that, the national audience television gives him access to is more important than the audience in front of him. Those may seem commonplaces in the media-saturated campaigns of today, but for 1960 it was as revolutionary a message as anything being done directly by the campaigns. The sharpness of the imagery and the deep blacks and bright whites (in the original print, the light coming off Kennedy's hair looks for all the world like the Christmas star) contrast directly with the fuzziness of the cathode ray tube and its palette of muddled greys -- a comment, I think, on the fidelity of how well television represents its subjects.
Winogrand's other work just isn't my cuppa. But this particular image, IMHO, is one of the great images of the 20th Century.
It's been widely written how the US presidential election of 1960 was the first to take full advantage of television. Here, Winogrand shows us that impact. Even though the picture is taken a few yards from the speaker's podium, we don't see Kennedy's face directly. Rather, we see his face in the television. Meanwhile, behind Kennedy, we see the mass of cameras, both still and video, taking his picture and broadcasting it around the country. The audience Kennedy is addressing -- the thousands of Democratic delegates -- are "below the horizon" in the space between the podium and the camera stand.
What's not clear from this scan (nor in the plate in the book I scanned it from -- Winogrand: Figments From The Real World , by John Szarkowski) is how breaktakingly crisp the original black-and-white print is. I first saw this image hanging in a gallery in LA, and the tones were so sharp and so deep that if it wasn't a
I think there's a very real visual story being told here. Winogrand is saying that Kennedy's face on the television is more important than Kennedy's actual face. More than that, the national audience television gives him access to is more important than the audience in front of him. Those may seem commonplaces in the media-saturated campaigns of today, but for 1960 it was as revolutionary a message as anything being done directly by the campaigns. The sharpness of the imagery and the deep blacks and bright whites (in the original print, the light coming off Kennedy's hair looks for all the world like the Christmas star) contrast directly with the fuzziness of the cathode ray tube and its palette of muddled greys -- a comment, I think, on the fidelity of how well television represents its subjects.
Tags:
Barack Obama, Adam Smith, Greg Nickels
Feb. 8th, 2008 11:11 pmMore to come later, but here's a first peek of the photos I got at today's rally. That's Adam Smith, Congressional rep for the WA-09, Obama's state chairman and my Congresscritter; Barack Obama; and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on the right edge of the picture.
truck on a stick
Nov. 19th, 2007 05:23 pmSome folks take the "on a stick" meme seriously. This is a pair of trucks on a stick, at the Toledo-Vader exit off of I-5 in Washington state.
Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch
Apr. 23rd, 2007 10:56 pmI'd been watching all the fun from the sidelines, but ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pecunium came up with a cool idea: Contribute a photo.
This one hasn't been seen for a while, and I desperately need to rescan it to touch up the resolution and the contrast, but... This is Anthony Perkins, in 1988. The venue was Pauley Pavilion on UCLA, the night before the Presidential election, at a rally for Mike Dukakis.
pecunium came up with a cool idea: Contribute a photo.This one hasn't been seen for a while, and I desperately need to rescan it to touch up the resolution and the contrast, but... This is Anthony Perkins, in 1988. The venue was Pauley Pavilion on UCLA, the night before the Presidential election, at a rally for Mike Dukakis.
