LIGHT & SPACE

Doug Wheeler, RM 669, 1969

Go look, no experience, this piece by Doug Wheeler at the LA MOCA.  

NOT FADE AWAY: The Rock n' Roll Photography of JIM MARSHALL

I like to think that Jim Marshall was just as much of a rockstar as the rockstars he photographed.  He lived hard and worked hard and played hard and his lifestyle shows up in the photographs he took. 

 Marshall was given unprecedented access to these iconic musical figures.  He was there with the Stones for their legendary 1972 tour.  He was the only photographer allowed access for the Beatles final full concert at San Francisco's Candle Stick Park in 1966.  Hell, Bob Dylan even let him hang out with him, which is definitely saying something.  He proves that taking good photographs is so much more than choosing the right film and developing the best printing techniques. He must have been a really laid back kinda guy, not afraid to hang out for a good long while before he pulls out his camera.  Look at these photographs and how his subjects have invited him into their lives.   He proves that half the battle (or half the fun) of taking photographs is forming relationships and trust with people--connecting not as photographer and subject, but as buddies.  A rockstar, indeed.

The man himself at Woodstock, 1969.

At a free concert in Golden Gate Park in 1967.  Free Hendrix show.  Yeesh.

Hendrix on drums.  Love it.  Marshall was also a lucky guy, I remember reading that he just stumbled onto Hendrix doing sound check before his show and Jimi didn't mind Marshall hanging out.  That is when the above picture was taken, as well as the image of Jimi giggling, guitar in hand.  I have a hunch those two got along well.

The ultimate bad boy playin' to the bad boys of San Quentin Penitentiary. 

 '72 y'all

KEITH.

Okay, okay, I'll stop posting. If this doesn't make you want to go listen to some rock n' roll, I don't know what will.

Cheers.

n.

Voyeurism: New York

Voyeurism: Paris

A whole day to roam.....

Streetwise: Documentary Photography of Mary Ellen Mark

If you haven't been to the exhibition at the Getty, Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography Since the Sixties, I recommend you check that stuff out.  All of it is hard to take in in gulp and I felt pretty exhausted after processing what I could of it.  The stuff that really grabbed me was the work of Mary Ellen Mark--a documentary photographer for Life Magazine.  Her photographs of runaways on the streets of Seattle straddle a fine line between objective and subjective photography--questioning the basic assumption that news and information are best delivered in ways that strive toward neutrality and negate mediation.  She comments on the basic commonality of human experience, as all good photographers should!! 

She was only one of the great photographers on display.  Go see it if you live in LA.  

-n.

Tiny