Booklist for the Holidays

I love reading, and collecting books is a passion of mine. So this holiday season, I have selected 15 books on photography, cinema and the visual arts from my own library to share with you. Most of these books just came out this year (all are still in print) and should be available in your local bookstores.

Vacation time is a good opportunity to catch up on some reading-- in between family gatherings and binge feasting:)  I have read all these books from cover to cover, and have found them invaluable to my own work. I hope you find some of them helpful to you too...

Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a prosperous NEW YEAR!

Have you ever wondered how one work of art could be sold for millions, while another can be almost worthless? Michael Findlay examines this phenomenon in his book, "The Value of Art." He demystifies the process of how art is bought and sold, its commercial and social dimensions while constantly looking beyond the sales numbers to emphasize its essential cultural and spiritual dimensions. As a trained financial analyst, I have always been fascinated with "value" and how we give or assign "worth" to objects and experiences. This book is an enlightening guide to the perplexing and amusing business of Art, for the curious.

Although I also paint, I included this book on this list primarily because I believe that portrait photographers (and cinematographers) can learn a lot from studying formal Portraiture. I can trace a lot of my skills in capturing expression, gesture, personality, emotion and soul (to accurately capture character), through my personal experience of painting and sketching people. When you look very closely at each line and shade on a person's face, taking note of how each muscle contracts and relaxes, you become hyper aware of how our bodies openly express our inner state. "The Society Portrait - from David to Warhol" traces formal Portraiture's development from Napoleon's time to the present, highlighting its progress from one art period to the next-- delving into the changing outlook of society from generation to generation. The book is filled with examples from major of artists, we can all learn from.   

 

"The Passionate Photographer" by Steve Simon is a great book that fills the gap left-off by most "how to" photography books-- mastering the craft psychologically, translating ideas and thoughts to create great images,  dealing with your fears, gaining inspiration and passion for your art. It is filled with great insights, real world examples and practical tips on how to improve your photography and bring it to the next level. I am already passionate about my work, yet this book has helped me focus on the details of what can make my photography consistently exceptional, and at the same time help keep me inspired.  

 

Arnold Newman is one of my favorite master photographers. His photography has inspired me from the very beginning and has been one of the main influences for my own portrait work. The book, "Masterclass - Arnold Newman, contains more than 200 examples of his work including iconic portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Chagall, Max Ernst, Andrew Wyeth, Piet Mondrian, John F. Kennedy, David Ben-Gurion, Robert Oppenheimer, James Watson, I. M. Pei, Isaac Stern, Leonard Bernstein and Martha Graham among many other famous and notable sitters. It also contains a section on Newman's development as a photographer, from his apprenticeship in a portrait studio in the early 1940s to his gradual experimentation with the form, and finally to his own signature abstract, simplified, cropped style that I fell in love with. I highly recommend this book for all Arnold Newman devotees.

 

John Harrington is the president of the White House News Photographers Association and has worked for the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, the National Geographic Society, People and Life. His book "Photographs from the Edge of Reality" takes us inside his career as a photojournalist, from the spring of 1990 when he gained his press pass to shoot President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, to his work with current President Barack Obama. I love looking into other people's experiences, and this book gives me a window into the life of a photographer working in the White House, a rare treat.

 

I highly recommend the "The Street Photographer's Manual" for anyone starting out in "Street Photography." It is the most comprehensive "how to" book I have encountered regarding the genre-- a real manual that covers everything you will need to know to start shooting. But "Street Photography" is so broad and highly individualistic that knowledge beyond this guide, can only and will only be acquired once you shoot... and shoot... and shoot for years to come. David Gibson covers as much of the basics you will need to know, with great examples from his own work and portfolios from other well-known practitioners. I disagree with some of the parameters he suggests in the book, but "Street Photography" is a subjective field and there is no way anyone can definitively tackle every detail.
 

"The New Street Photographer's Manifesto" is a more condensed version of the previous book. Like "The Street Photographer's Manual" it gives great tips and technical information on how to start shooting "Street," but in a more compact and economical package. Tanya Nagar provides good examples from practicing street photographers as a guide. To me, this book is a good enough backgrounder on the genre to start from. I recommend it highly as a great "stocking stuffer" for any would be street photographer on your list.

The Education Of A Photographer

"The Education of A Photographer" is a great read for any photographer, whether pro or amateur.  The book is a collection of articles by some (and on some) of greatest practitioners of the Art:  like Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Irving Penn, Aaron Siskind, Garry Winogrand and many others.

Compiled by Charles Traub (photographer and Chair, School of Visual Arts' MFA Photography Dept.), Adam Bell (photographer) and Steven Heller (art director and Co-chair, School of Visual Arts' MFA Designer Prog.), the book offers an eclectic collection of articles on the Art and practice of Photography -- highlighting perspectives from all the photographic disciplines as well as from the related fields of design, graphics, typography, illustration and commercial media.

Here is an excerpt from the article by Henri Cartier-Bresson:

"For each of us space begins and slants off from our own eye, and from there enlarges itself progressively toward infinity.  Space, in the present, strikes us with greater or lesser intensity and then leaves us, visually, to be closed in our memory and to modify itself there.  Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant.  We photographers deal in things that are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth that can make them come back again.  We cannot develop and print memory.  The writer has time to reflect.  He can accept and reject, accept again; before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together.  There is also a period when his brain "forgets," and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts.  But for photographers, what has gone is gone forever.  From that fact stem the anxieties and strength of our profession.  We cannot do our story over again once we've got back to the hotel.  Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera."

--Book graphic and quote from "The Education of a Photographer," Allworth Press, 2006.

Nick Ut's "Napalm Girl"

The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph dubbed "Napalm Girl," turned 40 this month.  When it was first published in June 8, 1972, 21 year-old Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong Ut (professionally know as Nick Ut) had no clue that his photo would one day become one of the most famous images of the 20th century, and how it will have a lasting impact on his life.

Nick Ut, then and now

Nick Ut became a photojournalist at the young age of 16, just after his brother Huynh Thanh My, an Associated Press photographer, was killed on assignment.  He was mentored by the legendary photojournalist Horst Faas (who recently passed away).

Nick was with some South Vietnamese troops on patrol near Trang Bang, when he witnessed the aerial bombing of a civilian village.  A South Vietnamese Skyraider plane bombing suspected Viet Cong hiding places, accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians.  Surprised by the attack, he immediately trained his camera on the burning village.   Soon after, he heard screams from the villagers, among them children, running away from the devastation.

Another shot by Nick of the same scene

Among the panic-stricken children were Kim Phuc, her two brothers and her cousins.  Nine year-old Kim Phuc ran naked after discarding her burnt clothes wailing, "Too hot! Too Hot!"  Blobs of  napalm had incinerated her clothes and scorched her skin like jellied lava.  In her fear and confusion, her only thought was how ugly she's become and how she will never be the same again.  Screaming in panic, she ran out from the burning village into the main road, oblivious to everything else around her.

Pre-Oscar Inspirations

Douglas signing his prints for the exhibit

Douglas Kirkland's special new exhibit for the Oscars (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), "Out of Character" opened today, Feb. 11 at the AMPAS's Grand Lobby Gallery.  One of the most prolific celebrity/movie-set photographers in the history of Hollywood, Douglas was commissioned by the Academy to photograph all 20 of the Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress nominees for this year's Oscar race.  Only three sets of the exhibition prints will be produced, with each nominee receiving a signed copy of their individual photos.  The images will also be featured in the Oscar Awards telecast this year.  The larger than life portraits will be on exhibit at the Academy’s headquarters at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills until March 18.  “Out of Character” will be open Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends from noon to 6 p.m. Admission is free.  After the exhibition, one complete set of the large-format portraits will become part of the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library photograph collection.

Douglas in the AMPAS Grand Gallery among his prints

Douglas' work has been a constant inspiration to my own portraiture work.  He is and always will be one of the great ones I look up to in both technique and artistry.  Please come and visit his new Oscar portraits if you can.

Here are some words of wisdom about photography, from some of the artists that inspire me:

Wynn Bullock's "Color Light Abstractions"

The Exhibit at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California

The first time I came across Wynn Bullock's "Color Light Abstractions," I literally gasped at the simplicity, breath and magnificence of this largely forgotten, ground-breaking body of work.  In 2010, the Bullock Family Estate started a traveling exhibit of the newly scanned high-resolution prints of "Color Light Abstractions" from Wynn's 35mm Kodachrome slide originals.  The transcendental beauty of Wynn's images have finally been printed in the way they were originally photographed in the transparencies.

"As sounds in a musical composition can be used not to express physical objects but ideas, emotions, harmonies, rhythmic orders and most any expression of the human mind and spirit, so light can be used visually to express the mind and spirit." – Wynn Bullock

One of the great American Photographers of the 20th century, Wynn Bullock discovered photography in Paris in the 1920s while pursuing a career in singing.  After discoving the works of Man Ray and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, he bought his first camera and began taking pictures.  It took more than 10 years before he decided to pursue it seriously.  He graduated from the Art Center College in 1940, where he experimented with alternative processes like solarization and bas relief.  His early experimental work was exhibited in one of the L.A. County Museum’s early solo photographic exhibitions. 

In the early 1960s, Wynn Bullock started experimenting with color and light.  According to him, he was always facinated by light -- "As long as I can remember I have been fascinated by light…light as a force and an entity in its own right. I recall as a boy finding pieces of glass on the California desert. Some pieces were of recently broken bottles. Their colors were familiar and didn’t excite me. Occasionally, however, I found pieces of very old glass with beautiful prismatic colors. I thought only light and time could have created these colors and I was deeply moved." 

Playing and experimenting with pieces glass shards and crystals, he came up with his own process of directly capturing light and color in film -- "I discovered that I could take a piece of crystal or glass – very fine optical glass – and crack it up. A large piece can break into thousands of little pieces and each one of them comes out with just a beautiful fracture. I would put a few little pieces on a contraption of 8 or 10 layers of glass and I’d have a light underneath. And then I would use other lights. As I moved the pieces around against colored materials [e.g., shards of stained glass and colored cellophane], the fractures would begin to show up in different ways.  It was such close-up work. You couldn’t identify the glass, but by being that close and out-of-focus, all kinds of strange and beautiful optical shapes and effects would form in space. To me that’s real, that’s no illusion. I could move one of these little pieces and it would change the whole character of the picture. I used every kind of light – prismatic light, lights under, lights to the side…. I could move the lamp, I could move the light underneath – I could control the form of the optical image. I wouldn’t use them all at the same time, I would just use them creatively.  When making these pictures, I use light not to make objects recognizable, but to create beautiful pictures in color, line, surfaces, texture, forms, and space dimensions through the action of light as it strikes objects."  The "Color Light Abstraction" series was created using this simple technique. 

Aaron Siskind - Abstract Expressionist

Aaron Siskind was a photographer with a Graphic Artist's "Eye."  Best known for his Abstract Expressionist photographs, he was associated with the Abstract Expressionist School of New York (art movement) in the 1940s and 50s -- which included close friends Franz Kline, Barrett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, and Mark Rothko.

He worked as a high-school english teacher, before receiving his first camera as a honeymoon gift -- igniting a life-long passion for Photography .  He started his photographic career as a documentarian in the New York Photo League, creating photo-essays of political importance including Harlem Document, Dead End: The Bowery, Portrait of a Tenement, and St. Joseph's House: The Catholic Worker Movement. In the early 1940s, his work shifted to the abstract and metaphoric.  During a trip to Martha's Vineyard, Siskind began approaching still objects from a very intimate range, framing them up-close so as to underscore the formal qualities of their lines, colors, and textures. This newer, more abstracted work was well received, and he was invited to show his work at the Charles Egan Gallery, in the company of many Abstract Expressionist painters.

With Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Andre Kertesz 

Siskind joined fellow photographer and friend Harry Callahan in the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he became the Head of the Photography Program when Callahan left.  He help found the Society for Photographic Education in 1963, then reunited with Callahan at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he continued to teach until his retirement in 1976.

  

Aaron Siskind's Abstract Expressionist Photographs (particularly his "The Road" series) have influenced me greatly.  As a whole, I believe they represented the next logical shift of Photography as a fine art during the analog era.  Deliberately obscuring his subject matter by simply concentrating on form, texture and simple visual elements, Siskind was able to push photography into the realm of abstraction-- Simple and direct, without employing elaborate tricks and gadgets.  In this era of digital excess, we can learn a lot from this photographic master and genius.  All you really need is your imagination and vision (your innate ability to "See") to create stunning works of Art.

Here are some examples of his work:

Spencer Tunick's Naked Art

A thousand plus naked volunteers flock to the Dead Sea

Last Saturday, September 17, one thousand two hundred people (men and women aged 20 to 60 years old) flocked to the Dead Sea in Israel to get their photos taken in the 'buff.'

Most Photographers are happy to have a camera and a nude model, but 44 year old Spencer Tunick likes his pictures populated by hundreds, if not thousands of naked and willing volunteers.  Referred to as "installations" by the artist, these epic nude photographs often feature an immense number of participants shot on scenic locations.

Photographer/Artist Spencer Tunick

A New York native, Spencer Tunick began photographing nudes in public locations in 1992.  Since then, he has taken his 'installations' all over the world.  According to him, "The body is always beautiful... It is a living entity...  It represents life, freedom, sensuality and it is a mechanism to carry our thoughts..."  His work has been documented in three HBO specials, "Naked States," "Naked World" and "Positively Naked."

Spencer directing his cast of thousands.

The Dead Sea shoot was Spencer's first 'installation' in the Middle-East and probably the only one ever.  The organizers timed the shoot to coincide with the voting of the Seven Natural Wonders of Nature contest, hoping to draw extra attention to the Dead Sea's declining water level.  According to them, the pictures will also give the world a different perspective of Israel, instead the images of war, tanks and terrorism regularly seen on the news.

Tunick directed his models with a megaphone.  There were four predetermined sets:  Models standing on the sea bed, models floating on the buoyant salt water, models waving to the camera and models standing on the shoreline to show how much the water has receeded in recent years.  The shoot took place from 6am to 8am, since the permit was only granted for that length of time.  

Orthodox Jews objected to the project from the beginning on moral grounds, especially since the chosen location is very close the known site of the ancient city of Sodom and Gomorrah.  So the organizers timed the shoot early Saturday morning, since most orthodox Jews will not take motorized transport from Friday night to Saturday Night.  Most of the models were ecstatic to be given a chance to be a part of history and Art -- the only compensation for their effort is a limited edition photograph of the experience.

Here are some examples of Spencer Tunick's "installations" in different cities throughout the years.  Please be aware that there are some graphically explicit images here.  Anyone under 18 should not click through.

Happy 172nd Anniversary to Photography

The Fathers of Photography: Louis Daguerre and William H. Fox Talbot

Happy World Photography Day to all my fellow photographers, photo enthusiasts, and shutterbugs!

Today marks the one hundredth and seventy second year since the invention of Photography.  172 years ago, Louis Daguerre and William H. Fox Talbot gave the world the ability to capture images.  We have come a long way technically (from chemical processes, we now capture light digitally), but the basic premise of Photography has remained the same -- "fragments of life (light) captured for our contemplation."

Even though we now work with digital sensors and are far removed from the primitive Calotype and Daguerrotype, we must never forget the genius of our predecessors who formulated the original "key" to unlock the mysteries of "light" and the magic of the photographic process.  Daguerre and Talbot's legacy to mankind is truly immeasurable (specially to Art and Science) and is "Wizardry" of the highest order.

Can you imagine a world without photographs (it will have devastating consequences for Science, not to mention Art)?  So it is just fitting for us to remember the origins of our Art today, August 19 and whenever we click our cameras (and our cellphones) to capture an image... for it is a precious gift that was presented to us 172 years ago, but continues to be relevant in our lives today, and into the future.

Rock Photographer Jim Marshall

The master at work

Influences to our own photography comes from a wide variety of sources depending on our inclinations.  I count Jim Marshall as one of my main influences, not only because of my interest in 'Rock/Music Photography' as a specific specialization, but also because he was such a terrific master Portraitist.  Like the best portrait painters (and photographers), he captured the essence of his subjects superficially as well as subliminally.  His iconic portraits of 'Rock' legends graced album covers and the covers of music magazines, and are now highly prized as collectibles by music fans worldwide.

Inconspicuously present with his Leicas, shooting in 'available light,' he created a trademark look that are at once candid and vulnerable.  My favorite photos are the unguarded moments-- onstage, backstage and offstage, when Jim revealed the larger-than-life existence of these musical legends.  Intimacy was the key ingredient to his Art.

Jim with his Leicas

Jim Marshall was born in Chicago on February 3, 1936, but he grew up in San Francisco.  He had a Kodak Brownie camera when he was a kid, but only became serious with photography in Junior High.  He was working as an Insurance Claims Adjuster in 1960 when John Coltrane (Jazz icon) approached him in Berkeley by chance and asked him for some directions to a club.  Jim offered him a ride in exchange for a picture.

Chuck Berry rockin and rollin

Jim Marshall's photographs are some of the most wide known portraits of legendary Rock, Jazz and Blues superstars. Two of his most famous ones are the photos of Jimi Hendrix with his guitar aflame from the Monterey International Pop Festival in1967 and Janis Joplin lying on a couch backstage nursing a bottle of Southern Comfort Bourbon.

Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar on stage

More on Douglas Kirkland

Douglas Kirkland Shooting Marilyn Monroe

This entry is a follow up to my article last Feb.13 on Douglas Kirkland. Although I have written about Douglas even before then (Sept. 12, 2009), I find it hard to condense everything I would like to convey about this talented Artist in a few short commentaries.  So I am adding a short interview and a brief video that might give you a rounder portrait of Douglas as a photographer.

The American Society of Cinematographers interviewed Douglas Kirkland last October 25 after announcing their decision to award him the ASC Presidents Award this year.  In this interview he shares his earlier days -- his first picture, his first camera, his first photo job, appreticeship etc. A great read for any Kirkland fan.

ASC Interview: A Conversation With Douglas Kirkland

Here is a great clip on Douglas and his work. It was taken two years ago at the Calumet Photo (NY) Exhibit: Freeze Frame - 5 Decades of Photographs from the Entertainment Industry.

--Video from youtube.com courtesy of calumetphotonews.

Douglas Kirkland Receives ASC Presidents Award

Douglas and I

Tonight, for the first time in the history of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), it is honoring a "Still Photographer" for his contribution to the art of cinema -- the great Douglas Kirkland.

I am thrilled about the award because I have been a Kirkland fan eversince I was a teenager (imagining all those photo sessions with beautiful actresses and models), also because I am both a photographer and a cinematographer at the same time.

Douglas is a photographer's photographer.  He has an impeccable eye, a great imagination, exquisite craftsmanship and unflappable professionalism. In a career spanning almost 60 years, he has worked on more than 160 movies and has photographed countless celebrities and world leaders. Douglas' portfolio is a virtual "who's who" of cinema, media and world affairs in the last half century. The question to ask is "not who he has photographed" but "who he hasn't."

If I was asked to name just one photographer that inspires me and influences my work directly, I would name Doug Kirkland. He is a portrait photographer first and formost, because he genuinely loves people and it shows through in his work. This (I believe) is one of the most important secrets to his success.  

Douglas and Francoise

The other important secret to success is his wife of 43 years, Francoise.  I have seldom seen a relationship and partnership as tight as their marriage. Francoise is always supporting and assisting him in all he does.  They really know the essence of "sharing a life together." I am lucky to be similarly blessed with my wife Anne, and I certainly would not be able to do what I am doing or eventually get where I want to go, without her help and support.

Congratulations to you both! You both deserve this prestigious honor and may you have many more successes to celebrate in the years to come.

--photos courtesy of Life Magazine.

Michael Grecco's "Naked Ambition"

My colleague and fellow Advertising Photographers of America (APA) member Micheal Grecco, is having a photo exhibit from January 15 to February 25 at the Edgar Varela Fine Arts gallery.  Images from his documentary and book "Naked Ambition - An R rated look at an X rated industry" will be on display.

Reception: January 15th, Saturday 6-10pm
Address:  Edgar Varela Fine Arts (EVFA)
727 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, California 90014

Here is a clip from the documentary:


--Photo and video clip from "Naked Ambition" by Michael Grecco.

Extreme Photography by Wayne Martin Belger

Wayne Martin Belger in his studio/workshop

Fine Art photography can be as unique and original as the artists themselves.  A few can be more extreme than others, if not in technique or concept, at least in approach.

Wayne Martin Belger's approach to his work is both unique and intriguing at the same time.  Instead of concentrating on technique, which most of us are concerned with, he has chosen to concentrate on the camera itself as an expression of his art.  Reducing technique to its most elemental form, pinhole photography, he turns our attention to the "camera" as the very subject and object of his art -- a metaphorical prism through which we can examine his subjects and gain a deeper understanding of his personal perspective and vision.

Born in Pasadena, California to religious parents, Wayne became interested religious rites and sacred practices when he was still a boy.  He became accutely facinated with the ritual tools used by the priests and holy men that enabled direct communion with the divine.  Employing the same materials used in sacred rituals by priests and shamans, metals in combination with organic parts (blood, bone, organs), he builds cameras that enable him to be in direct communication with his subjects.

Wayne starts each project by studying and researching them.  He then visualizes the photographs and starts collecting parts, artifacts and relics related to the subject.  He then builds a camera for each of his projects.  Some of the materials he has employed in his cameras are: Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, Brass, Bronze, Steel, Silver, Gold, Wood, Acrylic, Glass, Horn, Ivory, Bone, Human Bone, Human Skulls, Human Organs, Formaldehyde and HIV+ Blood.

As a photographer and camera collector, I am naturally drawn to Wayne's art -- it inspires me and gives me ideas for my own work.

Here is a good selection of Wayne's cameras and a photograph he took with each one of them:

Warning: Wayne's subject matter and material can offend and infuriate people with delicate sensibilities. Like any good work of art, it requires an open mind, so please proceed accordingly.  

HIV Camera : 4"x5" camera made from Aluminium, Copper, Titanium, Acrylic and HIV positive blood. The blood pumps through the camera, then in front of the pinhole and becomes Wayne's #25 red filter. Designed to shoot a geographic comparison of people suffering from HIV.

 

Third-Eye Camera : 4"x5" camera made from Aluminium, Titanium, Brass, Silver, Gem Stones and a 150 year old skull of a 13 year old girl.  Light and time enters at the third eye, exposing the film in the middle of the skull. The camera was designed to study the beauty of decay.

Irving Penn Dead at 92

Legendary photographer Irving Penn died yesterday (October 7) in his Manhattan home at the age of 92.

Known for the stark Euclidean-simplicity of his compositions, Irving Penn transformed the mundane into beautiful abstract photographic masterpieces.

He was born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1917. Although he started taking photographs in the late '30s, his original ambition was to be a painter.   As a student at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Design, he studied with famed Harper's Bazaar Art Editor Alexey Brodovich.  He ended up working with Brodovich in the magazine, then became Art Director at Saks 5th Avenue.

He left Saks to paint in Mexico for a year.  Dissatisfied with his efforts, he went back to New York to work in the Vogue Art Department under Alexander Liberman.  Unimpressed with some of the photographer's work, he started shooting the layouts himself.  Except for a brief stint in World War II as an ambulance driver and photographer for the American Field Service, he became a permanent fixture at Vogue -- A legend in residence.   His photographs are in the permanent collections of numerous institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago among many others.

Douglas Kirkland

One of the most prolific Motion Picture Stills Photographer in history, Douglas Kirkland is a legend in Hollywood. He has been photographing movies and celebrities for over 50 years.

Born in Toronto in 1934 and raised in Fort Erie, Canada, he took his first picture with a box Brownie at the age of 10. Two years later, he was shooting with a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic sheet film camera. He started his professional career when he was just 14 years old, working for a local studio after school and on Saturdays. At 22, Douglas managed to get a job with Irving Penn as an assistant before finally getting hired by Look Magazine as a staff photographer. He became famous in 1961, when he photographed Marilyn Monroe for the 25th anniversary issue of the magazine.

He began photographing celebrities on a chance assignment with Elizabeth Taylor who agreed to do an interview with the magazine, but with no pictures. Elizabeth Taylor has not been photographed formally for a year and a half because she had been very sick, but Douglas accompanied the journalist on assignment hoping to persuade her. After the interview, he went to say goodbye but looked her straight in the eye and said, "Goodbye, it was nice meeting you... can you imagine what an opportunity it would be for me--being new at this magazine--if you gave me a chance to photograph you." A moment of silence passed and then she said, "Come tomorrow night at 8:30." The photo session was a success and was published worldwide, and his career working for the movie industry was launched.

Dorothea Lange

Every time I see an "out of business" sign, a boarded store or a beggar on the street in these tough times... I am reminded of Dorothea Lange and of her Depression-era pictures for the FSA.

But more closer to my heart, and to my mind these past few days are the striking images she made for the War Relocation Authority (WRA) on the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans to Relocation camps. These pictures were censored and impounded by the government, then were quietly deposited in the National Archives where they were forgotten for more than half the century.

Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is in the news again... Art Capital Group (ACG) is filing a suit against her for breach of contract. Annie had given up her rights to her photograph and property in exchange for a loan. Now ACG is asking for her cooperation in selling off her copyrights to help the repayment.

This is tragic! One of the greatest Photographers of time, losing her rights to her life long work in exchange for a loan. A major recession, one of the worst financial crisis in the history of America, bail-out funds worth billions of dollars charged to tax-payers, now this! What will these financial genuises come up with next?

Robert Capa's Picture - Fake?

A Time.com article examines the allegations.

What Spain Sees in Robert Capa's Civil War Photo

--Photo taken from the Time.com archives.