With the passing of summer, we are
likely to fewer camera-toting tourists on our ferries. But the ubiquity of
snaps and selfies – even among veteran ferry commuters – will not simply fade
into the Bay’s mystic autumnal haze. We live in new age of captured images, and
that means random results are everywhere.
Exploring this phenomenon is Robin
Kelsey, author of Photography and the Art
of Chance [Harvard University Press].
Kelsey notes that photography has a
unique relationship to chance, observing that anyone who has wielded a camera
has taken a picture ruined by an ill-timed blink or enhanced by an unexpected
gesture or expression.
We found one chapter especially
compelling – Stalking Chance and Making
News – in which the author observes that Carl Jung had popularized the
notion of synchronization. Here, ostensibly random events could momentarily
reveal the profound embedding of the individual psyche in the world.
Although this proneness to chance may
amuse the casual photographer, Kelsey
points out that historically it has been a mixed blessing for those seeking to
make photographic art. On the one hand, it has weakened the bond between maker
and picture, calling into question what a photograph can be said to say.
On the other hand, it has given photography
an extraordinary capacity to represent the unpredictable dynamism of modern
life. By delving into these matters, Photography and the Art of Chance
transforms our understanding of photography and the work of some of its most
brilliant practitioners.
The effort to make photographic art
has involved a call and response across generations. From the introduction of
photography in 1839 to the end of the analog era, practitioners such as William
Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Frederick Sommer,
and John Baldessari built upon and critiqued one another’s work in their
struggle to reconcile aesthetic aspiration and mechanical process. The root
problem was the technology’s indifference, its insistence on giving a bucket
the same attention as a bishop and capturing whatever wandered before the lens.
Could such an automatic mechanism
accommodate imagination? Could it make art? Photography and the Art of
Chance reveals how daring innovators expanded the aesthetic limits of
photography to create art for a modern world.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/about/
***
Quite another take on photography is proved by
Architects and Artists: The Work of
Ernest and Esther Born
by Nicholas Olsberg, available now a the Book Club
of California
At once a serious contribution
to the literature on modern architecture and design and a rich and varied
visual feast, this publication makes evident the legendary draftsmanship and
graphic inventiveness of Ernest Born and rediscovers the brilliant photographic
eye of Esther Born. Drawing from visual collections throughout North America
and Europe, the publication is richly illustrated, including many full page
reproductions of works from the Borns’ long and varied careers.
Architects and Artists: The Work
of Ernest and Esther Born is printed in
an edition of 300 numbered copies. Designed by Michi Toki of Toki Design, San
Francisco, the book measures 12 x 9 inches and consists of 264 pages. The
slipcase and book are bound in cloth over boards. The price is $325 (plus
applicable sales tax and shipping). Publication date : October 15, 2015.
http://www.bccbooks.org
***
Several exceptional performances
were staged at the Merola Opera Program’s “2015 Grand Finale” last month. We
were especially impressed with the South Korean baritone, Sol Jin, who made for
a powerful Prince Yeletsky in Tchaikovsky’s The
Queen of Spades. Merola Apprentice Stage Director, Mo Zhou, should also be
praised for keeping the action flowing and well balanced.
