Monday, December 31, 2012

Billie Holiday / Autum in New York


AUTUM IN NEW YORK
by Billie Holiday

  


Autumn in New York
Why does it seem so inviting
Autumn in New York
It spells the thrill of first-nighting

Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds
In canyons of steel
They're making me feel
I'm home

It's autumn in New York
That brings the promise of new love
Autumn in New York
Is often mingled with pain

Dreamers with empty hands
May sigh for exotic lands
It's autumn in New York
It's good to live it again

Autumn in New York
The gleaming rooftops at sundown
Autumn in New York
It lifts you up when you're let down

Jaded roué and gay divorcé
Who lunch at the Ritz
Will tell you that
It's divine

This autumn in New York
Transforms the slums into Mayfair
Autumn in New York
You'll need no castle in Spain

Lovers that bless the dark
On benches in Central Park
Greet Autumn in New York
It's good to live it again





Sylvie Blum / Big Cats

168921310




BIG CATS
Sylvie Blum
Angola 
2008


168921311sylvie-blum*temp*168921306168921310168921314*temp*sylvie-blum1sylvie-blum2

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Alek Wek / Champ de Couleur

12


Model: Alek Wek
Photographer: Jean-Baptiste Mondino
Champ de Couleur
Vogue Paris, December/January 1997-98
Dress by Martine Sitbon

-16-13-11-1415

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Ruth Bernhard / Nudes II




Ruth Bernhard
NUDES II

Ruth Bernhard was born in Berlin in 1905. In 1927, after two years at the Berlin Academy of Art, Ruth moved to New York where she began to seriously pursue a career in photography. Eight years later she met Edward Weston in California and was deeply moved by his work. He revealed to her the profound creative potential of photography and its artistic implications. Desiring to work with him, she moved to to the West Coast shortly thereafter.

In 1953, she moved to San Francisco and became a colleague of Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Minor White and Wynn Bullock. She has lectured and conducted master classes throughout the United States through her 95th birthday.

It was at the age of 24 that Ruth first struck at the chord of professional photography. In 1929 she took a job as a darkroom assistant for the New York magazine The Delineator, working under the supervision of Ralph Steiner. But she wasn’t terribly excited about the position and soon left the magazine’s employ. With her severence pay she bought herself an 8 x 10 viewfinder camera and with it began taking portraits of her father’s friends – a circle of designers and artisans. From this point she sustained herself as a freelance photographer while, as well, exploring her own interest in still lifes, fashion, architecture, advertising, etc.

In 1935 Ruth met Edward Weston on a beach in Santa Monica, California. It was a meeting that would transform and elevate her entire perception of photography. « I was unprepared for the experience of seeing his pictures for the first time. It was overwhelming. It was lightning in the darkness … here before me was indisputable evidence of what I had thought possible – an intensely vital artist whose medium was photography. » The mere realization that photography could be Art, in its truest sense, was enlightening. Soon thereafter, Ruth moved to the West Coast to study with Edward Weston in Carmel.

Making a living in Carmel proved to be difficult and so she packed her bags for Hollywood where she opened her own studio. Much of her clientele were celebritries who brought in their children to have their portraits taken—many of them posing with their beloved dolls or pets. Then in 1953, she made the move to San Francisco, where she has made her home for the last 47 years.

While making a living as a commercial photographer, Ruth still found the time to devote energy to her personal, creative outlets. Her nude images of women are some of the most highly regarded within the breadth of her portfolio. Her visions of the female form are classical derivates that maintain a vernacular sensuality. Yet it has been even simpler subjects that have always charmed her heart—from children’s dolls to found shells on the beach shore. Ruth Bernhard’s photographs of these ever common objects exudes a feeling of sentimentality and personal clause.


In te Waves, 1945

Trees Reflected in a Shaving Mirror, 1958


Embryo, 1934


In circle, 1934

Nude bowl, 1934


Spanish dancer, 1971

Enigma, 1970


At the Pool, 1951

Vailed Nude, 1968

Transparent, 1968

Double Vision, 1973


Golden Light, 1960

Configuration, 1962

Abstract Torso, 1947
Profiles, 1967

Veiled Black, 1947

Rockport Nude, 1947

Silk, 1968

Folding, 1962


Untitled, 1953


Hips Horizontal, 1975

Neck Study, 1958



Carmen, dancer in reposo, 1951
Ruth Bernhard
Dream Figure, 1968
From Ruth Bernhard: The Eternal Body
Dream Figure, 1968
Ruth Bernhard - Hourglass, 1971
From Ruth Bernhard: The Eternal Body
Hourglass, 1971
Ruth Bernhard - Wet Silk, 1938
From Ruth Bernhard: The Eternal Body
Wet Silk, 1938




Thursday, December 27, 2012

Ruth Berhnard / Quotes

Artist: Edward Weston, Title: Ruth Bernhard, 1935 - click for larger image
Ruth Berhnard, 1935
Photo by Edward Weston
QUOTES

by Ruth Bernhard

Every artist, in a sense, is missionary. He tries to convey a message to his fellow man – he communicates the awesome presence of truth and beauty he discover in the world around him, in its lakes and mountains, trees, rocks and plants, in its living creatures. Down through the centuries poets, sculptors, painters and now photographers, have also been striving to grasp and immortalize the beauty of the human body, both male and female. I see in these forms the elemental relationship to the large forms of nature; a sense of strength like a rock – fluidity like water – space like a mountain range. If I have chosen the female form in particular, it is because beauty has been debased and exploited in our sensual twentieth century. We seem to have a need to turn innocent nature into evil ugliness be the twist of the mind. Woman has been target of much that is sordid and cheap, especially in photography. To raise, to elevate, to endorse with timeless reverence the image of woman, has been my mission – the reason for my work.


Photography is art when it's used by an artist.


A person cannot learn to be a photographer. He can only cultivate what he already has. I try to make people aware that they have something very precious to cultivate.


Light is my inspiration, my paint and brush. It is as vital as the model herself. Profoundly significant, it caresses the essential superlative curves and lines. Light I acknowledge as the energy upon which all life on this planet depends.


The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations - each gift of nature possessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony.


Today is the day!

 

If you are not passionately devoted to an idea, you can make very pleasant pictures but they won't make you cry.


If you are not willing to see more than is visible, you won't see anything.


For me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny. Whether working with a human figure or a still life, I am deeply aware of my spiritual connection with it. In my life, as in my work, I am motivated by a great yearning for balance and harmony beyond the realm of human experience, reaching for the essence of oneness with the Universe.


I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help. 


Everything is one and I am one with it.


There is no such thing as taking too much time, because your soul is in that picture.


My quest, through the magic of light and shadow, is to isolate, to simplify and to give emphasis to form with the greatest clarity. To indicate the ideal proportion, to reveal sculptural mass and the dominating spirit is my goal.


For me the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny.


If you're not interested in life, then photography has no meaning.