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Giovanni Soldini is a champion skipper from Italy who has singlehandedly completed two round-the-world races and crossed the Atlantic more than 30 times. You can almost see the ocean in his eyes in this portrait of him by Nadav Kander, shot for the January issue of Italian GQ.
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The little boats and palm trees on his collar and beard are a cheeky touch, but they also add to the feeling that Soldini is at one with the sea—an untamable force that few among us can truly comprehend.
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Last month, there was a big, glittery exhibition and book party for Roxanne Lowit’s Backstage Dior at Claridge’s hotel in London, and I just received a bunch of great photos from Roxanne’s studio manager, Shoko. I’ve posted them below.
As a funny aside, did you see the piece on über publicist Kelly Cutrone in New York magazine’s website last week? Kelly’s reality show, Kell on Earth, premieres February 1 on Bravo, so now the woman whose job it is to generate buzz for others is being buzzed about herself. New York reported on seeing her at the opening of “Objects of Life,” the Steven Sebring/Patti Smith exhibition at Robert Miller Gallery, last Thursday, where she was accompanied by Mary Ellen Mark and Roxanne Lowit.
“They’re the only women out of all the people I’ve met that I actually look up to and want to be like,” Kelly told New York‘s Bennett Marcus. “We’re the Witches of Eastwick.”
Now for those party photos…
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A David Drebin Pop-Up Store popped up this week in Palm Beach, Florida, and is chockablock with the cinematic, glamour-soaked photographs—limited-edition prints, light boxes, and artist’s proofs—that have earned David an entirely permanent place in the art business.
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The store’s temporary quarters, incidentally, are the Royal Poinciana Plaza, in a space that was planned by longtime David LaChapelle set designer Craig Maldonado.
Here’s an example of what’s on offer at the store, which is located a few doors down from the famed Palm Beach Grill:
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And here’s some fresh new editorial work by David featuring the poetically named actress Lake Bell:
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Nadav recently established his own channel on YouTube, and though it’s still fledgling, it does feature this lyrical black-and-white commercial that Nadav shot for Mt. Sinai NYU.
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Have you seen the January issue of Bon Appétit? Craig Cutler shot the cover, working with stylist Victoria Granof.
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Subscriber edition.
Newsstand edition.
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The recipe is by Jeanne Thiel Kelley, and the prop styling is by Matthew Gleason. The real question, though, is who got to eat this delicious dish when the shoot was over.
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Emile Hirsch.
The Huffington Post reports that actor Emile Hirsch (Milk, Into the Wild) will be joining Jessica Biel, Michael Muller, Kenna, and their fellow celebrity climbers for the Summit on the Summit trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro.
“The real challenge is gonna be the altitude,” Hirsch told HuffPo. “It’s kind of a roll of the dice as to how your body will respond to it.”
The expedition, organized by Kenna to draw attention to the plight of those who lack access to clean drinking water, begins tomorrow. Fast Company Expert Blogger Simon Isaacs will also be part of the team, and he’s written an impassioned essay on the power of celebrities and “global influencers” in rallying the public to a cause—and why ultimately, “the heavy lifting in addressing this issue must come from government AND FROM YOU.”
Michael had planned to send us photos from the climb as he went along, but he wrote us today to say that he probably won’t be able to email. So that’s what a person has to do to truly disconnect—climb a scary-high mountain.
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It’s not often you see a professional photographer taking the time to formally survey his colleagues about an issue, but that’s just what San Diego–based shooter Robert Benson has done at his blog. Curious about professional photographers who still use film—he calls them “the holdouts”—he sent some questions to 11 shooters, including our own Jeff Lipsky.
I’ve posted an excerpt below, but if you have the time, it’s worth going here to read the whole thing.
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Why do you shoot film?
Brian Finke: I almost exclusively shoot film, with the exception of recently starting to shoot video with the new Canon, and soon checking out the new Nikon HD camera. More and more these days when I am on assignment I get the, WOW, reaction when I pull the first Polaroid and everyone on set sees I’m shooting film. I am instantly seen as an art photographer, which makes by happy. I learned shooting film and love it. I shoot exclusively with the Hasselblad, it is a great process, taking the Polaroids, loading all the backs, then while shooting taking a pause and reloading, the physicality of the camera and process are beautiful. I also prefer the grain and depth of film and the chromogenic print, especially when viewed in a large scale, gallery environment.
Paolo Marchesi: I like the “organic” feel of film and the process. When I shoot film is mostly large format and shooting large format makes you think about the shot more. It makes you a better photographer. With digital is easy to just fire away without really taking the time to take “the shot”.
Amanda Friedman: Film has better exposure latitude. Film does significantly better in low light, I get better blacks. I shot a ton of night photography and I’m still finding film to be a much better choice. I can shoot ISO 800 speed film and get beautiful results—can’t really do that with digital yet.
Simon Watson: Because it is beautiful, easy to use and it is always so much more sophisticated looking than digital. Always.
Finn O’Hara: I love the pace of shooting film, and the reality of the exposure is much more tangible when shooting film.
José Mandojana: A few reasons. I like my medium format and large format film bodies and lenses better. I just see the frame better with these cameras vs. a digital SLR. I also shoot film because the color neg is perfect in my eyes. When shooting raw, a lot of tweaking needs to be done to get it to look like my film. It can be done, but film still has a richness unmatched by digital. Why mess with perfection?
Michael Sugrue: In addition to the look/feel of the image, I most like the workflow of shooting 4×5. It’s a very quiet, studied approach. A lot of the mental aspects of shooting large-format film are lost with the instantaneity of digital capture.
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A recent portrait of actress Ellen Page by Jeff Lipsky.
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Jeff Lipsky: Many reasons…… For one, I love shooting my film cameras. There is something special when shooting a portrait with my 4×5. I feel digital takes the pace and feel away. I still enjoy looking at a proof sheet with a good loupe. The editing process is easier and more tangible. Digital format has yet to reach the 6×7 format. Film is more forgiving and has more range. I can flare and backlight images and still have information in the negative. Digitally it would be lost. I actually like being the first person to see and edit my film. To many times there is a crowd of people surrounding the monitor, no matter how hard I try to hide it. I love working with 120 films. Changing a film back or reloading enables me to change things up and get more variations. Believe it or not, it’s still more economical for most editorial jobs.
David Lauridsen: Film is beautiful. It has a depth to it and a painterly quality in the way it captures light and texture that digital just isn’t capable of capturing… yet. I shoot a lot of travel photography and like strong side light and backlight, which I think is the biggest weakness of digital. With film, I can expose for good shadow detail and just burn in the sky. With digital, the sky is just gone completely or if I expose for it then I end up with an image that is just much darker than I like. It’s recoverable to some degree in post, but it still doesn’t have that “lushness” that film has.
Bryce Duffy: I still really love the aesthetic of film. I’m not saying it’s not possible to get very similar results with digital, it’s just that in 20 years of working with film stock and polaroid, and a long standing relationship with a lab, there’s so much that is going in to achieving the aesthetic that I’m after, and other peoples expertise as well. Switching to digital means that so much more of that falls back on the photographer. In a way you’re your own film manufacturer, your own lab, your own printer. And I still really feel that there are certain lighting situations where film just “feels” more organic and digital can not replicate that as far as I’ve seen.
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Fulvio Bonavia’s book A Matter of Taste (Hachette Australia), which features the conceptual photographer’s sublimely absurd still lifes of apparel and accessories that he fashioned from foodstuffs, continues to wow the press overseas. The newspaper Corriere della Sera in Italy, in fact, has just posted a 15-image photo gallery from the coffee-table book, including this broccoli purse…
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…and these aubergine slippers…
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There’s also a hat made from artichoke leaves, rice boots, and a red-cabbage cuff. Mmmmmm. To visit the gallery, click here.
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The Brett Wesley Gallery in Las Vegas is hosting a “Phenomenal Photography” group exhibition, where the works on display include…
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"Flasher," by David Drebin.
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"Monkey With Gun," by Albert Watson.
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"Ark," by Adam Fuss.
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David LaChapelle.
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“Consider Albert Watson’s ‘Monkey with a Gun.’ It’s a stark, black and white portrait of a simian hand wrapped around a snub-nosed pistol, pointed carefully skyward as if the monkey is ready to fire a deliberate shot. It resonates with commentary about primitivism and violence, plays with notions of animal innocence and darker human intent. It smirks with danger and perverse humor,” wrote a local journalist of the exhibition.
“Now, consider David Drebin’s ‘Flasher.’ It’s a staged scene of a curvy blond atop a freeway bridge, lifting her tank top to bare her breasts to the passing cars below. It’s a mischievous postcard, a photographic dare. It makes no sublime promises yet delivers so much.”
Does the exhibition deliver too? You’ll have to decide for yourself. The show is up through January 29.
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Polaroid goes Gaga
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Tops on Lady Gaga's agenda at Polaroid: revamping casual Fridays. Photo by Matthew Rolston.
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Polaroid was always a populist brand, but its latest move is mass-appeal to the max: The company has announced that Lady Gaga has signed on as creative director and “inventor of specialty products.”
“The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion /technology /photography innovation – blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era – and we are excited to collaborate on these ventures with the Polaroid brand,” Gaga, 23, said in a statement (as reported today by People magazine.)
The announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where the chameleonic pop star is scheduled to appear today at 10:45 a.m…
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