DAILY BLOG

“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in it’s entirety. And the expression of what one feels should be set forth in terms of simple devotion to the medium - a statement of the utmost clarity and perfection possible under the conditions of creation and production”

~Ansel Adams
(1902-1984)

 

“Ansel Adams was one of the great photographers of this century. He was also one of the best loved spokespersons for the obligations we owe to the natural world. It has been easy to confuse the related but distinct achievements that earned him these twin honors. Although he devoted a lifetime to the cause of wilderness preservation, Adams did not photograph the landscape as a matter of social service but as a form of private worship. It was his own soul that he was trying to save. His great work was done under the stimulus of a profound and mystical experience of the natural world”

John Szarkowski
(1925 - 2007)

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” ~Winston Churchill
(1874-1965)

“Churchill was arguably the most important man of the 20th Century and one of the reasons I wanted to become a photojournalist. This was Sir Winston’s last visit to his old school, Harrow. For the occasion students added a chorus to the school’s song...“And Churchill’s name shall win acclaim through each new generation."... It brought tears to his eyes. It was his last visit to the school.”

~Harry Benson

“The camera is an unsophisticated mechanical instrument which, like a mirror, reflects passively without a conscience. The artist must supply the conscience.”

~ Ralph Eugene Meatyard
(1925-1972)

“I think that a photograph to be strong has to recount some aspect of the human condition, enable us to feel the emotion that the photographer felt before her subject”

 

~ Sabine Weiss

"Everyone is free to figure out what the picture says to them. It’s very interesting to read so many different thoughts about the same piece of work.”

 

- Noell Osvald

“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with their freedom”

~Bob Dylan (b. 1941)

Bruce is one of the great Magnum photographers best known for his gritty urban work. This is a rare gem in his archive. Full of wonderment, humanity and hope.

"I need to become completely anonymous if I’m to capture the essence, the root fact about the person and not merely their surface."

~Dan Budnik

Ansel Adams is justly celebrated for his epic depictions of majestic landscapes, but this rare, little discussed, haunting image of displaced children shows his profound empathy for humanity. Certainly on a par with his close colleague Dorothea Lange’s, “Migrant Mother”, certainly no less powerful.

Taking up photography at the age of 40 years old, urged on by her children as an antidote to her husband leaving to run the family plantations in India, Julia Margaret Cameron became the first great female photographer. It is so hard to find her prints in such perfect condition as this one. I had collected several in the past in not so great a condition but it was always a dream to find a 10. My dream came true with this one and it just transports me to a special pace each time I look at it.

I was visiting our great friend and artist, Pentti Sammallahti, in Helsinki and I casually said to him, “Perhaps there is another great photographer in Finland I should meet?”

This is my favorite Arnold Newman image. Such a great environmental portrait with a true sense of destiny as JFK looks to the future. Where is our leader now?

Wynn Bullock, to my mind, is one the greatest 20th Century photographers. Often eclipsed by his more well known contemporaries, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.  This is a haunting portrait of his mother’s hands taken in his modest house in Carmel in 1956. The beauty of the print just knocks me out and is the definition of the word “primal”.

Of course, “The Steerage” is one of the most celebrated images in the history of photography. For good reason as its' genius graphic construction and human empathy is utterly timeless.

Jerusalem has been, and is, the spiritual home to three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To say it is a magical place is a great understatement.

I have seen and collected many images of The Holy Land but this recent acquisition is I think the greatest I have ever seen taken at this special place. I believe it to be a unique print. It is as if Irving Penn had been transported back in time.