All Aboard...Spring Break

My son and I had a little spring break together, and decided to take our camera's and video equipment on a road trip. My son and I are really into trains and planes, this time our objective was to shoot trains. We headed for Janesville Wisconsin, home of the Wisconsin and Southern Rail Road. An interesting company, we were informed that the gentleman who started and continues to own and operate Wisconsin and Southern got his initial funding from his father who invented the wire nut and also the plastic zip lock ties. A small company by rail road standards, they do all their work in a round house that is over 100 years old and operate possibly the only full scale turnabout in Wisconsin. We headed on to Rochelle Illinois, where there is a major crossing handling the Pacific Union and BNSF lines. Rochelle sees over 120 trains pass by a day.

On our way we passed by the now closed GM plant in Janesville and I have to say that seeing a plant of this size sitting with no people or cars around was a very scary site. It had a ghost town feeling and really hit home the fact that our country is in a really bad place right now.

Badger Army Ammunition Plant

The photo's above are a few pics from the Badger Army Ammunition Plant up in Baraboo Wisconsin. My son and I were fortunate enough to be included in a tour of the plant recently. With a very long and interesting past the plant has produced munitions for three major wars, including World War II, the Korean War, and a major producer for the Vietnam war. The Plant was first built in 1942 and was decommissioned in 1999. With a new plan in place it is now being torn down and the lands and water in and around the plant are being cleaned up from hazardous toxins that are present. Some of the lands are to be given back to the original owners, the Ho Chunk nation (Winnebago tribe), who plan to raise bison there. The Wisconsin DNR also are receiving a large part of the property. I hope to have a link to all the images soon.

Dignified Transfer

These are some of the first images covered by the media of a Dignified Transfer of U.S. military personnel killed in action since the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began. Previously these ceremonies were closed to the media. Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers was killed in Afghanistan on Saturday. His body returned to his family at Dover Air Force Base. Photographers from the major wire services and newspapers were there to cover the ceremony. See more of the images at Daylife, HERE.

Largest Collection of Professional Photography On The Web

Life and Getty images teamed up to provide the largest collection of professional images on the web, all free to share and print. Millions of legendary photos from the archives of Life and Getty but also adding over 3000 new images every day. Check out Life.com HERE, its worth a look.

Stephen Mallon's Flight 1549_US Airways and Insurer AIG

Remember these recovery photos of US Airways flight 1549 shot by photographer Stephen Mallon? Scroll to my post dated Monday, February 9, 2009. It seems that US Airways and AIG, who insures US Airways, yes... that AIG, does not want these photos shown, at all, ever and no one seems to be able to figure out why. Mallon was hired by Weeks Marine to photograph the full recovery of the plane from the Hudson River and had full access to the plane and the blessing from the NTSB and US Airways. After posting them on his web site the NTSB said he could not post them, so he took them down, then two weeks later released them and said he may post them. Recently he got a letter from a law firm, directed to him from insurance company AIG asserting that Mallon has no rights to the recovery photos. This story seems to be still in the development stages and I expect we will be seeing more about this in the photography world. Read more of this story at the Online Photographer, HERE. See Stephen Mallon's site HERE.

Vintage Fishing Ads from Field & Stream

Its interesting how advertising has changed, or actually we have changed. These ads contain dead fish, tobacco and things that you just will not see nowadays. Many non fishing companies cashing in on this sports advertising also. I think the two guys in the boat need a bigger net or they are just snagged and that might not be cigarettes their smoking. Check out the collection of advertisements from years past at Field & Stream HERE.

Photographer_Yousuf Karsh @ The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago has on display 100 master prints by master portraitist Yousuf Karsh. Above photos Winston Churchill, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein. The show, "Yousuf Karsh: Regarding Heroes", goes through the end of April. It is a rare opportunity to see such a large collection of Karsh's work on display. Karsh used a technique called "inspection" for developing his negatives, this was accomplished by developing negatives by hand under a safe light to produce optimal detail. See the Art Institute HERE for details. Also go HERE to learn more about the photographer and to see more of his images online. I am definitely going to try to catch this one, and have some fun in Chicago.

Photographer_Eddie Adams

"The image disturbed him, and he continually wrestled with the responsibility it brought," this is what his wife said in reference to the cover of his new book, "Vietnam", referring to his 1968 Pulitzer Prize winning shot of a Viet Cong prisoner being shot execution style on a Saigon street. Eddie Adams died in 2004. This is an incredible photograph considering how close Eddie must have been to the scene, this is no telephoto lens here. The photo apparently disturbed Eddie Adams for the remaining of his life, even saying he wished he never shot it. Eddie Adams photographed 13 wars, six presidents, and numerous celebrities. The officer shooting is Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the prisoner being shot had just murdered eight South Vietnamese. The photograph turned Americans against the war and haunted Loan for the rest of his life. See some of Eddie's work HERE. Go HERE, and this is a must, to check out a trailer of a documentary of the Eddie Adams Story.

Is This Photography, or Not

My friend Jim emailed me with this question,"Hey John, what did you think of this guy's gallery? At what point is it no
longer photography, just computer generated art? I look at this way, it is photography and the computer is one of our tools to use in the process of making images, just as the camera itself is a tool for making images. I have seen this technique before and it is kind of cool when used with the right kind of images. As you can tell from the gallery some images work better than others with this technique. The top two images are from Alexandre Duret-Lutz, a French photographer creating what he calls "wee planets" using a technique of stitching together and bending many photographs of a particular scene, see his gallery HERE. The bottom photo, done by photographer Chris Kling is called a globe, it has some of the same characteristics but is done with photoshop and only one photo, see photographer Chris Kling blog HERE. See the technique for the single image version in photoshop HERE and try it yourself.

Photographer_ Clark Little shooting a View from a Tube

Thanks to my friend Jim for this article from the Telegraph. Photographer Clark Little, often risking his life for these shots from inside a 'tube', a breaking wave, capturing rarely seen views. These stunning images are shot at Waimea Bay in Hawaii. Check out the article HERE, and go HERE to see more images on his web site.

Photographer_ Richard Miller

Photographer Richard Miller, now 96 years old has recently, at the urging of photographer friends, licensed images of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe which have not been seen for over a half century. The images and negatives have been stored in boxes for the past five decades. Read more about it HERE. The photographer attended a private event in Beverly Hills showing his photographs of James Dean where Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first person to make a purchase of his work, go HERE to read more about that.

Does Anybody Remember... Darkroom?

I remember being fascinated working in the darkroom for the first time in high school, and later building my own darkroom with my dad at home. Spending countless hours at a time making pictures was a magical time. Now I still spend a lot of time on the computer making pictures, but its different, I have more control and don't have to deal with chemicals, which is good, but that time in the darkroom made me feel more like a photographer than the computer does, its like its so clean and sterile now. Richard Nicholson is a photographer who has photographed the few remaining professional darkrooms in London on 4x5 film, check it out HERE>. I wish I had a picture of my old darkroom.

Abraham Lincoln

Great portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner on February 5, 1865. Click the image and examine the full view size. Check out the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution online exhibit called One Life: The Mask of Lincoln for interesting portraits and information about the man, HERE.

World Press Photo of the Year_2008

Photographer Anthony Suau shot this photo for Time magazine and won World Press Photo of the year. The photo was part of an assignment depicting the effects of the economy in Cleveland, Ohio. The officer must ensure that residents have moved out of their foreclosed home. See all winners HERE. Ironically the photographer himself seems to be suffering from the effects of the economic crisis, saying the only job he has had in the past two months is an assignment shooting the presidential inauguration, see story at PDN HERE.

Cover Vogue Magazine_Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama will appear on the March cover of Vogue magazine. She is the second first lady to appear on the cover, the first being Hillary Clinton in 1998. Michelle Obama was photographed in the Hay Adams hotel in January, while the Obamas were living there by photographer Annie Leibovitz. I have to say its a really nice shot, great pose and lighting. Story from the New York Times HERE.

New York Fire Department_Photo Unit

I came across this photo show in New York at St. John's University Dr. M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery, featuring photography from the FDNY Photo Unit. Images from 1900 through 2009 are featured with the earliest images tracing back to 1869. A selection of 8x10 prints from 4x5 negatives, many shot by the original first photographers that formed the Photo Unit. Read about it HERE, and see some of these images online HERE. Also see a great collection of images shot by the FDNY Photo Unit at their online collection HERE.

Photographer: Stephen Mallon Shoots Flight 1549 Salvage

After seeing all the photographs and video of flight 1549 shot by regular peoples who just happen to be in the right spot at the right time it is refreshing to see imagery done by a professional photographer. I understand that people shooting with their iphones and such are giving us imagery that we wouldn't normally have and I like that, but it is not good in image quality or creative perspective. You can see the difference in Photographer Stephen Mallon's photographs of the salvage of flight 1549 HERE.

Reuters, AP Collection of Photos

Reuters collection of photographs shot by their photographers is worth taking a look at, it is some of their best photos from the month of January, see HERE. Also the Sacramento Bee is featuring a photo gallery called Daily Life. Shot by Associated Press staff photographers this is a collection of 22 images from the last month, see HERE.

Martha Washington, First Lady... Hot Lady

The image of the first lady of our country are from portraits painted after her death showing a grandmother type of older woman we can all relate to, very humbling. But using surviving records and computerized age-regression imagery we are able to generate a portrait of Martha visualizing her in her mid 20's. Michael Deas’s portrait imagining what a young Martha Washington looked like. Deas is a noted realist painter you’ve seen his work without knowing it as he created the current Columbia Pictures logo as well as recent U.S. stamps commemorating movie stars like Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Marilyn Monroe. Check the full Washington post story HERE.