New Doc Delves Into Mystery of Photographer Vivian Maier

Since first hearing about her in 2010, I've been fascinated with the mystery of now legendary urban photographer Vivan Maier. She was a mid-century professional nanny, living in NYC and then Chicago, who took nearly 100,000 photos that were all stashed away in a storage locker and never seen by anyone. The locker was auctioned off in 2007 and the man who bought it, John Maloof, started posting the pictures online (the one here is from her New York days), showing the world a remarkable body of work that drew comparisons to contemporary artists like Evans, Arbus, Weegee and even Cindy Sherman. 

Now Maloof, along with producer Charlie Siskel (Gene's nephew!), has made a documentary which looks at the curious story of the woman behind these remarkable photos. The movie, profiled in yesterday's TIMES, comes out this Friday that IFC Center and I can't wait to see it. The trailer is great, hinting at the revelations about her extremely private life from the children she cared for. 

New Book Features Hollywood Stars In Gorgeous Kodachrome

There are many actors like Errol Flynn and Gregory Peck who we are used to seeing in black and white. But a new book about Hollywood's transition to color, specifically to that electric brand of high contrast color known as Kodachrome, is out which features some glorious color shots of those and other actors like Danny Kaye and Marlene Dietrich.

David Wills new book HOLLYWOOD IN KODACHROME has more than 200 photos like this which show us these and other actors in living color (as they used to say). Doesn't Peck look absolutely charming in that red turtleneck? While Flynn looks downright sexy and almost contemporary (Ryan Gosling-esque?) in his dapper suit.

The book was featured recently on Vanity Fair's Hollywood blog along with 14 other shots from the book, including people like Cary Grant and even Ronald Reagan. It conjures up the height of the glamour during the studio system heyday of the 1940s, a era that I am espeically fond of when it comes to the films themselves. Thus, I am adding this to my Amazon Wish List in advance of the holidays (HINT).

Subway Cars Go Into The Deep

If you've ever wondered where old subway cars go when they have served their time, the answer is probably not what you'd expect. They don't end up in junkyards or parked in old railsheds. Instead, they serve a deeper (ha) purpose, sunk to the bottom of the ocean to form artificial reefs.

Via the STUDIO 360 Twitter feed, I found these stunning images of subway cars on the way to their final destination. This series of pics, some surreal and some surprisingly beautiful, were taken by NYC photographer Stephen Mallon. The MTA has been dropping subway cars into the deep all up and down the Atlantic Coast for the last ten years to create the artificial habitats for marine wildlife. Certainly a much more productive reuse than the scrap heap.

The Boston Marathon And "The Decisive Moment"

This is the only photo taken by David Green, 49, a runner in the Boston Marathon last Monday. He snapped it with his iPhone seconds after the two bombs exploded, and then rushed to help people who had been injured by the explosion. This remarkable image reminded me of what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson called "the decisive moment", the famous phrase he coined that described what made photography unique as it became its own art form in the 20th century. Green's picture, along with the photo of a downed runner at the finish line, have instantly become the two iconic photos of the Marathon attack. The Washington Post on Monday had an great article talking about the impact and legacy of these iconic images.

Considering Green's image though, it uniquely captures the terror of the horrific event while also perfectly and horrifically illustrating Bresson's "decisive moment". Green's photo shows a standard and almost generic cityscape that in a split second is completely transformed into a war zone by the people who are racing away in all directions from the hazy smoke at the center. There is an incredible sense of chaos but a strange feeling of balance to the frame as well, taking it beyond the realm of a snapshot into something that not only captures the historical significance of the attack but also the unsettling feeling of modern life where terrorism can turn an ordinary day on an average street into a nightmare.

Beyond the image itself, there is something utterly contemporary about this picture that I think would have fascinated Bresson. Unbeknownst to Green, his hi-res digital pic captured in its millions of pixels not only the terror of the scene but also the clearest image of the alleged perpetuator. In the far left of the frame, wearing a white baseball cap,  Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev walks away calmly while nearly everyone else is fleeing in a panic---an indictment as well as an ID. (The zoomed in version helped identify him during the manhunt which led to his arrest.)  So Bresson's "decisive moment" becomes a decisive tool in the investigation of the crime itself. When thinking about Green's extraordinary picture, it's really mind-blowing to consider how photography has evolved and advanced so far in the 100 years since Bresson was snapping "decisive moments" on streets of Paris during a entirely different  war. 

Meatpacking District Part II: Time Traveling Photos From 1985

On Friday, I posted about ice skating in the Meatpacking District under the High Line in a rink sponsored by the Standard. Today, via my favorite NYC nostalgia site Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, I found some incredible photos of the same Meatpacking District taken in the mid-1980s in which the streets are practically empty and the area is downright desolate. But there is beauty in its desolation and the contrast to what you find today when walking dow the same streets couldn't be more severe.

The pictures (like the one above of 14th and 9th ave) were taken by photographer Brian Rose and you can see the full gallery on his website. They are a fun time traveling trip to lost era, beautifully enshrined in Rose's austere photos.

NY Artist Gives Time Lapse Photography A New Twist

There was a story on the CBS's Sunday Morning news magazine about a local photographer Steven Wilkes. He has an unusual approach to photography which creates stunning photos like the one above. Wilkes rents a Condor crane and sits atop it for 16 hours, taking hundreds of photographers of a New York City scene both during the day and night. Then he composites all these pictures into one super-sized photo in which day transitions into night, from left to right. Though it takes one day to take the pictures, it takes months to paste them together and recreate a "time-lapse" photo of, as is the case above, a day in the park. Gorgeous.

Some Lights In The Darkness Of Downtown

There are a couple beautiful photo essays about life downtown during Sandy.  Today's TIMES has a photo essay of night time pictures during the 5 day blackout. They nicely captures the odd feel of bars lit by candlelight and shopping in delis via flashlight.

It was a surreal life for a few days here but one that had its charms too...especially on Halloween evening when I took a stroll through the east village lit only by a full moon. The HuffPost has a similar story, focusing mainly on Halloween in the east village with some photos too (like the one above taken on Essex and Houston that evening).

Photos of Life After Sandy In The Dark Zone aka SoPo

SoPo (that's South of Power!) is the new name for the fashionable but somewhat desolate neighborhood in Manhattan, south of 26th street where the power grid has been offline since around 8:30pm on Monday when Sandy blew into town. I was at home when the lights went off and stayed in the Village for the next three days, living off my supplies and having some festive candlelit dinner parties with local friends.  Here's my photo album of what life was like down in The Dark Zone.

This was a piece of a scaffolding that was torn apart at Hudson and Morton. Warning is right!

This tree fell at the intersection of Christopher and Washington, totally blocking the sidewalk

 The Stonewall Inn said they were open but by Tuesday afternoon, that was not really true anymore.

 People using payphones! How novel but necessary. It was like the 20th century had returned.

This was the scariest thing I saw...a huge village, artist loft skylight picked up and smashed on 8th St.

This was a section of a large tree on the west side of Washington Square. 

Here's a look down the main east/west path of Washington Square. It was closed to public.

Here's the now infamous Chelsea dollhouse which lost it's facade during the early hours of the storm.

My friend Kevin Donaldson hosted a delicious candlelit dinner on Tuesday night.

This was a bus going down the Bowery on Halloween. Scary!

Walking around a dark east village on Halloween, we found this one sign of the holiday.

The Google StreetView Cam Sees Some Crazy Things

Google's StreetView camera has tooled around the world, taking photos of millions of miles of byways with it's unblinking eye.  And sometimes, unintentionally that eye captures some extraordinary images. A Canadian artist named Jon Rafman has been scanning Google's street views looking for things and people out of the ordinary and the design website Demilked has compiled some of his best screenshots.

Some of the images are shocking, like this van on fire above, and some are truly beautiful, like this flock of seagulls in flight below. Some are downright disturbing, like a baby crawling on an urban sidewalk by itself in front of a Gucci store.  Rafman is not the only one who has found art in the mundane.  A California based artist Doug Rickard has found interest in the street views of poor and depressed neighborhoods.

Getting Close To The Top Of The World

Yesterday was a crystal-clear spring day in New York. When I was walking home for lunch, I turned onto my street and noticed a beam being raised into place a thousand feet in the air at the top of the new 1 World Trade Center building.  The clarity of the steel beams against the blue sky was remarkable, especially after a week when the tower was covered in clouds, fog and rain. So I snapped a few photos which I've posted below.

The pictures came out incredibly blue but that's not just due to the sky. I had just been shooting some video indoors with the same camera and had it on the incandescent setting.  But, in a way, it ended up as an interesting, if unintentional, stylistic choice.

Though there is a new controversy over what it's official height will be, construction workers are getting very close to the top of the structure.  The new WTC is set to top out next month. Yet already the new building has claimed its space in the downtown skyline, balancing out the lower end of the island while providing a new "due south" to help people get their bearings in the urban jungle of Manhattan.

Could Your Cat Be An Amazing Photographer Too?

The Tribeca Film Festival wrapped last week and one of the more talked about shorts was CATCAM.  It's about a German engineer named Juergen Perhold living in the South who has a very adventurous cat named Mr. Lee who would disappear for days at a time.  Curious what his cat was up to, Juergen engineered a little "catcam" that hung around Mr. Lee's neck that recorded 500 photos at different intervals of his cat's many adventures, like finding a snake or crawling through a drain.  

You can view Mr. Lee's photos (like the extremely artful shot above of a garage) on Juergen's website. And if you have a cat who wanders, you can buy a catcam of your own for just $53 dollars! Now you can see how your cat lives when you're not around.  It could seem like spying but, if your cat has as great an eye as Mr. Lee, who knows...your kitty's photos could be worth millions in the art world.

My Nomination for Photo of the Year

In the year-end countdown to the last days of 2011, there are lists everywhere.  Top 10 movies, songs, political stories and even over at Instyle.com, the top 10 celebrity hair makeovers of 2011!  One list I've seen a few places which I always enjoy is the top 10 photographs of the year.  National Geographic has some typically stunning photos in their gallery whereas Time.com has a more newsy gallery with 40 pics.

But my personal favorite photo of the year is one that I didn't even see until a couple days ago.  It's a stunning picture of the space shuttle's final voyage last May.  The picture  also has an unusual story behind it because it was not taken by a photojournalist, or even with a real camera.  It's a snapshot from the iPhone of a passenger on a commercial flight who happened to look out the window and see the Endeavor climbing towards space on the long, sinewy trail of its white exhaust.  Not only is the photo historic for capturing the last trip of the shuttle but it is simply beautiful as well, revealing an angle on spaceflight that had never been seen before.  At least not by me....

Stephanie Gordon, from Hoboken, NJ, shot the photo and didn't think too much of it until, after sending it to a friend.  That day, it went viral and she became instantly famous.  The picture also amped up the debate about photo rights and copyright on the the Internet.  But despite all that it is still a remarkable image and it has my vote for photo of the year.

Tale Of Two Women From An Iconic Civil Rights Photo

In 1957, Little Rock, Arkansas became the first battleground in the fight to integrate public schools.  On a September morning, nine African American students tried to enroll for class at a local high school and were confronted by the National Guard as well as an angry, vocal mob.  A local photojournalist named Will Counts snapped the above picture that morning as one of the students arrived at the school, forever immortalizing the two women caught in its frame; Hazel Bryant (left) and Elizabeth Eckford. Instantly, this image became one of the most iconic photos of the Civil Rights era.

Last night, there was a story on the PBS Newshour about these two women and the surprising lives they've lead, both separately and together, since that fateful day in 1957.  The story was tagged to a new book that's out from writer David Margolick which tells their unusual story over the past 50-odd years entitled ELIZABETH AND HAZEL.  Also, you can read a lengthy excerpt from the book that was published in VANITY FAIR earlier this fall.  It's a fascinating story of two lives randomly caught in a moment of history and how that experience has affected them ever since.

Watch Book Tells How Iconic Civil Rights Era Photo Changed Lives of 2 Women on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Vivian Maier's Beautiful Photos Of New York In 1940s

About a year ago, I posted about the discovery of a treasure trove of photos taken by a Chicago nanny that are an artful record of mid-Century American urban life.  A Chicago real estate attorney discovered thousands of her photos a couple years ago, taken when she was off duty as an upper-class nanny, and has been sifting through them ever since.

I recently found some of Vivian Maier's photos posted on one of my favorite photo sites, How to Be A Retronaut.  Unlike the majority of her work  that depicts Chicago, these photos were of New York City in the 1940s and they are just extraordinary.  I am posting two of my favorites here but I encourage you to check out the rest on the site.  They are really remarkable given her compositions, the characters she finds and her subtle use of available light.  Earlier, critics likened her work to Walker Evans but, based on these new pictures, I'd say she's more like Henri Cartier-Bresson, with a mad touch of Diane Arbus thrown in there too.

The first NYC exhibit of her work opens today at Steven Kasher's gallery in Chelsea. I look forward to seeing them in person as beautiful photos like these should be seen; printed, framed and hanging on a wall.

Droids In Dubai: Photographer Brings STAR WARS Down To Earth

This striking photo was in the TIMES art section this weekend.  It is the work of a French photographer named Cedric Delsaux who has created a book in which characters from the STAR WARS series inhabit the earth. The photo above has droids from Episode 3 hanging out in a rough and tumble section of Dubai. A number of his other photos place STAR WARS characters, including Darth Vader and C3PO, in Paris.

Delsaux, 37, was a true STAR WARS baby as the movie inspired him as a child....and still inspires him today.  He even found a fan in the often litigious George Lucas, who actually wrote the introduction to his book of photos featuring these characters, DARK LENS. It could be the perfect gift for the STAR WARS fanatic in your life.

Is This Photo Worth 4.3 Million Dollars?

The answer is yes.  That's how much it went for at auction last week at Christie's, according to a story on NPR.  The photographer is Andreas Gursky and the photo is of the Rhine River in his native Germany.  On the surface it's not an extraordinary image. But the actual print that was sold is very large, 6 x11 feet.  But I think I'd want something 60 x 111 feet for that price!  

Of course, art experts have a lot to say in the NPR piece about the photographer's German background, his famous mentors and the significance of the Rhine in Western art.  But I would not have guessed it was the Rhine, more or less a river, when I first saw it.  It almost looks like a painting of horizontal stripes of green and grey. But all that adds up to major cha-ching in the somewhat loopy world of contemporary art valuation these days.

And what was the photo Gursky beat out that was the previous record holder?  That would be 3.3 million for Cindy Sherman's "Unititled".

The Thain Family Forest At NY Botanical Garden

I recently made my annual trek up to the Bronx to do some leaf-peeping in the largest remaining wild forest in New York City.  I was surprised not only by the gorgeous colors of the leaves but also that this 50 acre thatch of unspoiled woods with trees 200-300 years old has been recently renamed The Thain Family Forest.

Thain is a former head of CIT and large donor to the Bronx Botanical Garden, which has a long history of naming things for it's donors like the landmarked Edith Haupfman Conservatory.  But naming a forest seemed a little over the top (and the NY Times City Room blog agrees).  Still a forest by any other name is still a thing of beauty come the first week of November.  So here's some of my photos below....enjoy!

WTC Fundraiser Book BLUE SKY--Just 5 Copies Left!

For WTC VIEW Onstage at 59E59 Theaters, I put together a limited edition photobook that was on sale as a fundraiser at the theater to help raise money for our show.  Now that run has wrapped up, I have just a few copies left of the book which I'm selling to finish paying off all our bills.

The book, BLUE SKY, is a collection of photos I've taken over the last decade of blue skies, echoing that magnificent sky over New York City on the morning of September 11th. The book is a beautifully bound, hardcover, 40 pages long with more than 60 full-color images.  I have also signed each copy on the frontis page as well. Above is a picture of the book and below are some images featured in its pages.

The book costs just $40, which includes shipping too.  If you're interested in purchasing one, just write an email to "me@briansloan.com" for details.  You can pay by check or PayPal, whichever is most convenient.  Thanks again for your support of WTC VIEW....it was a great success!

Washington DC, 2003

Jones Beach, 2006

Playland, 2009

Palm Springs, 2002   

                                                           Lower Manhattan, 2008

Pencil vs. Camera

Another photo post today. These look-twice pics really caught my eye when they were featured in yesterday's Telegraph, a UK paper/website which is surpringly artsy for a major daily. The man behind these unique mash-ups of drawing and photography is a Belgian artist named Ben Heine.  You can even purchase these works too via his website, linked to his name.  And the full slide show is viewable at this link to the Telegraph's Arts section.

The Ruins Of Coney Island

Coney Island is one of my favorite places in NYC, as many of you know. I've blogged about trips to the Freak Show for Burlesque and Boylesque and my annual ride of the Cyclone, the best coaster in the world.  But, these days, Coney is in the midst of a massive transformation and pieces of it's storied past are fast disappearing.

This week, the TIMES City Room blog featured some gorgeous photos of the ruins of Coney Island by a local photographer, Nathan Kensinger.  He took shots of the Playland arcade which dates from the 1930's and is falling down.  His website has more of these pictures which capture a ghostly place, lost in time.  The new Coney may be nicer than it was, but hopefully the old Coney in these photos will never be forgotten.