Chris Marker's La Jetée

I teach the Freshman Seminar course in the photography program at Parsons The New School for Design. The course serves to give incoming students both a technical and conceptual overview of all things photography and a foundation of knowledge that they can build on throughout the rest of their time in the program. Each year one of the first things I do is show the students the 1962 science fiction film La Jetée by Chris Marker.

La Jetée is set in a post-nuclear war Paris and focuses on a group of survivors living underground as they experiment with time travel. It was produced with minimal budget, has no dialogue, and was constructed almost entirely from black and white still photographs. It would seem an odd choice to introduce students to the world of photography, but it is simply one of the most stunning and important visual statements made in the last hundred years.

If you have not seen the film, you must. You can watch it below in three parts (it's only 28 minutes long).







In 1996 MIT Press produced a book of images from La Jetée. That book is now out of print, but this year Zone Books reissued La Jetée in all its glory. The book includes all of the film's original images along with the script in both English and French. You can buy a copy here.

Five in Focus

Still from Ulrich Seidl's Dog Days

I love movies, so I was pretty excited when Focus Features asked me to do a writeup of the five films that have inspired my creative process. Wittling it down to five was no easy task, but I feel pretty good about my list.

After you check out my five, take a look at lists by Gregory Crewdson, Lauren Greenfield and Larry Sultan.

What's your top five?

Movies I Can't Wait to See

Blindness and The Road are two of the best books I've read in, well, ever. Both books are being made into major motion pictures to be released this year. I am excited and nervous as all hell. On paper both movies look pretty good, but you never know with these things. Fernando Meirelles and John Hillcoat, I beg you not to fuck these up.

Saturday Night Party Then Sunday Afternoon Kong

Edinburgh, UK 2003 © Brian Ulrich

Last night I went to a party at the fabulous home of photography collector Joe Baio. Each year Joe throws a big shindig during AIPAD to show off his amazing collection of photographs. The walls were covered in photographs by Sally Mann, Brian Ulrich, Arthur Tress, Vik Muniz, Loretta Lux, Angelika Rinnhofer, Muzi Quawson...the list goes on and on.

The joint was packed with a who's who of gallerists and photographers featured in Joe's collection. I found myself in many amazing conversations with people I have admired for a very long time but never had the opportunity to meet. I had about three glasses of wine too many, but I think everyone else did too. It really was a special evening and I am now counting the days until next years party.

This afternoon I am paying the price for my partying ways. I am nursing a decent hangover and consuming copious amounts of coffee so I can get on with the business of the day. During my downtime I watched the documentary King of Kong. If you haven't seen it yet you must stop everything you are doing and watch it now.

Now I am off to AIPAD one last time.

My Big List of Lists

Cats of the Year, Fatty and Gilbert

Last year is so, well, last year at this point I don't even know why I'm bothering with my year end list. I could say that I needed some distance from 2007 to truly appreciate and evaluate what the year had to offer me, but the sad truth is I started this in December and forgot about it. So, without further ado, I give you old news.

1. Top 3 Photography Shows
1. André Kertész's Polaroids at Silverstein Photography
2. Kohei Yoshiyuki's The Park at Yossi Milo
3. Zoe Strauss' If You Read This at Silverstein Photography

2. Top 2 Photography Galleries
1. Silverstein Photography
2. Yossi Milo

3. Top 2 Movies
1. No Country for Old Men
2. Superbad

Ok, so I didn't see a lot of movies last year.

4. Top 4 Albums
1. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
2. The New Pornographers, Challengers
3. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
4. Feist, The Reminder

5. Top 4 Places I Ate
1. Yakitori Totto, New York, NY
2. Paley's Place, Portland, OR
3. Dumont, Brooklyn, NY
4. La Super Rica Taqueria, Santa Barbara, CA

6. Top 2 Book I Read
1. The Road by Cormack McCarthy
2. You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett

7. Top 4 Place I Visited
1. Laguradia, Spain
2. Biarritz, France
3. Mendacino, CA
4. New Orleans, LA

8. Top 3 Photography Books
1. Tod Papageorge, Passing Through Eden
2. Kohei Yoshiyuki, The Park
3. Alec Soth, Dog Days, Bogotá

9. Top 2 Cats
1. Fatty
2. Gilbert

10. Top 3 Career Goals of 2008
1. Finally get a solo show!
2. Finish my Domesticated book
3. Find a flippin' New York gallery (call me)

Photographic Truthiness

This is not the Lusitania

Documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris, who directed one of my all time favorite movies, Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control, takes up the debate about photography and truth in a blog article in today's New York Times:

The idea that photographs hand us an objective piece of reality, that they by themselves provide us with the truth, is an idea that has been with us since the beginnings of photography. But photographs are neither true nor false in and of themselves. They are only true or false with respect to statements that we make about them or the questions that we might ask of them.

I agree with his thesis, but, frankly, I am tired of the conversation and endless debate about what photography is and what photography is not. Truth versus fiction. Staged versus real. Synthetic versus straight.

Ay de mi!

Can we move past this, people? Can we accept that the only true definition of photography is the process of capturing images using light? Let's stop navel gazing and make some damn pictures already.

I *Heart* Zoe Strauss

© Zoe Strauss

I admit it. I have a complete photo crush on Zoe Strauss. I have never met her, so it's hard to nail down why I have become so enamored of late. The source of my shine may be the immense talent that put her in the Whitney Biennial. It may be because she is single-handedly stripping away the crusty mantle of art world pretension that has built up between artists, their subjects, and the public. It may because she has pulled back the curtain and demystified the creative process making her photography completely accessible and her progression refreshingly democratic.

I think these are crush-worthy qualities, but what really has me smitten is that she seems to do it all with an infectious combination of bad ass spunk and a pure, unflinching glee. Zoe's energy is an addictive force, not unlike chocolate covered crack. You can get a sense of it in the trailer for the new documentary about her and her work, If You Break The Skin.

I consider myself pretty fortunate to be in a group show with Zoe this month in Chicago. The show is part of Version Fest and is being curated by the dynamic duo of Chicagraphy, Brian Ulrich and Jon Gitelson. I will post more about the show later.

Zoe, if you go to the opening I promise to keep the fawning to a minimum.

Children of Men

Saw the new Alfonso Cuaron movie, Children of Men, last night. What an amazing film. Cuaron and cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, have created a visually stunning and politically charged film that moves forward with a fevered energy. Think Brazil meets 28 Days Later meets Regarding the Pain of Others broadcast live on CNN sometime in the near future. Go see this film.