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.

Laser Portraits

This year I am teaching a portraiture class at Parsons and one of my first assignments was sending students to Kmart to have their portrait taken by a photographer at the Olin Mills Portrait Studios. The point of the exercise was to have them reengage with one of the many ways we encounter portraiture over the course of our lifetime. The results were cheeseball awesome.

I mention this because sometimes the world is generously serendipitous. With my mind locked into all things portraiture, someone goes out and creates the single most amazing portraiture site ever. We Have Lasers!!!!!!!!!! is a tribute to the greatest school photo backdrop there ever was.

UPDATE: Staying on the class portrait theme, Patti Hallock points to the Indianapolis Museum of Art's Flickr pool called Class Picture Day.

Jessica Dimmock and The Ninth Floor

© Jessica Dimmock

This Thursday Jessica Dimmock's The Ninth Floor opens at Foley Gallery this Thursday. If you haven't seen Jessica's work yet check out the show or pick up her book. You will be hard pressed not to be effected by the work.

Anna Sirota is a student of mine from Parsons. She was moved by the images from The Ninth Floor and approached me about writing a review of the book on my blog. I am a big fan of writing about your own work and the work of others, so I was happy to oblige.

Here's Anna's review:

The drug epidemic in America has escalated to an all time high. People all over the country are falling into the abyss of addiction and the war on drugs is an endless and seemingly hopeless endeavor. Many feel disconcerted and disgusted with the idea of injecting a lethal chemical into their veins, but the importance of recognizing and discussing the emotional pain and suffering that addicts experience on a daily basis is the way to initiate change.

Jessica Dimmock’s “The Ninth Floor” is a hauntingly uneasy documentation of young heroin addicts living in squalor. Jessica successfully captured the stale, dismal atmosphere of the space, once a representation of beauty and class. The vacancy disintegration of each of her subjects is palpable. Through a muted color scheme and a straightforward snap-shot perspective, Jessica Dimmock evokes feelings of sadness and sympathy. The images are genuinely disturbing and impossible to be ignored. If this book is not a cause for reflection, then nothing can be.

Here are the details on the show:

Jessica Dimmock | The Ninth Floor
Foley Gallery
547 W 27th Street, 5th floor
New York, NY 10001
Apr 17 - May 31, 2008
Opening reception: Apr 17, 6 - 8 PM

Parsons MFA Thesis Show

© Patti Hallock

Patti Hallock reminds that the Parsons 2007 MFA Thesis Exhibition is up through September 28 at the Calumet Gallery in New York. Normally, I'm pretty much an exclusive SVA MFA promotion shop, but now that I'm on the faculty at Parsons, I have to spread the love.

Here are the details on the Parsons show:

Parsons Photography Department: 2007 MFA Senior Thesis Exhibition
September 4 - September 28

Calumet New York
22 W. 22nd Street
New York, NY 10010

Laboring Over the Labor Day Weekend

Woman Aircraft Worker © 1942 David Bransby

Labor Day weekend I will be doing some serious laboring. A good friend is getting married in Washington, DC, on Sunday so I will be making the three and half hour trek down I-85 for the big event. Of course, this means I will miss the opening of The Interactive Landscape at Mt. Tremper Arts. I am happy my friend found true love, but it sucks the wedding and the opening are on the same day. If you go to the show--and you should go!--please send me a recap.

Driving that far is always fun over the Labor Day weekend. What's more fun is turning around and driving back home on the same day. That's the plan for Sunday because I have to spend Monday finalizing the syllabus for my first big time photography teaching gig which starts bright and early Tuesday morning at Parsons. (Now you can call me professor Amy!) I feel ready for the semester thanks to the folks at Parsons and the kindly advice of my teaching friends, but I'm still nervous about walking into a classroom for the first time as the teacher.

Here's the details on the Mt. Tremper show:

Announcing The Interactive Landscape, a group photography exhibition at the Mt. Tremper Arts Center in beautiful Mt. Tremper, New York (in the Catskill Mountains).

Curated by Mathew Pokoik and featuring the work of Ian Baguskas, Aaron Diskin, Emmet Gowin, John Daido Loori, Daido Moriyama, Timothy O’Sullivan, Christian Patterson, Mathew Pokoik, Matthew Porter, Susana Raab, Stephen Shore, Amy Stein, and Mark Wyse.

7:00 p.m. - Dance and physical theater performance
8:30 p.m. - Panel discussion with photographers, Q & A
9:15 p.m. - DJ and dance party

R.S.V.P. IS REQUIRED. Previous events have filled to capacity, so R.S.V.P. now if you plan to attend.

Email: info@mttremperarts.com or Tel: (845) 688-9893

Sunday, September 2, 2007
7:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.

Mt. Tremper Arts
647 South Plank Road
Mt. Tremper NY 12457

For further information, visit www.mttremperarts.com.