"Woodstock showed the world how things could have been, and for this reason it's important that we never forget this experience, this place, this time, this dream that came true, if only for three days..."
The road to Woodstock © Baron Wolman
Baron Wolman was Rolling Stone magazine's first photographer, working with stars such as Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and all the greats of the day. Living in the Haight in its heyday, he photographed some of the musicians in his home studio. In 1969 he was on the road photographing music festivals around the USA on assignment for Rolling Stone magazine when word started to trickle through about a major musical event happening in upstate New York. Joining the long traffic jams, Wolman made it to Woodstock, along with, ultimately, hundreds of thousands of other people.
His latest book,
Woodstock, (
Reel Art Press) is filled with Wolman's photos of the atmosphere and events occurring around and beside the live bands at this, the most famous music festival of all time.
Revisiting his contact sheets for the first time in years, he was pleasantly surprised to find he had enough material to complete a book dedicated this time not to the musicians but to the crowds.
"Woodstock" is beautifully printed, with rich blacks and lush gold tone. It includes a foreword by Carlos Santana and features an extensive Q&A with Baron Wolman and Woodstock creator, Michael Lang.
There's a great bookstore edition but it also comes as a
limited edition that includes a print of these chilling cows, and an actual, rare, original Woodstock admission ticket.
In the blurb for the book, Baron says "The thing to remember about the 1960s, even near the end in '69 was that everything was totally different, the behavior was new and unexpected. Plus, the 1960s were simply wildly photogenic in every way imaginable. The changes that were taking place in the heads of the people were visually manifested. I mean, how could you not take pictures?"
"No one could have predicted the enduring influence of the Woodstock experience. Yes, the bands were first rate and there were many of them. And the setting... was picture perfect and tranquil, a bucolic setting for relaxing with friends and listening to music and getting high. But in unexpected ways, Woodstock became more than a concert for all of us. I ended up spending most of my time out in the wild with the crowd because what was happening 'out there' was just too interesting not to explore."
All images © Baron Wolman
Tokyo-based photographer
Kuraya Takashi describes the images in his missing pets project as "
once just records of normal days" that now have another role: to jog people's memories and locate the lost.
I feel much the same way he does: "The story of the subject pleases me, with aches and tint of guilt at the same time."
I was fortunate to meet Chris Bartlett at New York's Photoville this year and see for the first time his important
Detainee project. I am so pleased to present this series in aCurator and encourage you to share this story and help us all not to forget.
"Over three hundred former Iraqi detainees have filed or are filing federal lawsuits against private contractors CACI International Incorporated and L-3 Communications (formerly Titan). These are the two companies whose employees participated in torturing people held at detention facilities in Iraq, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison."
All of the former detainees whose portraits and stories are included in this feature were part of a lawsuit that was dismissed.
"The torture cases had mixed results. Approximately half of the victims obtained compensation; the others did not. The difference arose from the lawsuits being filed in different jurisdictions, and from the Obama Administration Solicitor General filing a brief advocating that the Supreme Court not overturn the negative decision." Susan L. Burke (Read more in
Burke's Wikipedia entry.)
The portraits were made in Amman in 2006, or in Istanbul in 2007.
The installation at Photoville, September, 2014. Photo by
Chris Bartlett.
"For Photoville, it's going to be a photo show about torture that has no pictures of torture. My goal is to get people to think about the issue and not walk in and see a horrible picture and be turned away because they don't want to think about it. It's the same manipulation, for lack of a better word, as from when I started with still life photography. I want to draw people into the issue and make them think about the issue. This is a policy that was thought out, planned, carried out, directed on a corporate level by our government. It wasn't just a handful of rogue soldiers who did this." Chris in an
interview with proof.org.
Born and bred New Yorker
Arlene Gottfried is one of the city's finest:
a splendid person, with an equally-splendid archive of New York characters. Previously a jobbing freelancer she now teaches and lectures, and
sings! Arlene has been exhibiting her prints from the 70s and 80s: she has a solo exhibition opening November 6, 2014, at
Daniel Cooney Fine Art in Chelsea, NYC; "Sometimes Overwhelming" will include 30 vintage prints of images made in Brooklyn, Soho, Lower East Side, Riis Beach, Rikers Island and more.
Jonah Markowitz is a documentary and portrait photographer; he has covered events from Super Storm Sandy in New York to flooding in the Peruvian Amazon. In 'Princess to Queen' he contemplates how those of us benefitting from Indian labor are inadvertently supporting violence against women in that country.
"Four Indian women have been raped and hung in recent months, drawing headlines across the world. Many more have suffered in silence as the vast majority of violence against women goes unreported.
Absent from the discussions about the recent wave of hangings in India is the hand that globalization has had in the increasing levels of sexual violence. Globalization and its attendant commercial values and material expectations are transforming social relations in India and, in doing so, stoking the brutalization of women."
Previous contributors Marianna Francese and Jaad Gaillet have completed their three-year-long project in Istanbul. "We were students in Istanbul in 2011. It was by chance that we lived in the neighbourhood of Tarlabaşı, in the last months of our stay in Istanbul. People told us to never enter the region because it was too dangerous. Located a few minutes from the famous Taksim Square and Gezi Park, it was in the labyrinthine streets of Tarlabaşı that the protesters refuged from the police during the last months of protests. Yet urban planning in Tarlabaşı has not generated the same enthusiasm of the people to defend this place, perhaps simply because many do not like this neighborhood because is dirty, dangerous... But the choice to defend Gezi Park - it is environmentally friendly, it is mostly symbolic face to the urban renewal campaign that hits Istanbul."
They are now seeking funding to take the project to the next level with a documentary film which focuses on "Mustafa."
"After wandering through several areas of Istanbul and taking up all kinds of informal jobs since his release from prison, "Mustafa from Adana", in his fifties, decides to start over and settle in Tarlabaşı; this is where he becomes a waste picker. It is in this cosmopolitan area, doomed to disappear, that he creates a new life."
See their full-screen feature in aCurator magazine.
I was excited to get an update from productive Mr
Francisco Salgueiro, "Portuguese best seller author and photographer, won this year's Greatest Photo Contest of the World by the iconic french magazine Photo." His last post was really popular and these new images are just as great, with a light-hearted look at front of house and a slightly darker look behind-scenes from multiple circuses in Portugal.
Just received my copies of Time's new book "Hillary: An American Life" which includes this here colour portrait by Mr Karsh. Karsh officially retired in 1992, closing his studio at the
Château Laurier in Ottawa that year. Per their website, "World-class portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh lived at the Château for 18 years. He also operated his studio from the sixth floor; there he photographed international celebrities between 1970 and 1992. Karsh gave seven of his famous portraits to the hotel when he moved in 1998. Years later, his wife Estrellita gifted an addition eight portraits to the hotel. These outstanding images are now part Fairmont Château Laurier's history and are located in the Reading Lounge and the Karsh Suite."
Upon taking office Mr Clinton assumed that every US president was "Karshed" and Mr Karsh was persuaded out of retirement to make some photos with Bill and Hillary.
Ellen Jacob's photographs of her friend Kay in the final stretch are currently showing at
Soho Photo, here in New York City. In a personal yet completely relatable journey for the photographer, and following Kay's journey to the end which reflects so many inevitable others, she produced a quiet series, showing how her friend held herself dealing with terminal cancer.
"Life and death, the fragility of human connections, the certainty of the end; all are joined to what our spirits manifest as we confront our greatest losses, whether in our past, future or the elusive boundary between them - this precise moment.
"Waiting Room is a foray into this territory we all share. We know death is waiting; yet we persist. This work explores the waiting, the persistence and the places we live while dying. Places largely separated from life.
"Waiting Room project is about Kay. She was 54. She was dying of cancer. She soon found herself partly paralyzed. I visited her often. Everyone approaches death differently. Kay had an amazing dignity that grew from her acceptance of her situation. She knew she was dying; she could barely move. She knew her life was circumscribed by a bed on the 12th floor of a Manhattan nursing home.
"Sometimes Kay was happy, sometimes sad, sometimes angry. Dying, she remained very much alive. Waiting Room is the story of Kay's time at the boundary between life and death and the place where she spent that time. Through Kay's story, I tell the story of all of us." Ellen Jacob.
