Flexibility on location

Being flexible is something that I learned many years ago, and I was reminded of this with a recent assignment.
A magazine for doctors had located me on the Find A Photographer (FAP) feature of  ASMP , and they wanted me to shoot a portrait of a young physician at Yale University Hospital. The thrust of the article was about "environmentally responsible initiatives in medical practices".
With the subject-a very nice doctor who I'll call Dr. "S",  I scouted locations at the hospital about a week before the shoot, and we found a few areas that would work. Not great, but ok, given the parameters. his year has been quite snowy & cold, so shooting inside was our only viable option.
On the afternoon of the shoot, I arrived early to make sure that I had enough time to meet with the very helpful Media Relations person at the Hospital, whose name is Mark. At some point in our conversation before the subject arrived, he mentioned another area of the hospital, with "great light".
We had time to spare, so off we went. Mark was right, and our timing would be perfect for the time of day, so we contacted Susan to let her know about the new location.

Naturally diffused sunlight was complimented with a bit of fill light from a single Dynalight head & a soft bank. Some of the greenery was there & I borrowed the plant that Susan held in some of the images.
The happy client chose the image above.

Brian Lanker, Photographer & Filmmaker

Brian Lanker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and who built an incredible career working for Life, Sports Illustrated & National Geographic, has died. His photograph of his future wife giving birth via the Lamaze method won the 1973 Pulitzer for Photography while he was working at The Topeka Capital-Journal, with Rich Clarkson as his photography editor.
He later published the beautiful book of B & W photographs, "I Dream A World:Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America"


To read more about his amazing life: Brian Lanker, 63, Loses Brief Battle With Cancer

© Brian Lanker

Just to make you smile.

Frieda

A Gallup of Common Redpolls at a Feeder in VT.

Common Redpolls

While staying with friends at a rented house in Southern Vermont a few weeks ago, we were visited a few times a day by a feeding "gallup" or flock, of Common Redpolls.

These hardy little finches thrive in colder weather, and they mostly live in the Northern parts of North America. Every other year, depending on the food sources in Winter, they will move south (irruption) to Northern New England and New York to find food.

From the Wikipedia page on Bird Migration:
"Sometimes circumstances such as a good breeding season followed by a food source failure the following year lead to irruptions in which large numbers of a species move far beyond the normal range. Bohemian Waxwing and Common Crossbills show this unpredictable variation in annual numbers."

This image is now included in my Getty Images stock library.

Oh Well......

 

My signature image is probably the pre-dawn photograph of the Jade Screen Hotel, in the Huangshan Mt's.
Conde Nast Traveler magazine used it as a double-page spread opener (unusual for a vertical image?), for their story on "Extreme Hotels", in the February 2011 issue.
Nice.
But, the least that they could have done was to correctly spell my last name in the Credit sections in the back of the magazine! "Wymon"?!
They have promised to print a correction in the May issue.

"CHILI" by Koen Wessing

Some of you know that I have always been a fairly passionate collector of photobooks, and I'd like to share my most recent acquisition.

“Chili, September 1973” is a very rare first printing of the first edition of Koen Wessing’s critically acclaimed photobook which was published by De Bezigle Bij, Amsterdam in 1973. It contains 24 black-and gravures (most of them double page) and measuring approximately 10.75” x 7.75”, the book is bound in illustrated wrappers. 

*From the book “The Photobook: A History” by Parr & Gerry Badger:

 "The Dutch photographer Koen Wessing was on the streets of Santiago immediately after the coup happened. His gritty documentary pictures were quickly published in this no frills, extremely elegant photobook … There are not many images in the book, but each is carefully considered, modest and succinct ... despite the difficulties of taking photographs in such a tense and difficult situation. The main thrust of the book is the coup’s immediate aftermath, the shock and grief of the people, the rounding up of Allende’s supporters by the Army, and their herding into the now notorious National Stadium in Santiago, where many would be tortured and killed. Wessing vividly captures one of these executions, in a two-page sequence that forms the book’s climax.”

For some time, I had been looking for a nice copy of this book, and I found an antiquarian book dealer in Amsterdam who had a copy. As he had met Wessing a few times. I asked him if he could get the book signed. A week or two later, I received an email from Jaap (the dealer), and this is what he wrote on January 10th, 2011:

"To get Koen's signature  was not easy, because I don't know where he lives at the moment,  and  to meet him downtown, (which was not so difficult in the past) has become complicated because Koen  is very ill, he suffers from lung cancer and leads as far as I can judge a solitary life and does not appear in public often. The only place  that he frequents now and then is a pub near the Spui, where the weekly bookmarket is. There I saw met him recently , and although he was in company, I could ask him for his signature. He agreed."

Koen Wessing died less than three weeks later on February 2nd, 2011.

The images are amazing-they make you want to see more of Koen Wessing's images from this incredible event in the history of Chile.