Unpretentious: Elsa Dorfman’s sunny photography
Elsa Dorfman is not your average portrait photographer. For one thing, since 1980 she has worked exclusively on an enormous Polaroid 20×24 camera, one of only five such machines that … Continue reading
A Lesbian Gun: Words and Images Inspire Todd Hayne’s New Masterpiece ‘Carol’
In writing and film, storytelling is often a dance between the narrative and the visual. Fiction writers use vivid descriptions to help readers visualize a story’s world, while a film’s visuals often … Continue reading
Fall Gallery Hop… and a Robert Frank Movie
Hard as it is to say goodbye to summer (even the sweaty, trash-scented New York kind), there are rewards to be had from fall. It’s the time when summer blockbusters … Continue reading
Amy Winehouse Stories
The death of singer Amy Winehouse in 2011, at the tragically young age of twenty-seven, was big news. I remember hearing about it and being shocked, and having a friend … Continue reading
Legacy Keeper: An Interview with Mary Engel
The April issue of Photo District News features an article I wrote about managing photographers’ legacies. This is an important topic, but one that isn’t discussed or written about much. Photographers … Continue reading
At Home in the World: Two Documentaries
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, works of art surely are too. We see them in the context of our lives, affected by whatever emotional weather is … Continue reading
The Longest Journey: An Interview with Rick Smolan
By any standards, Rick Smolan has an impressive resumé. As a photographer, he has shot for TIME, Newsweek, and National Geographic. As a book editor, he created the bestselling A Day … Continue reading
American Atrophy
The clash between the bright optimism of America’s Dream and the tawdry gaudiness of its day-to-day reality is a subject that has been well covered in many artistic media. Authors … Continue reading
From a Walking Tomato to Death Squads: Saturday in New York
Art is ennobling, art is one of the highest expressions of human civilization …and sometimes, art can be downright weird. I say this in the wake of a six-hour blitzkrieg … Continue reading
