04:
André Kertész | Landing Pigeon, New York, 1960
This was taken around 59th Street where they had demolished the houses, and I saw a pigeon flying in and out. The original idea for this photograph dates back to my days in Paris, where I also saw some old run-down houses and wanted to photograph them with a pigeon. But the pigeon never came. Here in New York I sat and waited. Time and time again I went back to the same place, but it was never right. Then one day I saw the lonely pigeon. I took maybe two or three pictures. The moment was here. I had waited maybe thirty years for that instant.
-André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész
26:
Jim Carroll by Terry Richardson
Excerpt from The Basketball Diaries:
Summer 65: Fucked up yesterday, lost our last game in the summer 15-and-under league up at George Washington High School, and that deuced us out of the championship game today. We had a good squad, mostly cats from down the block in the projects but they had a rule that no Varsity players could play. That ruined our chances of using big Lewie Alcindor even though he’s from the neighborhood and all. I mean, shit, most of the teams got ringers but it’s a little difficult to sneak in a seven foot All-Everything cat onto a court. He can’t exactly use a fucking pair of sunglasses, dig? So I go up to watch the game today and pick up my trophy for the all-league team and what a hassle is steaming as I bop into the gym. THE SUGAR BOWL ALL-STARS, one of the teams playing, are in a rage bitching about the ringers on the RUTGERS team. So true! those cats didn’t have a dude under eighteen running for them, none of them played school ball, but they were some of the best playground players in Harlem. I walked over and was rapping to a few friends, Vaughn Harper, an All-American from Boys High, and Earl Manigault, a Harlem legend of 5 ft. 10 in. who can take a half dollar off the top of a backboard. He’s invariably on and off his school team because of drug scenes and other shit. These two cats are, with big Lew, the best high school players in the city. Finally the captain of SUGAR BOWL points over to us and tells the other team and the man who runs the gig that if they’re gonna use that team, that their team’s gonna use Harper, “Goat” Manigault, and me. The bossman axes the idea of letting in Harper and “Goat” but says they can use me, which is fine with the other team who don’t even know who the fuck this white boy is. Before I say a fucking word I get a uniform tossed in my mug and since there’re bunches of chicks in the stands, my new team mates are huddling around me and I whip on the shit and start warming up. Big fucking difference I’m gonna make ’cause we need leapers for the boards and no backcourt dude like me. Anyway the slaughter starts and I’m hitting long jumpers like a fucker (I gotta say that I always burn up that gym, something about it that I just can’t miss, crazy) so we’re holding our own by the half and I got twenty-eight points, each move of which I make sticks out like a hardon because I’m the only whiteman on the court and looking around, in the entire fucking place, in fact; my bright blond-red hair making me the whitest whitey this league has ever seen. So in short we made a good show for a team our age, but can’t keep up with the other dudes and lose by ten, but that ain’t bad and I got myself forty-seven points and at least got to play for once with these cats I’ve always had to play against in various tournaments since Biddy League days. Then to bust all kinds of balls, the bossman gets some college scout in the stands to testify the other team got at least three ringers he knows and we are awarded the champ bit. After the gold is handed out and all (I didn’t get a trophy for the game ’cause they were one short and I had to say “fuck it,” but got an outofsight plaque for All-League), we go in a corner and pose a team picture for the Harlem paper, “The Amsterdam News.” We’re waiting for the birdie to click when the photog calls over the SUGAR BOWL coach and whispers something to him who then walks over to me and mumbles, “Dig, my man, don’t know how to say this but for, well, …” I cut him short and told I got the message and stepped out of the pix. I guess I would have messed up the texture of the shot or something. Or maybe they didn’t want to let the readers get to see that the high scorer was a fucking white boy.
-Jim Carroll, The Basketball Diaries
10:
Mary Ellen Mark’s latest book from Phaidon, Seen Behind the Scene: Forty Years of Photographing On Set, is a beautiful volume, full of genuine, candid moments, posed portraits and a great insider’s peak at the process behind some of the most iconic films since the late sixties.
Whether Mark is shooting portraits of people on the fringe or documenting issues, she brings a lushness and striking empathy to her subjects. Combine this velvety touch with the make-believe machinations of a movie set and legendary figures of cinema, and the results are a surreal anthropologic study of cinematic artists where there is no line between performance and reality.
It’s like looking behind the curtain and seeing nothing but towering giants.
Dustin Hoffman sneaks up on Lawrence Olivier on the set of John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man (1976) in New York’s Central Park. Mary Ellen Mark
The levity of the photos belies the tension of the scene being shot, in which Babe (Hoffman) frog-marches Szell (Olivier) to the reservoir pump house in the film’s climax. Mary Ellen Mark
It’s all changed so much. When I first started to photograph, it was really based on individuality. Much more. When I look at photographs now, I think sometimes it’s hard to tell actually who took the photograph.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Photos from Mary Ellen Mark’s Seen Behind the Scene: Forty Years of Photographing on Set, published by Phaidon Press Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie” in the dressing room
Now there is a big emphasis on advertising so it requires a lot of studio work. When I first started to work on film sets, you didn’t need to do any studio shots.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark, pictured above in 1976 on the Philippines set of Apocalypse Now, has a new book out: Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon Press) collects forty years of her on-set photography from a wide range of movies. Photo by Dean Tavoularis
I was on that set almost a month [Apocalypse Now], and it was such a luxury. It took away a lot of the pressure to get the material I needed. I can’t stand having my picture taken now. You see a picture of yourself as a young woman and think, ‘I wish I still looked like that.’
-Mary Ellen Mar, New York Times interview
Jack Nicholson, Stockard Channing and Warren Beatty on the set of "The Fortune" in 1974, Mary Ellen Mark
I could never have thought of that pose [above]. I’m not a conceptual photographer. If I’d asked them to do it, it never would have happened. I think I snapped off two frames, and that was it. It was over.
-Mary Ellen Mark, New York Times interview
Nicole Kidman in costume on set, Australia, Kununurra, Australia, 2007. Mary Ellen Mark
You used to have much more freedom. You used to really be able to wander the set much, much more. And I work a lot on Tim Burton’s films and when I do go on his set, he does give me a lot of freedom. But I think that often when the film company hires you now, they really just want studio photographs so they can use them for what they call their ‘one sheets’ for advertising.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Marlon Brando on the set of "Apocalypse Now" in 1976, Mary Ellen Mark
On Marlon Brando:
I first worked with him in ‘The Missouri Breaks.’ The rule was, before you took his picture, you had to ask his permission. It was so frightening. And if he said no, you felt like a fool. On ‘Apocalypse’ it was easier, but I knew the idea had to be his. So I brought a jar of bugs, set them down.
-Mary Ellen Mark, New York Times interview
Sean Penn in his dressing room for the Broadway play Slab Boys, Manhattan, 1983. Mary Ellen Mark
‘I asked him if I could come to his dressing room with him, and he said fine, and I took that picture. He was — a kid.’ Later Mr. Penn refused to cooperate on the set of “The Falcon and the Snowman” (1985). ‘I begged him, but he wasn’t in the mood, and it was a terrible situation because it’s your fault. You have to come back with that photograph.’
-Mary Ellen Mark, New York Times interview
Director Federico Fellini surveys the elaborate set of Satyricon (1969) in Rome, including the house where the movie’s two protagonists, Encopio and Ascilto, live. Mary Ellen Mark
With directors who love still pictures, you still have access. They don’t mind you being there. And you learn how not to be intrusive. You just take cues of where you can be that’s not going to be disturbing.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Gregory Peck with two young extras, Old Gringo, Mexico City, Mexico. Mary Ellen Mark, 1988
Regarding the contributions written by the filmmakers in this book and the absence of writing by herself:
I always felt as a photographer, what is really interesting about my photographs are the subjects and not myself.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Jessica Lange and Dustin Hoffman on Set, Tootsie, Hurley, New York. Mary Ellen Mark, 1982
Readying the horses for the next take, Fellini's Satyricon, Rome, Italy. Mary Ellen Mark, 1969
I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re photographing them and what you’re doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Tim Burton prepares for a scene with Paul Giamatti (in orangutan costume) in his remake of Planet of the Apes (2001). Mary Ellen Mark
The Cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Posing for their photograph on location at the Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon. Mary Ellen Mark, 1974
Alejandro González Iñárritu directs Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt in a small Moroccan village for a scene of Babel (2006). Mary Ellen Mark
Regarding the absence of any images from Arthur Penn’s “Alice’s Restaurant” in the book:
That was the first film that I worked on. And I looked at the pictures and I didn’t really think that I did as well as I should have on that film. It was the first one. I wanted these pictures to all be of a certain level. Although it was a wonderful film to work on, I almost wished it had happened a bit later when I was more experienced.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Cinematographer Billy Williams checks Katharine Hepburn’s light in the woods of New Hampshire on the set of On Golden Pond (1981), directed by Mark Rydell. Mary Ellen Mark
Director Francis Ford Coppola shelters himself from the driving rain that added to the troubles of an already beleaguered shoot for Apocalypse Now (1979). Mary Ellen Mark
Reality is always extraordinary.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, and Art Garfunkel “French-kissing” on the set of Mike Nichols’s Carnal Knowledge (1971), in Vancouver, Canada. Mary Ellen Mark
The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.
-Mary Ellen Mark
Melanie Griffith with her then boyfriend, Don Johnson, on Sanibel Island, Florida, during a break in filming of Night Moves (1975), directed by Arthur Penn. Mary Ellen Mark
She was an innocent 15-year-old who was madly in love with Don Johnson. She was just a little kid with a little baby voice, but her mom trusted me. Now everything has to become this big production. I could never get a picture of that intimate morning now.
-Mary Ellen Mark, New York Times interview
Johnny Depp and Gunpowder, his character’s horse, in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999), Surrey, England. Mary Ellen Mark
People like Johnny Depp – he’s amazing, and he’s really cooperative – can make the picture for you, but you have to be able to move very quickly. You have to be on top of things, always, and know when to try to catch a picture.
-Mary Ellen Mark
17:
André Kertész | Satyric Dancer, Paris, 1926
This picture of Magda was also taken in Beöthy’s studio. I said to her, ‘Do something with the spirit of the studio corner,’ and she started to move on the sofa. She just made a movement. I took only two photographs. No need to shoot a hundred rolls like people do today. People in motion are wonderful to photograph. It means catching the right moment–the moment when something changes into something else. It shows a kind of distortion similar to that in the photograph of the swimmer.
-André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész
28:
To live for two months in LA is like being hospitalized.
-Robert Frank, February 27, 1956; from a letter to Walker Evans, while Frank was applying for a continuance of his Guggenheim grant.
Los Angeles, 1956, Robert Frank
Los Angeles, 1956, Robert Frank
Los Angeles, 1956, Robert Frank
St. Francis, Gas Station and City Hall – Los Angeles, 1956, Robert Frank
Ranch market, Hollywood, California, Robert Frank
Motorama, Los Angeles, California, Robert Frank
17:
One of my favorite single series is Daido Moriyama’s book of wanderings in the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo. Viewing his fractured, scattered, shattered images is to embark on a journey as a furtive outsider, stalking the streets, seeking prey in alleys, noodle shops and sex bars.
Shinjuku, Daido Moriyama
As long as I can walk, I will continue wandering the streets.
-Daido Moriyama
Shinjuku, Daido Moriyama
I want to express the realness of Japan. I want to show what is really going on.
-Daido Moriyama
Shinjuku, Daido Moriyama
I’m not always a stray dog. Sometimes I’m a cat or an insect.
-Daido Moriyama
The cover of the limited signed edition of Shinjuku, Daido Moriyama
The streets are my territory and I still wander them aimlessly with my camera.
-Daido Moriyama
10:
André Kertész | Broken Plate, Paris, 1929
In this picture of Montmartre, I was just testing a new lens for a special effect. When I went to America, I left most of my material in Paris, and when I returned I found sixty percent of the glass-plate negatives were broken. This one I saved, but it had a hole in it. I printed it anyways. And accident helped me to produce a beautiful effect.
-André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész
13:
Underwater Swimmer Esztergom,1917, André Kertész
After I was wounded [in WWI] I was in the hospital for almost nine months. We went swimming in the pool every day, and I realized the distortions in the water. When I photographed them my comrades said, ‘You are crazy. Why did you photograph this?’ I answered: ‘Why only girl friends? This also exists.’ So I photographed my first distortion in 1917 – others followed later, especially the nudes in 1933.
-André Kertész, Kertész on Kertész
03:
I have owned a book of Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s work by The Art Institute of Chicago for almost a decade now. I enjoy Ishimoto’s work and refer to it periodically. From his street shooting to his found still lifes or to his austere study of the Katsura Villa, Ishimoto jumps through these jarringly different genres with his signature delicate quiet touch intact.
Here is one of my favorite images of his which I believe does not have a title. It was taken in Chicago in Grant Park and as much as it appears to sum up the decisive moment of the street photographer, Ishimoto actually chased those sheets of newspaper for over an hour.
Untitled, Yasuhiro Ishimoto
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