Shot with a Leica M6 TTL, 35mm Summicron, Kodak Tri-X.
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Rockefeller Park © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Rockefeller Park © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Rockefeller Park © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Rockefeller Park © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Rockefeller Park © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
This past October, The Merce Cunningham Dance Company organized a memorial for Merce who had passed away this summer. In attendance were many notable figures in the New York scene including Jasper Johns and former Company members, many of whom also performed. It was a celebration of his amazing career and contribution to the world of modern dance and performance.
It was truly a pleasure and a gift to be in attendance and to capture the night for the Company.
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
Merce Cunningham Memorial © Doug Kim
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
Spike Lee threw a big bash for what would have been Michael Jackson’s 51st birthday in Prospect Park on August 29th. Some of the attendees were Al Sharpton, Tracy Morgan, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. It was a celebration, a karaoke sing-a-long, and a dance off.
At one point during “Butterflies”, hundreds of Monarch butterflies were released over the crowd. And there was also a big ass birthday cake. Ma ma se ma ma sa ma ma coo sa, indeed.
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Overcome by the heat; Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
Michael Jackson's 51st birthday in Brooklyn © Doug Kim
André Kértész remains my largest influence when I am behind the camera. It may have been chance that a professor lent me one of his books when I was eighteen but that chance gift was my introduction into the world of photography. Kértész was the first master whose images I studied and I pored over that book for hours. I could have easily been handed a monograph by Arbus or Avedon or Adams. Perhaps my professor knew what she was doing.
I have been following that initial insight and inspiration ever since. Many times I find myself unintentionally copying Kértész on the street.
There is a gentle humanistic quietness, an easy poetry to his images and a seeming raw, amateurish quality that makes his images readily accessible. The incredible perfection of Cartier-Bresson or Salgado can sometimes create a personal distance between the image and the viewer because the flawless, stunning compositions and technique can render an image almost to the level of a graphic, it being so pure of form and idea. The converse is Kértész’s work with its easy homeyness that is flawed and familiar, inviting and intimate, and in the end, deeply personal. The series of images he made of the glass sculpture that reminded him of his departed wife is a subject of heartbreaking vulnerability, a view that few of the masters have ever let us see.
He is considered the grandfather of street photography. The Getty Museum’s Photography Curator, Weston Naef described Kértész as
a little like Christopher Columbus, who discovered a new world that, in the end, was named for someone else.
Cartier-Bresson also said once said of himself, Robert Capa, and Brassaï, that
Whatever we have done, Kertész did first.
He is also credited by Brassaï as being his mentor and the one who encouraged him to document the nights of Paris.
Except for his celebrated period in Paris in the 20′s and 30′s, he has always been tragically under appreciated and oddly looked over especially after his relocation to the United States. Because of this, he is something of a photographer’s photographer, cherished by those who shoot and those who study those who have shot.
I still find myself looking at a proof sheet, wondering about the familiarity of an image I’ve created until I realize that it is my version of a Kértész.
I am an amateur, and I intend to remain an amateur for the rest of my life. The photograph gets its beauty from the very truth with which it is stamped. This is why I guard myself against any kind of professional trickery or virtuosity.
I attribute to photography the task of recording the real nature of things, their interior life. The photographer’s art is a continuous discovery which requires patience and time. A photograph draws its beauty from the truth with which it is marked.
André Kértész, 1930.
We all owe him a great deal.
Henri Cartier-Bresson.
André Kértész, Chez Mondrian, 1926
André Kértész, The Fork, 1928
André Kértész, Rainy Day Tokyo, 1968
André Kértész, Café du Dome, 1928
André Kértész, Martinique, 1972
André Kértész, Meudon, 1928
André Kértész, Ballet, 1938
‘There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open. No artist is ever pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
~Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille
Barbara Morgan, "Ekstasis", photo of Martha Graham's torso
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