notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

New York, in New York. Taken from a weeknote by Casey A. Gollan.

Photographs from the series Homage to Wilson A. Bentley by Yuji Obata.

I’ve been to New York City four times in the last year, most recently last weekend. Having finally ticked off most of the major exhibition spaces, this time I visited some of the smaller Chelsea galleries, and this was the best discovery.

As Liz Danzico quoted earlier today,

Wilson Alwyn Bentley, a farmer who would live all his life in the small town of Jericho in Vermont, gave the world its first ever photograph of a snowflake. 

Obata takes that as a starting point, but goes further. As the Danziger gallery’s biographical notes say,

Like Bentley, Obata was obsessed with the challenge of doing something no one had done before – in his case photographing snowflakes in freefall rather than on a flat surface without digital or any other manipulation. It took Obata five years to achieve but his breakthrough resulted in the capture of pictures that allow the snowflakes to relate to each other in space and size, creating dynamic compositions and scenes. Obata chose the location to shoot the series, in the mountains of Hokkaidō, based on its history as the place where Dr. Ukichiro Nakaya did research that led to his invention of artificial snow.

The reproductions here (taken from James Danziger’s blog) give you an idea of the beauty of the photographs, but if you’re in New York between now and the 25th of February, it’s well worth visiting the gallery to see the works in person.

(Also nearby: Weegee’s Naked City and Vivian Maier next door at the Steven Kasher Gallery; Damien Hirst’s Complete Spot Paintings at the Gagosian; and, at the Mary Boone gallery until the 4th of February, Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds. All are worth at least popping in to if you’re in the area.)

New York at Night by Berenice Abbott. As seen at the Night Visions exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, which ran from April to September 2011.

theidiotsheet:

steven meisel for vogue italia, 8/02

(Source: foudre)

Q. This is the much-talked-about photo, on Page 91, with a man in a red jacket holding a gun up to someone’s head …

A. New York magazine called me, and they were doing a story on a series of subway undercover detectives, who dressed themselves and behaved in certain ways to entice muggers.

And one detective was dressed as a rabbi with a beard, and he wore a gold chain. Of course, rabbis don’t wear chains, but the robber probably didn’t know that. I volunteered, since I had been mugged previously when I was alone… . I volunteered to be a decoy so, I acted in such a way to get mugged. Now, I always had my camera out around my neck when I took pictures because I can’t just hide the camera and then approach people. It has to be out there, in the open. I took a subway map out and pretended I was lost.

The robber came into the car, robbed the sleeping rabbi/detective — took his chain right off his neck — and came towards me at the end of the car. He said, “Give me that camera!” And just at that moment, I lifted my camera and photographed him. And as I photographed him, [the detective] Billie moved in with the .38 and arrested him, so it was a simultaneous thing. One frame.

Q. So what we’re seeing, the gentleman in red is actually a police officer.

A. Yeah, he’s an undercover. And you see, he’s sitting there in the middle of the train with a boombox and dark glasses in that kind of hip-hop clothing, and the robber [thinks], “Oh, I got a brother. He’s going to help me. He’s not going to say anything.” And that was his fatal error.

The group was disbanded after awhile because the bait was too good. Sometimes the cops looked so good, I was going to rob them myself.

Q. What happened afterward? Are there other images from the incident?

A. He was arrested, and I felt sorry for him. As soon as he robbed me, they took him out and cuffed him. They took him right off the train at 42nd Street.

Then, I felt I couldn’t photograph him being arrested at that moment. I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, because he was cuffed and helpless.

— Chicago Tribune interview with photographer Bruce Davidson

(Originally posted to mlkshk by zarate)

I’m a sucker for the “looking up” genre, and this one’s particularly nice because of the nested shadows and reflections. Photograph by Jeffrey Meyers.

Hoboken railroads and New York’s skyline, by Berenice Abbot. From Thinking Berenice Abbott, July 17 1898 (via)