2012-01-30
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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.)
2011-02-23
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Another image from the SF Gate snow photos gallery, this time of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin headlands, on 5 February 1976. Photograph: Art Frisch / The Chronicle.
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San Francisco Airport on 21 January 1962, one of the rare occasions the city has snow. via the SF Gate snow photo special:
The aerial photo over San Francisco Airport is amazing to me, but not just because of the snow. I had never seen the airport before the spiral Escher painting of a parking garage was installed.
2011-01-12
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John Bull in How Do You Solve A Problem Like Southeastern? at London Reconnections (via iamdanw).
The post explains why the train operator had so many problems both with snow, and with getting their updated timetable to their customers. It’s well worth reading.
2010-12-27
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Drifting snow across Brooklyn, seen from Manhattan. From the Winter Storm Hits Northeast slide show at the New York Times.
Photograph: Joshua Bright.
