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January 27, 2008

The Capa Cases

Three cardboard suitcases were found containing thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa took during the Spanish Civil War in 1939, before he fled Europe for America leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom. The suitcases are currently at the International Center of Photography in Midtown Manhattan.

From the article The Capa Cache published in the New York Times by Randy Kennedy (January 27, 2008):

“This really is the holy grail of Capa work,” said Brian Wallis, the center’s chief curator, who added that besides the Capa negatives, the cracked, dust-covered boxes had also been found to contain Spanish Civil War images by Gerda Taro, Robert Capa’s partner professionally and at one time personally, and by David Seymour, known as Chim, who went on to found the influential Magnum photo agency with Capa.

The discovery has sent shock waves through the photography world, not least because it is hoped that the negatives could settle once and for all a question that has dogged Capa’s legacy: whether what may be his most famous picture — and one of the most famous war photographs of all time — was staged. Known as “The Falling Soldier,” it shows a Spanish Republican militiaman reeling backward at what appears to be the instant a bullet strikes his chest or head on a hillside near Córdoba in 1936. When the picture was first published in the French magazine Vu, it created a sensation and helped crystallize support for the Republican cause.

If you're interested in reading the entire article: The Capa Cache

January 3, 2008

Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander: A Ramble in Olmsted Parks

Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Howard Gilman Gallery
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198

January 22, 2008–May 11, 2008

In the early 1980's, Lee Friedlander began photographing parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), North America's premier landscape architect. Some of Olmsted's most notable designs are: Central Park in New York City, Prospect Park in Brooklyn; Cherokee Park in Louisville, Ky.; World’s End in Hingham, Mass.; Niagara Falls State Park. Approximately forty images of Olmsted's parks by Lee Friedlander will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This exhibit marks the 150th (1858) anniversary of the design for Olmsted’s masterpiece, New York’s Central Park.

January 2, 2008

New US DOT Hazmat Safety Rule

New US DOT Hazmat Safety Rule to Place Lithium Battery Limits in Carry-on Baggage on Passenger Aircraft Effective January 1, 2008.

If you travel with your photographic equipment (including laptop(s)), you should be aware of the new US DOT Hazmat Safety Rules which apply limits to the inclusion of lithium batteries in carry-on luggage on airplanes.

For more information:

http://www.dot.gov/affairs/phmsa1107.htm

http://safetravel.dot.gov/index_batteries.html

January 1, 2008

David & Peter Turnley

McClellan Street

11 January - 1 March 2008

Leica Gallery
670 Broadway
New York, NY 10012

Tues - Sat 12 -6

This is an exhibit of photographs taken nearly 35 years ago by the twins David and Peter Turnley of a four-block stretch of McClellan Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana. McClellan Street is now a parking lot, but back when Peter and David took these images, it was a working-class neighborhood of men, women and children coming to grips with life's reality and with their life ahead.