jumpology

When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears.

Photographer Philippe Halsman commenting on why he was in the habit of asking the folks he photographed (Dali, Monroe, Nixon) to jump.



Others he didn't ask, or if he did no record exists: Einstein. O'Keefe.

My search for photos from Halsman's iconic Jump Book resulted from a recent obsession with ideas about identity and the constructed self -- especially the self that we project online -- which was kicked into high gear by the swirl of ideas at the SxSW conference.

(No conclusions yet. Nothing to write about. If anything it's made it difficult to write at all.)

Halsman's idea behind the jump could be considered kin to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's ideas about Flow -- that state of optimal experience where one is entirely absorbed in the work at hand and finding satisfaction in it. The state of flow is also where, according to Csikszentmihalyi, where we find our true selves.

Curiously, at the same moment we forget ourselves.

Another thought that crossed my mind while I was googling Halsman images this morning: What possessed Halsman to merge Mao and Marilyn Monroe? And why can't I stop staring?

au temps perdu

Photo: Susan Mikula

She can make you feel reminded of things you’ve never done.

Rachel Maddow on photographer Susan Mikula.

Mikula's polaroids are showing at the CHC Gallery in New York through January 24th.

my brazilian: let me show you it

The package was a puzzle: Brazilian Post. Museu Oscar Niemeyer. A Flickr friend? But who’s in Br...

And then I remembered. Took a few pictures of the packaging. Tore it wide open.

Already bragged on this a bit back when it happened at detritus, but I figure I’m due a Flickr strut too. (And yeah, of course I’ll double post. I’m only human.)

Best part about receiving the unexpected package was remembering: Right. I used to take a lot of pictures and stuff. I need to get back to doing that.



So may I present: A Casa Farnsworth (1950), projetada por Mies van der Rohe. (Foto de Dayna Bateman)

Page 47 in O Espetaculo Arquitetural, a series on architecture for children produced by the Museu Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiba, Brazil. In Portuguese.

Green values are a little too high on the Farnsworth image, but the book itself -- the way it’s laid out and bound and presented -- is really lovely.

Now if I only read Portuguese.

stolen moments

stolen moments
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

If I'd know every plane that I might hope to hop out of LaGuardia was stacked one on top of another in the wake of severe electrical storms in Chicago, I probably would have taken more time this afternoon than the brief interlude I was able to steal (between a meeting that wrapped early and a cab that was destined to take me --jolting and revolting in one of those gotta accelerate full speed and then slam on my brakes even if I'm only inching forward a couple of feet rides) -- I probably would have lingered a little bit longer at the International Center for Photography.

Louise Brooks was there -- that's her up above in a shot swiped from the brochure for the "'New Woman' in Weimar Cinema" exhibit. Lovely stuff -- luminous, powerful, polyamorous -- but she was just the gravy.

I was there to see Henri Cartier-Bresson, in an exhibition of the "Scrapbook" photographs that he compiled for MoMA after he emerged from the grave -- literally -- escaping a German concentration camp after everyone thought he was dead.

And I was pleased and startled to see Martin Munkacsi, an Austrian photographer whose photography (one shot in particular -- that of three boys running into the sea) Bresson would later remark made him say "Damn!" and grab his camera and run into the street -- because he didn't know photography could look like that.

It was, to use Mr. Cartier-Bresson's phrase, a brief moment de graĉe -- a moment of extreme pleasure -- in a day that was otherwise nasty and brutish and, apparently, interminable.


Update from the desk -- another storm just hit Chicago. I may be here all night.