Photo of the Day: The Men and Women Behind the Curtain

The current members of the U.S. Supreme Court, by Doug Mills for the New York Times

 We  take so may visual clues for granted. On TV and in pictures we see judges wearing black robes, but only rarely do we note with wonder that these officials,  alone in our government, wear costumes that denote their roles and their power.
      Tradition may demand it. But there is more: These people are our shamans. We have agreed, in some way, that they have special abilities allowing them to interpret law and divine its intent. They can see what others cannot. Our judges are not priests, of course, but the robes they wear suggest that the law, which may be based on rational thought, is enlivened by a spiritual yearning. We need to believe, and the judges need to be believed in.
     I like the portrait that Doug Mills of the New York Times made of the current members of Supreme Court, which begins its 2010-2011 term this month, because he has pulled away and shown us the visual construct surrounding our wise men (and now three women.)
      At least in this country we don't require or expect them to wear medieval accessories like wigs.

Red Is the New Green Disaster

Seeing Red: Photo by Tomas Benedikovic/Isifa/ Getty Images

Does the color of a disaster matter? Yes, I think. The red sludge that has washed over dozens of villages in Hungary has provided photographers with a striking emblem—a color-coded warning about the dangers of toxic reservoirs, specifically, as well as an unmistakable sign of a more generalized fear for our world. 

     Natural disasters like mudslides are often horrific, but they usually come in earth tones. A mudslide that is red has another meaning entirely, one that we don't have to think hard about to understand. Seeing a picture like the one above, by Tomas Benedikovic for Isifa/Getty Images, is  enough. 
     It isn't surprising then that so many pictures have been turning up in portfolios on news websites. Here is a collection of six particularly effective shots gleaned from some of those sites. Each, in its own way, communicated fear and loathing, red and dread.

1. Beauty and the Burst

An aerial view of the damaged reservois: Photo by Sandor H Szabo/AP

2. Sludge Report 

A firefighter empties his boot: Photo by Lajos Nagy/EPA

3. Dead Planet
 

Near the village of Kolontar, Photo by Bela Szandelszky/AP

4. Air Presumptive

A Hungarian Soldier: Photo by Bela Szandelszky/AP

5. Crimson Side

High-water mark, October 5: Photo byWaltraud Holzfeind/Greenpeace/Reuters

6. Hue and Sigh

A resident rests: Photo by Tamas Kovacs/EPA

The Underwater Yeti, The Unknown Photographer, and The New Porn

The Yet Crab in all its glory

1. Say Hello to "Mr. Blobby"

Nearly three-quarters of the Earth is covered by water, as scuba diver Mike Nelson used to say at the end of each Sea Hunt episode, and we keep finding surprises down there, which is good for people who like to watch. Like me. The creature in the tack-sharp photo above is a Yeti Crab, found in a thermal vent about 1.5 miles below the surface of the sea near Easter Island. The Yeti Crab was one of 6,000 species discovered over the course of a 10-year international marine census that involved 2,700 scientists from 80 countries. Science, which often shows us what we can't see in our everyday lives, is a constant source of wondrous imagery. You'll agree that only a few can rock the white fur coat like this. Now consider the thing you see below.

The Fathead Sculpin fish

This is the Fathead Sculpin fish, or at least an example of the species that has been kept in a jar since its discovery near New Zealand in 2003. The deflation the specimen has suffered since then has left it in a state that tests our anthropomorphic urges. It has been affectionately nicknamed "Mr. Blobby" by researchers, though you might find it rather cute.


2. Who Shot the Magazine Cover of the Year?

You may well ask. The American Society of Magazine Editors named the winner of its "Magazine Cover of the Year" award yesterday, without naming the photographer who took it. Its a typical oversight from the organization, which celebrates the creative genius of editors and publishers while ignoring the paid help who actually create. (Just a photo credit in the press release would have sufficed, for goodness sake.)

The December 2009 cover, shot by Mark Seliger

 The winning cover, above, was from the December 2009 issue of Harper's Bazaar, and if you were to search the web long enough or if you had your own back issue you could find out that it was taken by the great Mark Seliger, best known for his celebrity portraits. His winning image—a beautiful shot of "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson—undoubtedly captured the hearts and minds of cultish"Twilight" fans, who voted for the cover on Amazon.com, which hosted the contest. (Here's a list of ASME's top magazine covers of the last 40 years, by the way, chosen by editors rather than Amazon devotees.)

3. Jacques Treatment

Last Sunday's New York Times ran a piece in its "Style" section about photographer Jonthan Leder, the creator of Jacques, which the Times described as "an upstart adult magazine in Brooklyn that reinterprets vintage Playboy in the age of 3D and GPS hookups."

The Times pointed out that to recapture the ambiance of pinup photography from back in the day, Leder shoots not digitally but on film. And it noted that Jacques magazine is part of a mini-trend of arty-erotica that includes Richardson, S Magazine, and Butt (it was worth buying the whole Sunday paper just to see the title Butt in the Times), but it could only show a very carefully displayed display of Jacques covers, which feature nudity. I have vowed to keep this blog free of porn, so I went to the Jacques blog and found the recent cover you see here.

Will Jacques make her a star?

From what I can see, Leder's imagery owes more to the likes of Richard Kern than to early Playboy; but if there isn't much new to the work, there is a sense of experimentation and, remarkably, a feeling of warmth and collaboration between photographer and models. Everybody here is in on the joke, as you can tell from this shot of Leder and model, made for the Times by Robert Wright. I've got to go now to buy a pair of those sunglasses.

Leder and model by Robert Wright

Tiger's Tale Told in Two Pictures

Tiger Woods at the 2010 Ryder Cup, by Mark Pain for the Daily Mail

I was alerted late yesterday by a friendly researcher who lives in my house that there was "an incredible" photo of Tiger Woods up on the Yahoo home page.

Wow, I thought, has that sex tape already been released?

In point of fact, it was a shot of Tiger at the 2010 Ryder Cup, and the blog that ran it did indeed day it was the "greatest golf photo you'll ever see."

I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree.

The picture is really an accident rather than a photograph. Tiger shanks his shot, and his ball hits the camera of photographer Mark Pain (you can't make this up) of the Daily Mail, who hits the shutter before the ball hits him. Let's all agree that the best thing about the non-moment moment is that guy on the right with the hat, mustache, and cigar.

Now look at the picture below, which a number of people have put forward as the greatest golf photo you'll ever see. It was made on the 18th tee of the final round of the 2001 Masters tournament by photographer Fred Vuich, and it famously ran on the cover of Sports Illustrated the following week with only one cover line: "Masterpiece."

Tiger Woods on the 18th tee of the 2001 Masters

The magazine was referring primarily to Woods's performance at the Masters that year, but I'm pretty sure the editors understood that the picture was a perfect illustration of their point. It was a masterpiece, too. Vuich shot with a medium-format camera with a 43mm lens, and, lacking a motor drive, he relied on his own sense of timing to press the shutter button when Woods's swing was at its apex and his  face emerged from shadow. "I thought it would make a nice opener" Vuich told the Sports Shooter blog. Instead, he got something painterly, even pastoral: an ode to perfection itself, and a cover

What do you think? Is there a better photograph of the game of golf?

There's one other aspect of Vuich's picture that is remarkable, though it's something we can see only from the perspective of 2010. Vuich made Tiger small in the frame and surrounded him with the serenity and stateliness of the Augusta National golf course. Tiger, we see now, was not bigger than the game.

Pain's painful shot only highlights the fall from the grace that Vuich captured in 2001. Tiger, with one Masters win under his belt when he entered the 2001 tournament, had already fulfilled his early promise of greatness and was well on his way to becoming legend. The legend has been rewritten, the perfect swing is gone. He shanked it.

Photo of the Day: Meg Whitman's Suit of Armor

Whitman the Warrior Goddess by Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Earlier in this election year, the Republican candidate for senate, Carly Fiorina, was caught on tape ridiculing the hairstyle of her Democratic opponent, Barbara Boxer. So we know that looks matter in that state's politics. And of course candidates who are women have a lot more choices to make in this regard than men, who by convention still wear suits and ties. For her debate over the weekend with California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, Republican Meg Whitman chose an orange top and black pants.
    Her choices walk the fine sartorial line that women running for office must navigate. During the Republican primary, Whitman projected her feminine side, but general elections apparently call for sterner stuff. Her clothes were neither frilly nor masculine, and while informal and assertive they stayed within boundaries of taste that only a few powerful women can cross.

Ruining the leather biker's jacket for all time

 What's more, by skipping orange pants she avoided any unfortunate comparison to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign look.
    When Whitman stepped from behind her podium, as in the picture above by Rich Pedroncelli for Associated Press, her commanding height (she's 6-feet tall) was obvious, even tree-like, which isn't bad politically if the tree is an oak rather than a willow.
     If the picture tells us anything about Whitman's wardrobe choice, it is that she she wore them like a suit of armor. She certainly needed it during the debate on Saturday, in which she fended off flak about her hiring of an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper.
     Men have an advantage here, since their suits and ties are essentially protective. (The tie is a modern adaptation of the cravat, which had its origins in 16th-century military attire.) If Brown was a bit colorless, he could afford to be.

50 Years Later: Breakfast with A Dream

Publicity shot credited to Paramount Pictures, 1961

At dawn on Sunday, October 2, 1960, exactly fifty years ago, Audrey Hepburn stood in front of the Tiffany store on Fifth Avenue, dressed in Givenchy and sunglasses, nibbling a Danish pastry while  cameras rolled on the first day of filming on her new movie. As Sam Wesson reveals in his book "Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.," the actress hated Danish and asked director Blake Edwards if she could  lick  an ice cream cone instead. He said no, because of course she was supposed to be having breakfast at Tiffany's, and ice cream isn't breakfast.

A Danish for breakfast, at you know where

Wesson's marvelous, entertaining book draws the straight line that leads from the "Breakfast at Tiffany's" to "Sex in the City" and its successful, sexual female singletons. It's probably no wonder that the iconic image of Hepburn as Holly Golightly, hair swept up, dark glasses, tiara, and extravagant cigarette holder, has become a staple of girls' dorm rooms all across the country. The daughters of Carrie Bradshaw are the granddaughters of Holly.

I wonder who took the publicity stills for the film. All the sources I've found credit the photos (example above) simply to Paramount Pictures. No doubt this photographer, or these photographers, assumed they were merely doing a job, producing pictures for a marketing campaign. They most likely had no idea that the images they were creating would define what would become a pervasive idea: glamour as accessible as a black dress, freedom without a loss of innocence.

Fine Art From Google Earth

The nice people at "The Big Picture" have created a new source for fine-art photography: Google Earth, best known as a global spying technology for everyone who isn't working for the NSA. Who knew that Glengarry Glen Ross salesmen in southwest Florida were creating modern-day Incan Nazca lines, perhaps to direct ancient astronauts returning to Earth? I say if developers are going to turn swampland into partially completed residential developments, the least the world should get from it is astonishing visuals.

Near Fort Meyers

Southeast of Bonita Springs

South of Port Charlotte

North of Fort Meyers