Category: photography

Lorin Duckman Reads Faces

ld faces

So, by this time you must know that I am an artist with a camera who shoots portraits. The heavy book in my lap, edited by the wife of a lawyer whom I knew when I lived in another body, traces the history of the photographic portrait. Where I fit into this ever changing medium has not yet been determined, but I am working on it.

Fascinating that the beginnings of photography and impressionism coincided. As painting went outdoors, aided by the lead tube, the paint brush and the collapsible easel, photography stayed indoors, trapped by its chemistry. The painters escaped the studio, finding their own plein aire truths on the banks of the Seine. The photographers focused their eyes on people and things that didn’t move, establishing themselves as the heirs to the pre-raphaelites. To many, they were not artists, but merely operators of cameras and mixers of dangerous liquids spilled over plates.

The principles of portrait photography remain the same. You need a camera, a sitter and a photographer. The more the three relate to one another, the better the portrait. The equipment has gotten easier to use and more democratic, which might be able to be said about painting. One still needs to be an artist and adhere to age old principle to do good work.

Duckman Cousins

Duckman Cousins

So, Sharon Duckman does geneology. On line, another geneologist finds her. Usually Sharon searched for Natters or one of her other projects. This time, a Duckman found her. Susan Duckman. A Scotswoman.

The discussion continued. Who knew? Another Duckman. Elizabeth. She lives nearby in West Palm Beach. We met at the Norton yesterday.

More to say, but let me leave it at this: I love family and I wonder what happened? How did this family that struggled to come to America, to escape persecution and find opportunity to achieve, dissolve so quickly, leaving Judaism, dismissing cousins, and rejecting their genes?

Check out the Duckman eyes on Susan and the Duckman attitude on Elizabeth. I cannot tell you the warmth I got from these babes. Terrific.

Leila Alaoui, Photographer Wounded in Burkina Faso Siege, Dies at 33

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Any time a photojournalist dies, the world is a little less safe and its future a little less optimistic. One image can bring a message words can only hope to deliver. One need not know the artist to understand her voice.

Her obit in the NYT tells of a woman who saw truth and put her vision to work to educate and enlighten.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/world/africa/leila-alaoui-photographer-ouagadougou-attacks-dies.html?action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

How inspiring she must have been to those who saw her work or worked with her.

Temple Anshei Shalom – Lifelong Learning

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I delivered a lecture on Preserving Memories – Jews and Photography at Anshei Shalom’s Lifelong learning program. We talked about the origins of the craft, some of the practicioners of the art and capability of images to document, inform and entertain. Haven’t been in front of a group in years, especially when not wearing a suit or robes. I was shakey. About 50 attended and seemed engaged. Nice to talk about art instead of sociopaths.

What would photography be without Jews? Vanity Fair wouldn’t be the same without Annie Liebowitz. No Iwo Jima Memorial without Joe Rosenthal. No VJ day without Eisenstadt. Jews gave photography by Richard Avadon, Jay Maisel, Stieglitz, Diane Arbus, Bruce Gilden, Arthur Felig a/k/a Weegee, Joel Meyerwitz, Lisette Modal, Bruce Davidson, Arnold Newman, August Sander, Elliot Erwitt, Mary Ellen Mark and on and on and on. We wouldn’t see a lot of what we see or know what we know were it not for Jewish photographers.

Where did our camera sight come from? God gave us light and dark so we could see. God called it day and night. Photographers call it contrast. God created us in God’s image, telling us to create, make images we can see, which we can look at (not worship) giving people vision to make the world a better place. Jewish photography is genetic, hot-wired from God, a tool for the mission to do good deeds and leave the world better than what we found when we got here.

David Bowie, Dead at 69

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So, David Bowie got the message. “Major Tom’s” circuit board frizzed. Iggy Stardust will no longer be with us and the world will be a lesser place. I am 68. Were I to die tomorrow, the world would not feel diminished a bit. Luckily, I can look at his picture and listen to his songs. Visit  You Tube today and “Let’s Dance.” Live while you can, have fun and don’t waste time hating or loathing or speaking bad of others.

Image borrowed from Billboard.

Grab Heat and Eat

Eat Well-3

We wonder why medical costs are so high? People with jobs who don’t sit at desks take meals on the fly. The fare at some service stations is designed to sell, not to fuel the body with nutritious foods. Grab it, heat it and eat it.

Duck and Two Sharon Ducks

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So, Sharon Duckman and I go to Sarasota with a group of Valencia Reservists, three busloads to be exact. People talking trash, retiree trash (grandkids, golf, cards, restaurants and where do you by bagels) don’t interest me and what I know doesn’t interest them. We stay by ourselves because I don’t have social skills and cannot answer questions like: what did you do for a living; where did you come from; and where do you live. Besides, nobody listens anyway.

We are walking around the Selby Botanical Gardens, looking at orchids and trees, shooting a few images. The sun is up, harsh and specular. To light one of my shots of Sharon, I take out a reflector and ask a passerby to hold it for me. In a flash of a second, she says, “Are you Lorin Duckman?”

Now, who would know me at a Botanical Gardens in Florida? “Yes, who are you?”

“I am you cousin Sharon Sumliner.” Her Father’s Mother and my Father’s Father were brother and sister.

We haven’t seen each other for twenty years, which makes her post Sharon Duckman. Still, I don’t know how she recognized me. She said it was my eyes and voice. I certainly didn’t recognize her. And, she did it so quickly.

But it was an extreme joy to see her; one which made the trip worthwhile even if I didn’t make any friends on the bus. We talked about family without figuring out why or how a family of the size of ours could dissolve so quickly. Lots of dead people whom we knew in common. Only a few around.

Seems to be happening to a lot of families. People die. People live. People move away. Many didn’t follow the Jewish lifestyle. Petty feuds. Short guest lists for weddings and bar mitzvahs. No family trees and no death notices. Life is complicated.

See Any Living Things?

Is There Something Alive-3

So, for a couple of weeks we haven’t been going out. Holidays have brought friends and relatives to the Sunshine State to escape the unpredictable weather in places north and west. The economy needs them; the environment doesn’t.

A little before noon, a New Englander approached me as I shot in the swamp at the nearby US Wildlife Preserve, Loxahatchee. Identifying himself as a hunter and lobsterman, he asked me if I had seen anything alive. No doubt he meant animals and reptiles who, as an outdoorsman would undoubtedly know, don’t come out in the heat of day. And besides, why would they come out when people were in their home. This isn’t a zoo; it’s a swamp.

Without going into the particulars of my response, let’s just say I pointed to the greenery around us, I noted that swamps were locations full of life and full of death. My simple answer which this image supports is “Yes.”