Need-to-know tip

Pssst. Can you keep a secret? Tucked away on the second floor of the Jordan Schnitzer Art Museum in Eugene is a large exhibition of vintage Weegee prints. The show runs the gamut from self portraits to kaleidoscopic lenswork to Just Add Boiling Water. Many prints carry personal notes in Weegee's handwriting. It's the best show they've had in years.

Coney Island, circa 1939, Weegee
currently on display at JSMA, but don't tell anyone
But don't tell anyone. This information should be closely guarded, disclosed to people only a need-to-know basis. At least that's my working theory based on museum publicity. The show has gotten zero attention. No press releases, no lectures, no calendar listing, no mention on the museum website. Unless you stumble on it by accident or read about it on a top-secret blog, you won't discover the show.

All of this would be less disconcerting to me if it didn't contrast so strongly with the museum's treatment of the recent dorm-poster-friendly Sam Abell/Torben Nissen photo show, still on the website's front page a week after closing. Or high-falutin' concept photos by Jim Riswold currently showing, or the upcoming Warhol/Gus Van Sant photo show. I've gotten plenty of flyers and announcements about all of them. But the best exhibition of all is treated like a state secret. It's totally absurd.

Hey, JSMA, great show but pull your head out!

American Icon

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre. If you're like me, when you try to visualize that day you think of this photo:

Kent State, May 4, 1970, John Filo
It's pretty rare for an image to permeate society as thoroughly as this photo has. For many folks, John Filo's shot has come to describe not only that event but Vietnam protests generally, and maybe even the entire U.S. post-war culture clash. Along with Eisenstadt's kissing couple and Ruby Shoots Oswald, it is probably one of the most recognizably iconic photos in history.

Ruby Shoots Oswald, 1973, Robert H. Jackson
But why? What makes some photos iconic while others aren't? There were countless other photos taken May 4th, 1970. Why did that one catch on? Yeah, it's a great shot but just being great isn't enough. There must be other factors at work. Iconic Photos devotes an entire blog to the issue, but it offers no concrete answers. Other sites give a familiar checklist of generally acknowledged iconic shots, while still others recount them in detail. The photos on these sites are generally familiar. We recognize one when we see it. But how does a photo get to that point?

Maybe we should flip the question around and ask, what makes a non-iconic photo?

Ansel Adams is best known for producing several iconic images. Moon Over Hernandez, Half Dome Monolith, etc. These are great photos but they're so well known it's hard to look at them anymore. They've come to define him. That's why a site like this is so powerful. It's a deliberate look at Adams' un-iconic side which looks nothing like his best-known work.

Aw, Kitty, Circa WWII, Ansel Adams
Sally Mann's photos have a similar effect. Although her work hasn't saturated the public consciousness like Filo or Adams, many of her photos are iconic among photographers. Her very style is iconic. So it's a bit jarring the first time one encounters her square format color work.

Untitled, 1989-1992, from Family Matters, Sally Mann
I think the best source of anti-iconic work today is Flickr. It contains hundreds of millions of images, very few of which have reached any level of general recognition. Flickr is a case study in image democracy. Every photo gets the same treatment, same size, same layout, the same opportunity to be seen.

With the rise of Flickr, maybe there's no possibility anymore of any photo becoming iconic. This was the question raised in Ben Roberts' essay last fall on in-sight. I tend to agree with his conclusion that iconic photos are a thing of the past. Maybe so too are iconic albums, paintings, cars, and moments. A rising tide of information has flooded all the high points. Everywhere is sea level.

Here's the scene in the Kent State photo as it looks today from Filo's vantage point.

Kent State, Memorial to Jeffrey Miller, 2007, M. Stewart
Pretty nondescript. Pretty non-iconic.

Here's the iconic version:

Tourney blooper

Someone has alertly pointed out a mistake in the street photo tourney. Charles Traub appears twice, in polls #3 and #25. That was sloppy editing on my part. Unfortunately I can't change the poll once voting has begun. I've removed #25. I'd like to post a new matchup for Levitt. If you know of a photographer missing here that you think belongs, this is your chance. Write it in the comments. Anyone with multiple nominations will be considered to replace Traub at #25.

Addendum 5/4/10: Based on David Solomons' suggestion, I'm inserting Vivian Maier in poll #25 as a wildcard. Maybe it's premature to declare her an alltime great, but it will be fun to give her a shot. If you already voted in that poll you'll need to revote.

Street Photographer tournament

This spring Tyler Green conducted an interesting experiment on Modern Art Notes. He chose 32 nominees for Greatest Living American Abstract Painter, set them up in a tournament bracket, and determined the winners through a public online voting process. Timed to coincide with the NCAA's college basketball tournament, the contest was a mix of March Madness and American Idol, with a heavy dose of High Art thrown in. The winner was Cy Twombly.

I've decided to set up a similar tournament for Street Photography. I've chosen 64 of the best Street Photographers in history, seeded them, and designed a tournament bracket.



Please take a minute to look at it. If you want to play along as we go, you can print this bracket out today, fill in your selections, and see how many winners you've picked six weeks from now.

A disclaimer about the bracket: These are my selections. They are not scientific. The guiding principle I used for inclusion was to ask myself, "If you put this person at the peak of their street career on 5th Avenue in New York for twenty minutes, who would return with the best, most streety, most serendipitous shot?" I generally gave more weight to historically influential photographers, which means you won't find many current shooters on the list. I gave weight to small-format, candid, unplanned shooters, which I consider the heart of street photography. The main exception is Arbus, whom I just couldn't leave out. I gave zero weight to documentary or photojournalist shooting which is why you won't find, e.g., Eugene Smith or Capa in the bracket.

I know many people will disagree with my names and seedings. I don't want to get bogged down in arguments about who should or shouldn't be where in the bracket. All I can say is I've put some careful thought into designing it, and hopefully you can accept that and play along.

The way the tournament will work is every Monday I will post one round of matchups in the sidebar to the right. You'll have one week to vote using the buttons in the sidebar. When considering how to vote, I'd encourage you to use criteria similar to my own ("5th Avenue...") but of course you're welcome to vote however you want.

On Sunday evenings I will tabulate results, and then post new matchups every Monday. The first round is fairly massive, with 32 matchups. But it will get simpler, as each round will eliminate half the photographers. The tournament will last six weeks. We should have a winner by Mid-June.

Please spread the word about this tournament to anyone in the street photography community who may be interested. The more participants the better. Have fun voting.

What To Do? #70

208. May Day, Portland, 2001

209. May Day, Portland, 2001

210. May Day, Portland, 2001

WTD? is a weekly installment of old unseen b/w photos)