I was commissioned to do a timeline related to photojournalism for my Online Journalism class, I decided to take a look at Lee Miller’s fascinating life. I’ve been a fan since I read the biography Carolyn Burke wrote about Miller four yeas ago, but it wasn’t until I started this blog that I thought of her again. Her work is timeless and it is indeed rare for a photojournalist to have the iconic status that Lee does. From the start of this blog, Lee Miller remains one of the top searches that drives traffic my way since posting the legendary photograph she sat for in Hitler’s bathtub. I think people relate to the haunted nature each one of her photographs represents…

(Decked out in full U.S. Army Correspondent gear.  Source: Telegraph)

Picture it!  New York City, 1926.  Twenty-one year old Elizabeth Miller (called Lee by family and friends),  has been dragged back to her family’s home in Poughkeepsie by her usually indulgent and doting father after spending nearly a year in Paris not doing much of anything except, you know, being in Paris.    In order to satisfy her need for city life she has been taking longer and longer trips to the city and has enrolled in a theatrical design class as her excuse.  She has been dabbling off and on in photography but has mostly been attending parties and half-heartedly searching for a purpose in life.

One day, crossing a busy street, Lee is almost hit by a car but is pulled back just in time by a man who turned out to be some dude named Condé Nast,  King of The Entire Freaking Publishing World.  Nast took an interest in her and by March of 1927 Lee’s face was on the cover of Vogue.  (At the risk of this post getting super picture heavy I still want to share her Vogue cover because it is seriously the business.)

(Source: Style.com)

By 1929 Lee was back in Paris, spending just as much time behind the camera as she did in front.   When she wasn’t hanging out with Picasso and her other Surrealist buddies Lee was living with and learning from Man Ray, an American artist with connections to the Surrealist and Dadaist movements.  There are some who believe that many of the photographs Man Ray took at the time were actually Miller’s work, but we do not know for sure.  What we do know is that together they invented–or rediscovered, depending on who you ask–the technique of solarization, which makes photographs look like this:

(Source: Lee Miller Archives.  Lee is featured in many of her most famous photographs.)

Though she did a fair amount of fashion and fine art photography, Lee Miller is perhaps best remembered for her WWII photographs.   She was living in London when the bombing of the city began in  1940, with the man (Roland Penrose) who would become her second husband.  Miller was made Vogue’s war photographer and later on was officially inducted into the U.S. Army as a War Correspondent.  She documented the liberation of Paris and the horrors of Buchenwald, but also everyday lives of civilians in London just trying to cope.

And now, I think, is as good a time as any for me to sit back, shut up and let Miller’s work speak for itself:

(Lee with American soldiers.  From her collaboration with David E. Scherman. Source: Life Magazine)

(Women in protective gear, at the entrance of a bomb shelter.  Source: Telegraph)

(A chapel, after bombing. Even within all of this damage, the foundations of the structure are still standing and some of the glass remains unbroken.   Source: Lee Miller Archives.)

(The infamous photo of Miller in Hitler’s Berlin bathtub.  Notice the dirty boots and the dirt on the mat.  That is dirt from Dachau, and a nice little Surrealist “Fuck You” to Hitler.  Source: Telegraph)

(Miller with Picasso the day Paris was liberated.  Source: The Guardian)

Remember guys, if you’ve got a Lesser Known Lady that you want to see discussed you can always shoot an email to ladybusinessblog@gmail.com.

Brain signals can drive arm movement in a monkey with a paralyzed arm.  

A monkey with a paralyzed arm can still grasp a ball, thanks to a novel system designed to translate brain signals into complex muscle movements in real time. The research, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, could one day allow people with spinal cord injury to control their own limbs.

Monkey think, monkey do: By translating electrical signals from a monkey’s brain into muscle contractions via implanted electrodes, an animal with a paralyzed arm was able to grasp a ball. Credit: Christian Ethier, Lee Miller

“This is a big leap forward–they show the monkey using the ability to artificially contract his hand to actually pick up a ball,” says Krishna Shenoy, a neuroscientist at Stanford University. “I think it’s the first demonstration of a cortically controlled electrical stimulation system performing a task that would ultimately be useful for a human patient.”  Read more:  http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23790/?nlid=2455

When Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Fledgling was published, I was ridiculously happy.

Links: Lee & Miller Homepage; Baen Books; Meisha Merlin; Liaden Universe; Miles Vorkosigan;

Not because it was a new Laiden Universe novel, although that is in itself a triumph.

Not because it is a good science fiction book; “good” is in the eye of the beholder and I’m sure some folks will hate this book. (Rule of thumb: if you like the Miles Vorkosigan books, you’ll most likely like these.)

Not because the authors seem to be nice folks, and I having a book on sale means the increased possibility of more in the future.

Nope, this one is cool because I helped make it happen, albeit in a tiny way. How you ask? I’ll be happy to tell you. But first some back story may be in order…

Lee & Miller have written a bundle of books across a lot of years set in the Liaden Universe, and they are beloved by a group of science fiction readers. They are not, however, large mass-market success; at least that is my intuition based on how hard it has been to keep their books in print.

After initial market penetration with a mainstream publishing house, they were dropped before finishing the series. Then, there was the magic of the Meisha Merlin rebirth. Meisha Merlin was a small, independent publisher that republished all old the Liaden books, plus several new ones. It was tremendous!

Then Meisha Merlin went belly-up in “owing-authors-money” mode. Sigh. No more Liaden novels soon, or so I thought.

Then, sometime in 2006, Lee & Miller tried a new thing. They wrote a new novel, the aforementioned Fledgling, online. One chapter a week. Free to read.

Yippee!

The catch? They wanted $300 donated for each chapter. Each time they received $300 dollars, they would crank out a new chapter. So, they cautioned their readers, it might take a while to finish, if it finished. How much would loyal fandom donate for a book that in theory might not get finished?

A couple things worth noting. First, Lee & Miller had kept feeding their fans by putting out two-story (usually) “chapbooks” each Christmas season — these have become known as the Yule Chapbooks. I always jump for joy when mine arrives. Secondly, they promised that the first thousand people who donated $25 or more would get a signed copy of Fledgling if it was ever published, be it as trade paperback (seemed most likely), mass market paperback, or hard cover. Of course there was no guarantee it would ever be published, but still, it was a nice carrot.

The result? They got their donations in very quickly, and “declared a draft” at somewhere around thirty chapters.

My records show my contribution in December of 2006; I don’t remember the exact date the serialization started, but I do know that I waited every Monday at noon for the next installment of Theo’s story. When the sequel to Fledgling was announced, Saltation, I was in a position to donate $300 in one shot, covering a chapter. Worth it to me.

Fast-forward to several weeks ago: Baen Books released Fledgling in hard-cover with Saltation to follow. Fast-forward a bit more: last week I got my personal signed copy in the mail.

I didn’t do any of the hard work, write anything, talk about it with other fans, nothing. I read the book as it was drafted, and donated a sum I could afford.

Still, I cannot tell you how happy I felt when I held that book in my hands.

So cool!

So to Steve and Sharon, if I (and all your other fans) haven’t said it enough: Thank You!!!!!!!!!!

(And keep writing!)

I went to see this exhibition yesterday at Manchester City Art Gallery.  Surrealism challenges  the order and acceptance of everything.  Logic is turned upside down, inside out, new meanings come into being from unlikely juxtapositions thereby making new art.  Surrealism began in the 1920s led by Andre Breton and fellow writers and artists (including Dali).

the surrealist 1930 -1 a mans world

As can be seen from the original surrealists – it was a man’s world.  Women associated with the artists were usually, girlfriends, wives or muses and they still held submissive roles….  All that was set to change though as women tried to establish themselves as artists instead of models or props.  Untapped and untried talent began to rise to the surface and given freedom of expression succeeded in transforming these former  muses  into artist’s in their own right.

Diego and me by Frida Kahlo, I found this rather touching

A double portrait of Frida Kahlo and her husband  Diego Rivera was the first piece I looked at.  This a painting in oil on wood set in an icon frame.  The face is made up of half of each others face, painted in pinkish/coral and edged with shells.  Though garish, there is something very sweet and romantic about it, like it was made with love.

angel of anarchy by eileen agar

The title of the exhibition ‘Angels of Anarchy’ was taken from a piece of work by Eileen Agar.  Made between 1936 – 40, this head  (one of four, but only two survive) is veiled or swathed in  many different fabrics.  It is a puzzling piece, both passive yet defiant.  There is mystery between these layers.  A sphinx with a secret.  The piece is also very tactile, with the velvet, raised stitching and beads – intriguing.

Leonora Carrington, one of the many women artists featured

Amongst the many themes are the photographs, which must take star place.  Especially interesting are the photographs these women took of each other.   They gaze frankly into the camera, they are not trying to be anything, they just are.  The close friendship between the women shows through.  They are all struggling towards the same cause, not competing with each other.

Lee miller by Man Ray, check out her photographs!

There are quite a number of Lee Miller’s photographs.  Miller, former model and muse to Man Ray became famous as a photographer and produced many powerful pictures.  Lots of Leonora Fini’s work too.  Fini, a cat lover incorporated hybrids of these creatures in her paintings.  This one, ‘Petit Sphinx Hermite’ 1948 includes a sphinx like creature.  She believed that Sphinx’s provided a bridge from this world to the unconscious mind.

Little Hermit sphinx leonora fini

Claude Cahun’s photography is concerned with identity, gender and masks.  Her material is absolutely fascinating and mostly auto biographical.

Claude Cahun, concerned with identity and gender

Other themes are ’still lives’ and women’s spaces.  These spaces do not lie in the home.  Indeed in some photo’s or paintings, rooms are depicted as empty.  Also there are lots of references to birds and cages.  In fact, there was displayed, a head in a cage and a bird trying to get in!  The cleared room also may act as a metaphor for an uncluttered mind, a space to think (without the chores of domesticity?).

a little night music by Dorothea Tanning 1946

Everyone has heard of Merret Oppenheimer (and her fur cup and saucer) there are quite a few not so known pieces in the exhibition by her.  But Mimi Parent,  (1924 – 2005 Canada) I hadn’t heard of before.     Her work has a fetish element to it.  A whip made from hair for example……  Here’s another work by hair (not in the exhibition).  Oh there is so much more to be seen!  Go and enjoy!

mimi parent, interesting: man/woman with a pearl tie pin

Please go if you possibly can, to this wonderful celebration of women surrealist.  Information HERE

Penny Slinger:   A contemporary surrealist.  For the background of this interesting artist click HERE

HERE’S Germaine Greer’s take on Women Surrealist artists…………..

Another of my post about beiing out and about Manchester: ‘Mr Thomas’s Chop House’ HERE

Claude Cahun, Self Portrait, 1927

Angels of Anarchy is a bold, flagrant celebration of female surrealism, proudly bursting out from the shackles tightened by its overbearing male counterpart. For, whilst male surrealism challenged order in art, it accepted domestic tradition. This exhibition unearths the abundance of female surrealist creativity that thus simmered beneath the surface from the 1930s onwards. Works by renowned artists such as Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim and Lee Miller chart the subsequent rise of the surrealist woman.

Split into themes, the exhibition guides you from the seemingly benign, restrictive ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ ideal to a fantasy, dream-like escape. It is an adventure wherein the norms of female subservience are subtly challenged and then aggressively dismissed.

Portrait / Self Portrait is a theme that mocks the notion of the passivity of women, instead offering a variety of photographs and paintings that promote the complexity and fluidity of the female body and mind. Still Life gnaws at the usual banality of still life subject matter. Here, bowls of fruit, upon closer inspection, transform into mucky female genitalia, fiercely biting at the objectification of women. In Landscape, again, erotic body parts are teasingly merged into mountain ranges and deserts, whilst Interior, in which dark and dingy confinements reflect the confinement of the home, is laced with brazen anatomical hint.

Fantasy, however, is the last step of the journey, representing the liberation and potential of the opened female mind. It mixes folklore and myth to provide a stirring and unexpected finale to a collection that was in danger of becoming a little too stern and repetitive. It is a burst of colour that perhaps highlights the exposure of female surrealism that Angels of Anarchy here affords.

The exhibition offers a different side to surrealism. Little mention is given to Picasso or Dali, so those wishing to discover the core of the movement may be best advised to search elsewhere. What it does provide, however, is a glimpse into a background movement that challenged misogynistic artistic norms. And what is surrealism, after all, if not a defiance of the ordinary and accepted?

Flickr

Lee Miller, model turned muse turned prominent World War II photojournalist, in Hitler’s Munich home enjoying a bath at her most legendary. David E. Scherman snapped this photo on April 30, 1945, the same day Hitler committed suicide.

Carolyn Burke, author of Lee Miller: A Life, writes (p. 262): “the elected victims having shed their clothes walked in innocently…Turning on the taps for the bath, they killed themselves.”

This is an image that lasted, this photo was a moment of victory for the victims.

Still, would you get in Hitler’s bathtub for that iconic image?

Hoje em dia, na era da tecnologia digital, o preto e branco muitas vezes desperta sentimentos nostálgicos sobre o século 20, os bons e velhos tempos em que as pessoas liam jornais impressos ou apenas ficavam imaginando como seriam os celulares se fossem equipados com cameras fotográficas. Muitos anos se passaram e mesmo assim muitos artistas ainda utilizam o preto e branco para fins artísticos. É um dos melhores e mais baratos tipos de fotografia para os novatos para testar a sua criatividade. Esta mostra é uma homenagem a esta muitas vezes esquecida e menosprezada arte da fotografia.

Neste post vou apresentar belos exemplos de fotografias  preto e branco. O folheto a seguir se concentra mais na arte e na mente criativa de fotógrafos. Claro, não é a coleção definitiva. Havia muitos mais que não podería cobrir, em um único post. Todas as fotografias estão ligadas ao site do fotógrafo. Por favor, visite seus sites para explorar as habilidades desses artistas.

Aneta Kowalczyk

WWWest

Simon Pais-Thomas

Philipp Klinger

Onabibano

MustafaDedeogLu

MisterKey

Milo Altério

Lee Miller

Drooper

Codrin Lupei

Andrey Vahrushew

Yanire

Softspokenmc

RamonaG

Nick

Navid J

Damien Vassart

Cocoip

The Chariot Race, Alexandar von Wagner – 1882

This one made me chuckle this week and I thought I’d share it with you. Power to Manchester’s grey army for enjoying a bit of culture at Manchester Art Gallery. In fact maybe this lady would be interested the know about one of the next major exhibitions hitting the gallery this month.

Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism kicks off on the 26th of September and runs until the 10th of January 2010. The entry fee is a £6 (with pension friendly concessions at £4) and for this you’ll get to see over 100 works, in a range of media, from artists including Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller and Francesca Woodman.

c/o an untrained eye licensed under Creative Commons.

Lee Miller - Bambini si arrampicano per raggiungere la razione di cioccolato Fred Feekart's dal conducente della jeep - Dinard, France, 1944.

65 anni dopo lo sbarco in Normandia, le Scuderie del Quirinale a Roma hanno celebrato l’anniversario con una mostra, aperta fino al 30 agosto 2009, che raccoglie due serie di scatti che narrano, in modi diversi, quegli eventi e quelli che seguirono, nelle fasi finali della Seconda Guerra Mondiale.

Gli sguardi di due fotografi corrono paralleli lungo le sale dell’esposizione: Lee Miller, americana, fotografa professionista, accreditata al seguito dell’esercito statunitense, e Tony Vaccaro, ventenne americano di origine italiana, soldato-fotografo, raccontano la tragedia della guerra da due punti di vista differenti.

Lee Miller viaggia con la sua Rolleiflex attraverso la Francia, racconta la Saint Malo assediata e colpita col napalm e la Parigi liberata – dove fotografa, tra gli altri, l’amico Picasso – fino alle campagne alsaziane, al Lussemburgo, ed infine alla Germania, dove narra la fine di Hitler e dei campi di concentramento di Buchenwald e Dachau.

Nonostante i militari facciano la loro comparsa in alcune tra le più belle immagini di Lee Miller, gran parte delle sue fotografie esposte ritraggono la gente comune e raccontano la guerra dal loro punto di vista: sfollati che pregano, bambini che fanno a gara per ottenere un po’ di cioccolata o che festeggiano la liberazione di Parigi ballando su un’automobile…

Molto intense sono soprattutto le immagini che raffigurano i bambini, e lasciano immaginare una percezione della guerra certamente per molti versi distante da quella degli adulti, ma certo non meno drammatica: il ritratto di un bambino evacuato, dallo sguardo alquanto sperduto, è tra le immagini che più colpiscono. Ma le immagini più forti tra quelle scattate dalla Miller sono quelle che documentano ciò che resta al momento della liberazione nei campi di concentramento di Buchenwald e Dachau, molto “dirette” nel raffigurare l’orrore.

Tony Vaccaro - Terra di nessuno

Tony Vaccaro sbarca insieme alle truppe a Omaha Beach e, come si legge nelle didascalie della mostra, porta in una mano la macchina fotografica e nell’altra il fucile. Molti dei suoi sono infatti scatti d’azione, legati agli avvenimenti sul campo: raffigurano infatti la morte in battaglia, “l’ultimo passo” di un soldato colpito a morte – un’immagine che ricorda, per certi versi, la celeberrima fotografia del miliziano che cade di Robert Capa – ma anche le lettere che rimarranno non lette, inviate da familiari ignari della morte in guerra dei loro cari.

Ma la guerra del fotografo-soldato Vaccaro non è fatta solo di combattimenti, ma anche di incontri: tra le sue immagini troviamo un soldato che bacia una bambina mentre alcune donne ballano intorno a loro per celebrare la liberazione in Francia, ma anche un militare russo ritratto in un primo piano inquadrato dal basso, come a enfatizzarne l’imponenza.

Tony Vaccaro - Il bacio della liberazione

La mostra è curata da Marco Delogu e Umberto Gentiloni. Il catalogo della mostra, elegante ed essenziale, realizzato in carta riciclata ad eccezione delle pagine su cui sono stampate le fotografie, è pubblicato da punctum e costa 20 euro.

Scatti di guerra. Lee Miller e Tony Vaccaro dallo sbarco in Normandia a Berlino.
Info: Scuderie del Quirinale

The budding photographer had to be educated. The Lee Miller exhibition at Mjellby Konstmuseum seemed a good choice, so we took ourselves off to admire Lee Miller’s famous photos. We’ve been to Mjellby numerous times, but never ‘on foot’, which is sort of interesting seeing as it’s in the middle of fields out in the country. The bus stop isn’t too far away, so we walked along the side of the field.

I got a little annoyed with staff happily trying to charge me double what I should pay to get in. If I can read the sign with ticket prices, then surely so can they?

Lee Miller was interesting, but I should possibly have come equipped with reading glasses to see the photos properly. As usual we arrived just as a guided talk had begun, so as usual we skirted round the large group. They had an interesting looking film on in a side room, but as Daughter pointed out, it lasted 55 minutes, so we only watched for maybe fifteen.

On our way out we came across local artist Thomas Frisk and Mrs Frisk on their way in. It’s always good to know that we go where the professionals go, too. And as I said to Daughter; had we known they were coming we could have hitched a lift. Maybe.

We decided against cups of tea in their very attractive looking café, on the basis that it’s not been good before. Cowardly, I know. Our very first time I was tremendously impressed by asking for a soft drink for Offspring, and being greeted by a blank look of ‘Oh, children. Don’t they drink coffee? Oops, we don’t seem to have anything soft. And no milk.’ To give them their due, someone in the staff sacrificed their own bottle of something fizzy.

Other than special exhibitions Mjellby has a great collection of paintings by Halmstadgruppen. This group of Halmstad artists from mainly the first half of the twentieth century, counts among my more favourite painters, and their work is always worth seeing.

Ieri ho avuto il grande privilegio di conoscere e scambiare quattro chiacchere con il grande fotografo Tony Vaccaro, a Roma per l’inaugurazione della mostra “Scatti di Guerra” alle Scuderie del Quirinale. Una rassegna di scatti storici suoi e di Lee Miller dallo sbarco in Normandia fino alla liberazione di Berlino.

Photography, My Love (Tony Vaccaro ritratto da Andrea Morelli, New York 2005)

Personaggio incredibile. Umano e disponibile come solo chi ha vissuto veramente sa e può essere. Un vero testimone del XX secolo.

Non riporto la sua lunghissima biografia (che comunque vi invito a leggere). Mi limito a due considerazioni.

Nel 1944 partecipò, soldato E fotoreporter, allo sbarco in Normandia. Italoamericano (di origini molisane, ancora oggi parla un buon italiano), ripiombò nella sua Italia, nella quale tornò più volte per testimoniare la ricostruzione dopo la Guerra. La fotografò con gli occhi di chi riesce a scorgere  negli occhi degli uomini quel barlume tenace di bontà, necessario per continuare a sperare in una realtà alternativa.

L’orrore, il male vero e assoluto, Tony Vaccaro l’ha visto davvero negli occhi. La distruzione l’ha vissuta. Ma, a dispetto di questo drammatico scenario, ciò che con più forza emerge dai suoi scatti è un senso tangibile di speranza, serenità e rinascita, quasi che l’aver vissuto sulla propria pelle l’orrore della guerra lo spinga, appunto, a cercare nel “dopo” la speranza, consapevole della forza e dell’impatto delle sue fotografie.

Cito da un suo libro alcuni ricordi di guerra e di quello che, da giovane fotoreporter, ha dovuto fare – durante le operazioni militari – per sviluppare le sue foto e come mai alcuni suoi celebri scatti appaiono “rovinati” e graffiati:

“Durante la battaglia del villaggio di Sainteny, in Normandia, mi trovai nelle rovine di una casa senza tetto e vidi fra un mucchio di pietre e polvere un pacchetto con su scritto a mano ‘Hydroquinone’ (alla High School il maestro, Mr. Lewis, mi aveva insegnato la formula per preparare lo sviluppo Kodak D-76, che contiene, appunto, l’Hydroquinone). Guardai intorno, e fra i rumori dell’artiglieria e dei fucili, realizzai di trovarmi tra le rovine di un negozio di fotografia. Cercai e trovai altri pacchetti di sostanze che mi sarebbero servite sia per sviluppare le pellicole che per il fissaggio. L’unico contenitore per sviluppare i miei rullini era il mio elmetto. Ma ne servivano cinque: quello con lo sviluppo, il D-76, poi l’acqua, l’iposolfito, l’acqua per il primo lavaggio dell’iposolfito e, alla fine, un secondo lavaggio più lungo. Per questo avevo preso un elmetto da un cadavere che mi stava vicino. Senza termometro e senza bilancia ho sviluppato il primo rullo di notte, a cielo aperto, tenendo le estremità della pellicola con le due mani e facendola scorrere su e giù per 11 minuti, quanto era necessario per svilupparla. Al termine del lavaggio, appendevo la pellicola sui rami degli alberi e, la mattina dopo, il negativo era pronto“.

e inoltre:

“Le pellicole che sviluppavo le portavo sempre con me, nello zaino, ma man mano che aumentavano facevano sempre più volume. Così, quando arrivammo a Parigi, in un teatro distrutto dai bombardamenti trovai uno di quei reel che si usavano per avvolgere le pellicole cinematografiche; la larghezza era la stessa, 35mm. In questa grande bobina avvolsi allora tutte le mie pellicole, una dietro l’altra, man mano che le sviluppavo. Ma per farcele entrare tutte le dovevo tirare, così la polvere e l’umidità crearono delle irrimediabili micro-rigature. Nelle stampe si notano, ma io li ho considerati segni lasciati dalla guerra, come ferite indelebili“.

 Leggendo questo aneddoto, guardando questa foto e ricordando l’espressione che ieri lui ha fatto quando gli ho detto che spesso scatto ancora con una vecchia F2 a pellicola, mi ha fatto capire quanto romanitica possa essere la vulnerabilità stessa della pellicola. Quei graffi suoi scatti sembrano delle ferite. Un negativo brutalmente ferito dalle circostanze ha senz’altro più forza di un asettico click digitale (dal quale, peraltro, non possiamo prescindere oggi).

No Man's Land (Tony Vaccaro)

Perdonate la deriva amarcord….

Ultimo aneddoto. Gustatevi questo video nel quale lo stesso Tony Vaccaro illustra una delle sue foto più famose:

Ve lo riassumo in poche righe. La foto prende il nome, Tannebaum, del soldato ritratto morto e supino nella neve delle Ardenne in Belgio. Vaccaro simboleggia, con le sue parole, la “dignità della morte”. Salto la descrizione dell’episodio in se’ (e vi rimando al video) per soffermarmi sul…lieto fine (!).

A distanza di anni, Vaccaro ricevette una telefonata. Era il figlio di quel Tannebaum. Gli chiese di accompagnarlo in Belgio nel punto in cui il padre fu ucciso. Lo fecero.

Arrivati lì, al posto del gande campo di grano, c’era una bosco di piccoli abeti.

Cercarono e trovarono il proprietario del terreno, gli mostrarono la foto (che nel frattempo aveva vinto numerosi premi, tra cui quella di miglior foto del XX secolo secondo un famoso quotidiano tedesco) e gli chiesero come mai al posto del campo di grano vi fosse un bosco.

Il giovane proprietario li informò che non si trattava di un bosco vero e proprio. Vi crescevano abeti poi esportati in Spagna e Portogallo, a dicembre, come alberi di Natale. Un bel business…

Gli occhi di Vaccaro brillano al ricordo degli attimi di silenzio che intercorsero in quel momento…

Tannebaum significa, in tedesco…..albero di Natale.

Antonio

PS Tony Vaccaro, al quale ho parlato brevemente del progetto Shoot For Change, mi ha invitato giovedì prossimo all’inaugurazione di un’altra mostra con i suoi scatti del dopoguerra italiano. Spero di esserci per approfondire la conoscenza di questo straordinario personaggio.

I’ve been reading a really interesting biography of the American photographer, Lee Miller, who was one of the first female photographers to emerge in the 1920s and 1930s. She was a war correspondent and photographed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. If you want to see some of Miller’s truly outstanding photos, go here. So my head has been in the WWII era and I did a search for wartime photographs as I love the era of black and white film photography. I am now working with B&W film (you can access my Flickr photos by scrolling down the right hand panel of this blog).

Anyway, my search turned up some amazing photos, particularly some unseen photographs of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi era that have recently come to light. Hugo Jaeger was Hitler’s personal photographer and snapped photos between 1936 and Hitler’s death in 1945. As often seems to happen, Jaegar hid his colour transparencies in a leather suitcase (I say often because thousands of Robert Capa’s negatives were hidden away in a Mexican suitcase and, although a writer not a photographer, Irene Nemirovky’s manuscript of Suite Française, was rediscovered in the late 1990s by her daughter). It strikes me that rare talent is often secreted away in a suitcase or lost manuscript.

So Jaeger’s transparencies were hidden because he feared they would be destroyed following the downfall of the Nazi regime. And here’s the interesting part – in 1945, six US soldiers searched the house near Munich where the transparencies were being safeguarded. They found the suitcase, opened it and scoffed the bottle of cognac that Jaeger had placed in the suitcase with the transparencies (sharing the bottle with Jaeger I might add). They left, forgetting the rest of the suitcase’s contents, and Jaegar proceeded to hide the transparencies in 12 glass jars, buried on the outskirts of Munich. Love this sort of story!

Then…after WWII, he revisited the spot where he’d buried the glass jars, dug them up and reburied them in a new spot. In 1955, he retrieved some 2000 transparencies and popped them into a bank vault until 1965 when he sold them to Life magazine.  I’m not sure if Life ever published them but they have now been published to coincide with the 65th anniversary of D-Day (June 6). The colour photos show the private life of Hitler; some incredible interior shots of Berghof, Hitler’s mountain estate in Bavaria and his residence in Berlin. You can see all the photos here but these are the ones I found most fascinating:

Adolf Hitler chats with several young women on a promenade of the German cruise ship Robert Ley (named after a prominent Nazi labor leader) on its maiden voyage on April 1st, 1939.

Inside Hitler’s apartment – his room in his Berlin apartment reflects Hitler’s baroque, often sentimental taste. Don’t know about you, but I’ve never stopped to think of what his interior design taste was like. I can’t quite reconcile the soft, elegant shapes with Hitler I’m afraid.

This is an amazing photo – sentries guarding the entrance to Adolf Hitler’s office in the Chancellery. Hitler was obsessed with over-sized architecture and overly grand monuments that would awe and humble any visitor.

Source: The Telegraph. Photos: Hugo Jaeger/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

I came across some more remarkable WWII photos. Check this stunning shot of a United States Air Transport Command plane flying over the pyramids in Egypt in 1943:

And this one of US paratroopers over Holland – 1st Allied Airborne Army. September 1944.

You can see more incredible WWII photos at WW2 in Color.

On May 25th, Memorial Day, Pricketts Fort held observances in memory of the men from Pricketts Fort who served in the following wars: the French & Indian War, Pontiac’s Uprising, Lord Dunmore’s War and the American Revolution. The ceremony also memorialized the descendents of these men who served in the Civil War.

At the time of the French & Indian War and Pontiac’s Uprising, Pricketts Fort was not yet in existence, but Jacob Prickett and his two compatriots, James Chew and Zacquill Morgan, participated in these wars while serving in the Frederick County militia in Virginia in the 1760s. These three men would go on to organize the civilian militia on Jacob Prickett’s land at the confluence of Pricketts Creek and the Monongahela River a decade later.

The original refuge fort on Prickett’s land was built by civilian militia in the spring and early summer of 1774 in response to an uprising of the Mingo and Shawnee tribes sparked by the murder of Chief Logan’s family by a band of rogue frontiersmen. This would lead in turn to Lord Dunmore’s War, in which the Pricketts Fort militia were active participants.

During the Revolutionary War, the Pricketts Fort militia participated in putting down a Tory uprising in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and in campaigns to suppress Native hostilities.

As part of the Memorial Day observances, four stations were set up near and in the fort, representing the French & Indian War,

Lord Dunmore’s War,

the Revolutionary War

and the Civil War,

manned by historical interpreters with an in-depth knowledge of those conflicts. Visitors with an interest in any of these wars could engage in conversation with the interpreters and examine a blanket filled with articles that a soldier in any of these wars would have carried.

On the hour at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., the following brief address was given to an assembly of visitors in front of the fort gate:

“Traditionally, Memorial Day has been an occasion not only of remembering our war dead, but also an occasion for forgiveness, for putting old enmities to rest, for burying the hatchet.