Photographers and Martha’s Vineyard, Part II

First I would like to thank Stephen DiRado for making this blog’s inaugural comment and for directing my attention to other photographers who have worked on the Vineyard, particularly Les Krims. Krims has some of the best titles I’ve seen.

Acolyte Hillary Clinton Supporter Wearing a Minnie Mouse Shirt Looks On in Disgust as a New World’s Record Is Set in a Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest by a Young Republican Boy—a Hazy Day, the Allen Farm, Chilmark, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, July 1994, Les Krims

Cigar-Smoking Shark Tournament Contestant with His Head in the Mouth of His Catch Some Years Before the Imposition of Politically Correct Anti-Smoking Laws, at the Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament, Martha’s Vineyard, The People’s Republic of Massachusetts, Summer, 1994, Les Krims

Affluent Children Dressed by their Parents in Absurd Outfits, Already Displaying Scatterbrain Sexuality, Disdain, and Lust, 4th of July, Edgartown, Massachusetts, 1989, Les Krims

Also, as I was looking around at other photographers, I remembered Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life photographer and long-time summer resident. Eisenstaedt probably falls into the (here for examples). The reason I bring him up is for yet another photograph of that oak tree in West Tisbury.

Giant Oak Tree, North Tisbury 1969, Alfred Eisenstaedt

Photographers and Martha’s Vineyard

I’m on the Martha’s Vineyard for about a week visiting the folks and doing some shooting. Being here got me thinking about photographers who are working here now and who have worked here in the past. They basically fall into two categories, the photographers who photograph the Vineyard and those who photograph on the Vineyard. What I mean by this is that for some photographers the fact that the photographs are taken on the Vineyard is essential and for others it’s secondary. Alison Shaw definitely photographs the Vineyard. From early in my consciousness of photography I remember her work as an editorial photographer for the Vineyard Gazette and maybe that’s why I still prefer the graphic reductive simplicity of her black and white work.

Stephen DiRado, on the other hand, photographs on the Vineyard. I first learned of DiRado’s work on Alec Soth’s blog (here) and was reminded of him in last Friday’s edition of the Vineyard Gazette (Sept. 14, 2007). The article focused on DiRado’s Jump series and the difficulty he has had showing in Vineyard galleries. This difficulty, I think, is due to the fact that his work isn’t explicitly about the Vineyard and thus gallery owners think that it won’t sell. Interestingly, the series made me think of another photographer who worked on the Vineyard, Aaron Siskind, and his series Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation.

from Jump by Stephen DiRado

Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation, No. 474 by Aaron Siskind

I don’t think the Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation were shot on the Vineyard, but I do know that Siskind photographed sea weed abstractions, stone walls and other things, including the tree below on the island.

The Tree, Martha’s Vineyard, 1973 by Aaron Siskind

This tree is in the town I grew up in. I rode by it on my bike on the way to kindergarten. It’s across the street from where the bakery we bought cinnamon rolls used to be. Branches have come off in big storms. Here is what it looks like today.

Tree, 2007, Michael Silva

In the Galleries: Photography, Taxonomy and Evolution

The first Thursday of each month is the day that many galleries open new shows in San Francisco, so Friday I went to see a few.

At the Togonon Gallery there is a show called Elusive Subjects which has work from James Welling, Jun Shiraoka, Sanna Kannisto and Hiroyo Kaneko.

Jun Shiraoka, Yokohama, Japan, November 2, 1996

Hiroyo Kaneko

James Welling, 031, 2006

Welling’s abstract plant forms bring to mind the work of Anna Atkins at the very beginning of photographic experimentation. The difference being that Welling’s aim is to create art and Atkins’, as a botanist, aim was to make a record of the plants form for scientific purposes.

Anna Atkins, Woodland Horsetail (Equisetum sylvaticum)

From it’s earliest days photography and science have been linked. Not only through it’s mechanical and chemical nature, but through a desire to categorize and catalog. Kannisto plays with this relation by “borrowing methods of representation, as well as working methods, from the natural sciences, from anthropological and archaeological practices” when she is making her art.

Sanna Kannisto, Leptophis ahaetulla, 2006

Another reference to 19th century science (this time to Darwin) occurred at Stephen Wirtz Gallery with the non-photographic work of Misako Inaoka. Her sculpture/installation work, The Origin of Species, is a charming combination of Frankensteinian creatures living in a Seussian world.

Misako Inaoka, Evolution Tree, 2007

Misako Inaoka, Feet-antler, (Deer), 2007