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Salters Scene: Dancing On The Hudson

By in Photography

Salters Scene: Dancing On The Hudson

By Udo Salters

It has been on and poppin every Sunday in June, including on June 16th, 2024.  

Pier I in Riverside Park along the Hudson River, is the location for the Summer on the Hudson: Let’s Dance! event.

This free Sunday event was perfect!  The weather was warm and DJ Pedro-S, sounds were on point!

Related: See more photographs by Udo Salters Salters Scene.

The collaboration between Piel Canela Dance Company and Summer on the Hudson brings together an outdoor space, music and instructors to lead free Salsa and Bachata classes.

Whether you’re a complete beginner or looking to brush up on your skills, these classes are designed to get you moving and have fun.

In addition to the dance lessons there were two Bachata and one Afro Cuban dance performance with dancers from the Piel Canela Dance Company.

After the performances and dance lessons, it was time to put to use everything seen and learned earlier. DJ Pedro-S let the beats play and everyone on dance floor kept it moving. 

A great event to listen to music, dance, meet people, eat and see the sunset.

Check the NYC Parks website for different events going on throughout the summer at https://www.nycgovparks.org/events

Udo Salters

Udo Salters was born and raised in New York City. His love for photography began as a youth when he started taking photos of friends and family at various events. In a natural transition, his passion turned from shooting images of fashion models and fashion shows to jetting around Harlem to Hollywood creating images of celebrities and socialites at some of the most exclusive hot spots. He has worked for many outlets locally with Harlem World Magazine, Fortune 500 companies, and many other various media outlets. He currently resides in NYC. Get more information at Udo Salters Photography.

Photo credit: by Udo Salters.

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‘Her whole future ahead of her’: Photographer captures Manitoba graduate posing on iceberg

By in Photography

‘Her whole future ahead of her’: Photographer captures Manitoba graduate posing on iceberg
image

Some say a photograph is simply a memory frozen in time – and a high school graduation photo taken in Churchill, Man. takes that adage to a completely new level.

Photographer Brandy Bloxom captured Emily Dingwall, a graduate of Duke Marlborough School, posing on an iceberg near picturesque Hudson Bay Beach on Sunday, July 7.

Bloxom, a self-taught photographer who lives in Denare Beach, Sask., travelled to Churchill for an Indigenous women’s conference and took the opportunity to fulfill a photography dream.

She put out a call on social media looking for a subject and said Dingwall jumped at the chance.

“I said, ‘Would you like to step on an iceberg? It’ll take two seconds if you want – this would be epic,’” Bloxom told CTV News. “She was game for it and she was just thrilled.”

While the photo makes Dingwall seem like she’s floating in the middle of nowhere, Bloxom said the chunk of ice was only about 15 feet away from the shoreline.

“[The water] was basically up to her mid-calf,” Bloxom explained. “But the angles and lighting… make it look like she’s way out in the middle of Hudson Bay – but it’s the tricks.”

Bloxom said the water was calm during the photo shoot, which helped create the glassy, mirrored image. She said she wanted to depict what it’s like to grow up in a place like Churchill.

“It shows the difficulties, the coldness, and the hardships,” Bloxom said. “But yet… she has her whole future ahead of her – she’s got this background of solid people and a solid community.”

Bloxom grew up in Leaf Rapids, Man., though her roots trace back to York Factory First Nation southeast of Churchill. She described the trip to Churchill as a learning experience and a way to connect her family’s past.

“What you see in books and everything is polar bears and whales, but there’s so much more to it,” she explained. “The people are amazing. The landscape over at the Churchill Flats looks like the east coast of Newfoundland. It’s just beautiful.”

Bloxom said her next dream is to photograph Inuit communities in the Arctic.

When what you see is what you buy

By in Photography

When what you see is what you buy

NEW YORK — Consider a pair of words that begin with “a”: art and advertising. You might say that they’re oranges and apples (speaking of words that begin with “a”). Well, yes and no. The two are wildly different, to be sure. But they can also overlap. When they do, the results are always interesting — and often memorable.

Observing instances of overlap, as well as their absence, is one of the pleasures afforded by “The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography.” It runs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Aug. 4. Under the thematic circumstances, “The Real Thing” is a nicely provocative title. The show, which includes some 60 items, focuses on the first century of photography, from the 1840s to 1940s, with one ringer from the ‘50s.

F.D. Hampson, “Panama Hats,” from a Sloan-Force Co. catalog, ca. 1916.Metropolitan Museum of Art

Art, photographic and otherwise, is about means: the elaboration of style. What makes something art is how that something is done, not its what or who or why. Advertising is about ends, or, rather, a single end: pushing a product. As the Hungarian photographic team Révész-Biró once put it, advertising “creates great people, dictates the fashions, brings renown and success, boom or depression, and, last but not least, sells the goods.”

If art provides an advertiser with a useful means toward achieving that end, then so be it. A style such as Surrealism or Constructivism or a technique such as photo-montage, each very much avant-garde in the years between the two world wars, was quickly, and happily, adopted by advertising. Might “co-opted” or “subverted” be more accurate? That would be a pretty hifalutin view to take, since the results could be so striking, even, yes, artistic. It would be hard to dispute that during those years advertising did more to introduce more people to Modernism than, say, the Museum of Modern Art did.

Ralph Bartholomew Jr., “Soap Packaging,” 1936.Ralph Bartholomew,© Estate of Ralph Bartholomew, Courtesy Keith de Lellis Gallery, NY

Curated by the Met’s Virginia McBride, “The Real Thing” is arranged thematically even as it follows a largely chronological course. Some product photography shows its subject in solitary splendor (“The Isolated Object”), some shows it en masse (“The Array”), some implies narrative (”The Tableau”). These categories are illuminating. That description applies to the wall text, too. One learns, for example, that it wasn’t until the 1920s, that it became less expensive to use photographs rather an illustrations in an advertisement. Thus was created “an expanded vocabulary of visual persuasion.” Or there’s this description of Penn’s celebrated spilled still life, “Theatre Accident, New York,” “Part autopsy, part ‘I Spy.’” That’s writing as stylish as it is insightful.

August Sander, “Osram Light Bulbs,” ca. 1930.© Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Cologne / ARS, NY 2024

There are familiar names in “The Real Thing” you might expect: famous photographers known for their advertising work, such as Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, and Paul Outerbridge. There are familiar names you likely wouldn’t: famous photographers not known for their advertising work, such as James Van Der Zee, August Sander, and André Kertész.

Murray Duitz, “A.S. Beck ‘Executive’ Shoe,” 1957.© Estate of Murray Duitz

The Kertész in the show belongs to a category of one. Call it product photography ex post facto. The photo is Kertész’s almost-preposterously elegant image of a fork, a plate, and the shadows cast by each. Seeing it, a German silverware company had the canny idea to use it in an ad.

Finally, there are photographs from unfamiliar names: Ralph Bartholomew Jr., Adolph Lazi, Murray Duitz, and Grancel Fitz. Bartholomew’s packages of soap, Lazi’s industrial equipment, Duitz’s men’s shoe (which rivals that Kertész cutlery in elegance), and Fitz’s tooth paste tube and brush are beneficiaries of the artistic impulse Outerbridge articulated in 1922, just as product photography was getting into high gear: “I have attempted to interpret the beauty of the simplest and humblest of objects.”

Unknown, “Montage for Packard Super Eight,” ca. 1940.Metropolitan Museum of Art

Among other products included here, some humble, some not, are candy, cigarettes, disinfectant powder, perfume, tombstones, Panama hats, drill bits, textiles, whiskey, margarine, rolling papers, a pocket comb, toilet paper, coffee, light bulbs, wigs, switch plates, and, inevitably, automobiles. (What is it about cars and cameras?) Implicit in the pictured products being so varied is an important point: So long as there’s a profit to be made, selling ignores hierarchy. Maybe this is where art and advertising most fundamentally differ. One is inherently aristocratic, the other is as democratic as a dollar bill.

Of course dollar bills crumple and tear and, thanks to inflation, lose their value. Art is sturdier than one might think. That’s another unexpected lesson “The Real Thing” has to offer. Who remembers such once-famous brands as Ipana toothpaste, Packard automobiles, the A&P supermarket chain, or AT&T’s Bell System? All of them figure in the show. They’re all gone, but the images promoting them endure. An ancient adage comes to mind, a usefully updated caution for a neoliberal age: ars longa, commerce brevis.

THE REAL THING: Unpackaging Product Photography

At Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., New York, through Aug. 4. 212-535-7710, www.metmuseum.org

Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.

Artist transcends traditional notions of Native American art

By in Native

Artist transcends traditional notions of Native American art

Whether in a somber performance in the National Portrait Gallery or in her wry takes on Native humor, Anna Tsouhlarakis follows her heart

Anna Tsouhlarakis was a self-described “math and science nerd” in high school, even representing the United States at the International Science and Engineering Fair in her senior year. But while studying at Dartmouth College, she took classes that interested her, particularly studio art and Native American Studies.

“That’s where my heart was—and still is,” Tsouhlarakis says. Math and science nerds might not be expected to love art, but following her heart—and contravening stereotypes—was a wise choice.

In recent years, Tsouhlarakis’ art has appeared as a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and New York City’s Independent Art Fair, and it has appeared in Switzerland, Greece, Canada and in dozens of venues in the United States. In 2023, she performed and exhibited her work in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Anna Tsouhlarakis’ “She Must Be a Matriarch” sculpture, part of the “Indigenous Absurdities” exhibition. (Photo: Wes Magyar)

Just as she broadened the notion of what might interest a budding scientist, she now transcends stereotypes of what constitutes Native American art. Tsouhlarakis, an assistant professor of art and art history at the University of Colorado Boulder, works in sculpture, installation, video and performance and is of Navajo, Creek and Greek descent.

At the National Portrait Gallery, her work drew on those strengths and backgrounds. There, she performed and showed Portrait of an Indigenous Womxn [Removed], which commemorated murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.

In 2018, the Urban Indian Health Institute released an extensive study on missing and murdered indigenous women. As of 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women, but only 116 were logged into the Department of Justice’s database, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

“I knew there was nobody more important that I could highlight in terms of their story,” Tsouhlarakis observed. Her work featured missing-person posters of indigenous women. In a video recording of one performance, she carries a sculpture topped with a poster seeking information about Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, who was murdered in 2019 in Montana.

Tsouhlarakis notes that most of her art is not activist, but rather expands upon long-held expectations of Native American art. Her father is a Navajo silversmith, and she grew up going with him to art markets, shows and galleries.

“There was this expectation of Native art to always be beautiful, and for the aesthetic to be very perfect and for it to be very serious,” she observed, adding that she rebelled against those expectations.

Anna Tsouhlarakis at National Portrait Gallery

Performance of Anna Tsouhlarakis “Portrait of an Indigenous Womxn [Removed]” (2023) at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. (Photo: Matailong Du/courtesy Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)

“I want to make things that question that expectation of Native American art, and for me, humor does that as well.” That humor was evident in her 2023 exhibition titled “Indigenous Absurdities,” at MCA Denver.

Tsouhlarakis, who is the mother of three young children, described a key moment in which Native humor seemed an obvious way to frame Native art. While at a powwow in Montana, she overheard two Crow women conversing.

“One said, ‘You never come by to see me,’ and the other responded that she didn’t know where she lived,” Tsouhlarakis told a New York writer. “Then, one said that the other didn’t ever call them, and she said: ‘Well, you don’t even have a phone.’ Then they just burst out laughing—like almost falling off the bench.”

Such everyday observations underlie textual work like HER FRYBREAD ISN’T THAT GOOD and HER BRAIDS ARE ALWAYS TOO LOOSE. Humor, Tsouhlarakis noted, is a good coping mechanism in times of hardship, which Native communities know very well.

Tsouhlarakis’ art has been recognized and supported by a host of organizations. This year, she won a Corrina Mehl Fellowship from S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and she’s also been recognized with more than two dozen other awards and fellowships. Also this year, she has artist residencies in New Hampshire and Maine.

In addition to her BA from Dartmouth, Tsouhlarakis holds an MFA from Yale University. She joined the CU Boulder faculty in 2019.

Top image: Performance of Anna Tsouhlarakis’ “Portrait of an Indigenous Womxn [Removed]” (2023) at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. (Photo: Matailong Du/courtesy Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)

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Photographer who captured the spirit of the American cowboy to speak at Jace Romick Gallery

By in Photography

Photographer who captured the spirit of the American cowboy to speak at Jace Romick Gallery

Norm Clasen wasn’t a Marlboro Man, but the images he captured were at the core of the advertising campaign, created by Leo Burnett Worldwide, that captured the spirit of the American cowboy for nearly 50 years.

“They tried a lumberjack, they tried a motorcycle rider and they tried a football player,” Clasen said. “They tried all these themes that they thought would appeal to men — but none of it worked. Then they saw the cover of Life Magazine with a cowboy on it, and they said, ‘um, cowboy.’ They had found their theme, and that theme lasted for 50 years uninterrupted, and it was the most iconic ad campaign in history.“

On Saturday, Clasen, who turns 85 this month, will be in Steamboat Springs at the Jace Romick Gallery (833 Lincoln Ave.). Owner Jace Romick said Clasen is slated to speak at 6 p.m. or shortly after. The conversation will cover the photographer’s work, and he will also answer questions.

Romick said in addition to recognizable advertising campaigns, Clasen has also captured images around the world, and currently has a half-dozen limited-edition prints in the Jace Romick Gallery.

“I’m just honored to feature Norm’s work,” Romick said. “Norm’s work is as iconic as you can get, including the Marlboro Man collection. But the other thing most people people are not aware of is that he did a lot of the Lange boot company advertisements in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the iconic Lange posters were his work.”

Clasen grew up in Southern California, where he was connected to ranching and the Western lifestyle. He attended the University of Colorado and had dreams of breaking into a talent-packed Buffaloes ski team, coached by Bob Beattie, that included the likes of Billy Kidd, Jimmie Heuga, Buddy Werner and Spider Sabich.

Clasen said he realized quickly that he couldn’t keep up with these speedsters, and he still recalls the day coach Beattie patted him on the back and said, “I don’t think you are going to make it.”

Nonetheless, he kept his love of skiing and the outdoors. After he graduated, he moved to Aspen in 1962, where he taught skiing.

“I realized that if I was going to teach skiing the rest of my life, I would have a short time living in Aspen,” Clasen said. “My dad was an illustrator, and I came from a pretty strong graphic background, so I opened up a little design studio doing the typical things that came along in the ski area in those days — designing menus, logos and brochures for the lodges and stuff like that.“

This photograph was taken by Norm Clasen, the principal photographer for the Marlboro Man advertising campaign that ran from the 1950s until the late 1990s.
Tim Murphy/Jace Romick Gallery

Clasen also realized he wasn’t seeing the kind of photography he needed and wanted. He decided to pick up a camera to see if he could do better.

“Give me a camera, and I’ll figure this out,” Clasen remembers thinking to himself. “Needless to say it took a little longer than I thought, but I started doing my own stuff, and before long, some of that stuff was being published in magazines in Europe, and wherever ski photography was.”

In the years that followed, Clasen grabbed the attention of outdoor companies like Smith, Demetre, Head skis and Lange — a new boot company that was looking to promote the world’s first plastic molded ski boots, which were manufactured in Dubuque, Iowa.

During that run, Clasen also connected with Marlboro, and company representatives asked him if he might know of a location where they could photograph a cowboy bringing a tree back home after cutting it down for a holiday season advertisement they were creating.

Clasen arranged for a small cabin near Aspen where the image was made, and that led to an opportunity to do a test shot for the agency — and then the first of many assignments he would take to help Philip Morris with the image for the Marlboro Man campaign

“Their photos had a look,” Clasen said. “They wanted their pictures to have a timeless look, a little bit soft, a little bit grainy. They had to be a little bit dusty and dirty, so that when you were going through a magazine and you came across a Marlboro advertisement, you knew immediately what that was.”

He said it took some work and some time before he could tap into it, but once he understood the timeless feeling of the old West that the company wanted, he was on board. He used his experience and knowledge of ranching to gain the trust of the cowboys he worked with, and used his skills with camera and film to create the look the advertising agency wanted.

“Obviously in those days, it was all analog cameras and all film, 35-millimeter film,” Clasen said. “The images were all shot on shot Ektachrome, because the film had that sort of grainy look anyway. So when you pushed it in your processing, you could get the grain to pop up a little bit, and you could get that rugged look. It took a while for me to get into that, and Leo Burnett was instrumental, helping me get there.”

This Saturday, Clausen will share stories of how the Marlboro Man was created, and give insight into his art and how it influenced one of the most iconic advertising campaigns of all time. Clasen said he has never smoked, and is often asked if he feels any guilt from promoting a company that produced cigarettes.

“I never really considered that what I was doing was something that was illegal, or something that was really going to harm people,” Clasen said. “I’m a professional photographer and I just wanted to do my job and do it well.“

John F. Russell is the business reporter at the Steamboat Pilot & Today. To reach him, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.

Photography entries prove to be rewarding for many

By in Photography

Photography entries prove to be rewarding for many

Pictured, from the left, are the Best of Show Winners: Becky Nicholl, Hazel Rutan, and Dennis Schaub. (EXAMINER PHOTO | NIKKI BURKHAMER)

By Nikki Burkhamer

Examiner Contributor 

Kelly Sage, owner of Kelly’s Photography, had an afternoon full of deciding where more than 180 photos would place in this year’s competitive open class photography contest Sunday, July 7, at the Logan County Fair. 

“I hope I didn’t upset anybody. It was ridiculously hard to choose,” Sage said.  

Three local young people represented the Youth Class categories. Hazel Rutan was “feeling pretty happy” when she was awarded Best of Show for her photo of A Highland Cow from Pfarr Farms.

“This was the first trip that I was on that I used a digital camera,” she beamed. Hazel will be a sixth-grader at Bellefontaine Middle School this fall. 

Malory Vickery was one of the two Reserve Best of Show winners in this youth category.  Though she has only been practicing photography for a couple of months, her photo of a deer that was taken outside of her own home, garnered quite an award.  This made the student, who attends St. Ignatius School of Cincinnati, very happy.  Also awarded a Reserve Best of Show Ribbon-Youth was Max Noe. 

Becky Nicholl won the Best of Show-Color for the pink rose with two bees that she captured. Becky has been taking pictures for over 40 years.  

When asked how she felt about winning Best of Show, she answered, “I’m pretty proud. I had six ribbons, and my husband had five. I beat him by one ribbon. So, we did pretty good together,” she giggled.  

“Just keep trying and you’ll win a ribbon,” she added.  

Gary Kauffman was awarded Reserve Best of Show-Color for his owl entry.  When asked where he took his photo, he said he wanted to keep that a secret, but it was taken in a wooded area in Logan County.   

“I’ve been entering photos in the Logan County Fair for over 30 years,” he said. 

Also, the Best of Show-Black and White was given to Denis Schaub.  Reserve Best of Show-Black and White was awarded to Tanner Hurley.  

Photography Judge Sage stated,  “I’m feeling pretty emotional because I was looking for a story,” and she found that story in Tanner’s poignant photo that was taken during his grandfather’s funeral.  

“When I made that picture the Reserve Winner, I knew I wanted to talk to that photographer,” Kelly said. 

Tanner, who will be a junior at Calvary Christian, this fall, had much to say about the man he memorialized in this award-winning picture. Ernie Sharp passed away after suffering with cancer for over a year. 

“He meant a lot to the community.  He was really fond of his ‘Hot Rod’,” Tanner stated with dignity.  “When he left family events he would always burn out as he was leaving. His final ride was really great,” Tanner shared. 

Mr. Sharp’s casket was placed in the back of his vintage truck, and he was transported to his burial place by his beloved vehicle.  This is what Tanner photographed with his own phone. 

“It meant a lot to everyone because he loved his truck so much. They burned out in front of his house, too. It was sentimental.”  

Pictured are the Reserve Best of Show, from the left, Tanner Hurley, Malory Vickery, and Gary Kauffman. (EXAMINER PHOTO | NIKKI BURKHAMER)

Best cameras for photography to take professional quality snaps

By in Photography

Best cameras for photography to take professional quality snaps
ES Best

When setting out to list the best cameras for photography, you have to ask yourself: what kind of photography?

The camera you want to shoot fast-moving athletes at the Olympics will be different to the one you set on a tripod to create fine art images or crisp portraits, and you might want something different again if you’re trekking through the forests of Borneo in search of a kind of monkey many think is already extinct.

Luckily, there are lots of cameras out there, and there’s always going to be one that will suit your needs. There are flagship models that combine high image resolution with fast frame rates (although in the case of Canon, this camera – expected to be the EOS R1 – has yet to actually be released) that can tackle just about anything for a high price, and then there are more specialised models such as Sony’s Alpha 9 III which does one thing extremely well. There are cheaper hybrids that are flexible and allow you to shoot video too, or models that forego the high framerate in favour of exceptional resolution to bring out the smallest details.

If you’re buying one of the best cameras for photography, there’s always more to it than just getting the camera body. You’ll need lenses too, and memory cards capable of keeping up with the camera’s frame rate. You’ll need a bag to keep it all in, batteries, chargers, a tripod and more. You’re not just buying a camera, you’re investing in a system, and your choice of body will dictate the lenses available to you (Sony’s E-mount has many third-party manufacturers producing autofocus lenses for it, while Canon’s RF mount has almost none). 

Here, then, are some of the best cameras available today for photography, though you’ll be able to shoot video with all of them too.

Best cameras for photography at a glance:

Find out more below

You’re probably carrying a camera in your pocket right now, but if you want to get the very best from your still photographs, then one of these cameras is the way to do it.

Almost all modern digital cameras will shoot video as well, but camera bodies such as the Sony Alpha 7 IV balance this with a commitment to the art of still image creation which means its high-resolution sensor (and the expensive lenses you’ll want to buy to make the most of it) won’t go to waste.

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