Photography

In pictures: The chaos and euphoria of Primavera 2024

By in Photography

In pictures: The chaos and euphoria of Primavera 2024

Photographer and Dazed Clubber Gracie Brackstone reports back from this year’s Primavera Sound Barcelona

31May 2024

Armed with a camera and a ticket to Primavera Sound Barcelona, Dazed Clubber Gracie Brackstone was on a mission to “capture how festivals are playgrounds for adults and allow us to try on different forms of self expression”. Featuring headliners SZA, FKA Twigs, Charli XCX and Mitski, amongst others, Primavera has been dubbed “Europe’s Coachella”, regularly attracting sun and fun seekers in the hundreds of thousands.

It was the first major festival globally to categorically commit to gender-equal line ups, and the only one so far to receive the Queer Destinations Committed distinction. It is no surprise, then, that it has formed somewhat of a home away from home for Brackstone and her utopian party troupe. “To be honest, I feel like half of Manchester’s queer community are at Primavera right now,” she laughs. “It’s full of the same colourful outfits, cowboy hats and ‘slut’ tops.”

Brackstone honed her practice during nights amid the unbridled self-expression of Manchester’s gay village with her community of creatives. Her recent photo book, Life’s a Parade, holds these experiences at its core. “Everything is beautiful if you cherish it”, she explains. “The book is a reminder that despite the tears and the breakdowns, my life is so wonderful and precious that it would be a shame if I didn’t shove my camera in my friends’ faces every day.”

Given that, for Brackstone, life itself is literally a parade, Primavera offers the perfect environment for her to work her magic. “Not to say that people in Manchester aren’t, but I think people abroad are free-er and don’t care as much about their appearance,” she says of her experiences at the festival so far. “In the UK we all have developed a kind of shyness or a ‘CBA’ mentality when it comes to making friends, or speaking to people when you are out. I think our inner child needs to be given the space to be silly and stupid and to meet people from different walks of life.”

“People who are expressive and funny often make me reach for my camera,” she continues. “I love people who are unapologetically themselves. I think when you are ‘into fashion’ sometimes people want to be all stiff, like a lifeless doll and they make it more about the clothes than them. I want the picture to always be about the person and a moment we have shared together.”

It is Brackstone’s relationship with best friend and muse XXS that manifests this most. “My favourite pictures I’ve taken are with XXS because we have fun together. When you know how to have fun you make everything cinematic,” she says. Her favourite time at a festival was with XXS at El Dorado. “We were laughing, crying, running around the place, scared of sleeping in a tent for the first time and dancing on pianos. There was a point on our last day where we were looking at beautiful lights reflecting in the lake and we both hugged each other.”

“It is so nice to be at Primavera with XXS because festivals seem to give you real moments of clarity and reflection,” she adds. “They allow you to understand your purpose and feel a part of something.”

Visit the gallery above for a closer at through Gracie Brackstone’s pictures from Primavera Sound Barcelona.

Vivian Maier’s Treasure Trove of Photographs Uncovered

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Vivian Maier’s Treasure Trove of Photographs Uncovered
Goings On

Vivian Maier’s Treasure Trove of Photographs Uncovered

Jackson Arn
The New Yorker’s art critic

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As late as 2007, the case could be made that some storage lockers in Chicago held the best photography collection in the United States. In the course of that year, the renter defaulted on payments, and everything inside, including many boxes bursting with negatives, was auctioned off to local collectors. One of these—think of him as patient zero—had enough taste to scan the negatives and post about them on Flickr.

Seventeen years, myriad copyright squabbles, incalculable praise, and one Academy Award-nominated documentary later, what do we know about Vivian Maier? She was born in 1926 and died in 2009, a few years before it had become routine to call her one of the best street photographers of the previous century. She was shy with most people and allergic to attention. She worked as a nanny and later had to rely on financial support from the people she’d once been paid to raise. A former employer recalled that Maier spoke to her children, the baby included, as though they were already grown.

Vivian Maier Clothing Pants Text Person Adult Footwear Shoe and Newspaper fotografiska show
Photograph © Estate of Vivian Maier / Courtesy Maloof Collection / Howard Greenberg Gallery

That recollection helps to clarify something about Maier’s photographs, more than two hundred of which appear in Fotografiska’s exhibition, opening on May 31, “Vivian Maier: Unseen Work”: innocence is nowhere to be seen in them, possibly because it doesn’t exist. Children look world-weary even when they’re horsing around. When adults show up, even their leisure looks laborious. Like all the best street photographers, Maier had a fine eye for bathos: a doll in a trash can, an old lady selling pretzels near a sign for a beauty school, a marquee for a Bing Crosby movie shining down on what looks like a corpse.

Maier’s finest images may be her self-portraits, in which she finds her frank, sharp, “Whistler’s Mother” face in a mirror and makes the rest of the world surround it. When I look at one and then think about all the other great works of art yellowing away in other forgotten lockers, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

An illustration of the New York City skyline.

About Town

Off Broadway

The final installment in the Irish Repertory Theatre’s Friel Project, Brian Friel’s “Molly Sweeney,” follows a functionally blind woman who is offered the possibility of regaining some vision. The operation, despite slim odds of success, seems like a no-brainer to her husband, Frank (an endearingly tedious John Keating), who lives for far-fetched, noble-minded enterprises, and to the ophthalmologist Mr. Rice (Rufus Collins), who sees “curing” Molly (a superb Sarah Street) as a way to resuscitate his once glorious career. Friel’s play, first performed in 1994, presents two would-be Pygmalions who fail to realize that their Galatea is already fully alive. Molly alone grasps the difference “between seeing and understanding”; Charlotte Moore’s economical yet elegant staging invites us to do so as well.—Dan Stahl (Irish Rep; through June 30.)

Art

In the four decades leading up to the Nazi dictatorship, Käthe Kollwitz was Germany’s howling, wrenching conscience. A retrospective at MOMA occasionally seems more intrigued by her views on war and labor strife than by the drawings, sculptures, and prints in which she expressed them, but the evidence speaks for itself: she had one of the most vivid graphic imaginations of the era. Bodies are forever trying and failing to merge in these images: mothers grip dead children, crowds march almost forward, profiles press into a single head. Unity is often the goal but never the reality; Kollwitz’s doubt is as powerful as her faith. She is, in other words, something subtler and more valuable than a crusader: a genuine artist.—Jackson Arn (MOMA; through July 20.)

Dance
A group of dancers.
Photograph by D. Matvejevas

The young Belfast-raised dancemaker Oona Doherty isn’t afraid of big music, or big emotions, or delving into anxiety. In “Navy Blue,” a heartfelt dance for twelve, set to Rachmaninoff and Jamie xx, Doherty combines lyricism and jaggedness, physical grace and what looks like an uncomfortable unravelling of the body, to produce a portrait of the discomfort of living—a “Rite of Spring” for our time. Both the movement and an insistent voice-over evoke humanity’s violent, self-destructive tendencies and the way that modernity has reduced everything to dollars and cents—and, underneath all this, mankind’s fundamental irrelevance. After all, as the voice-over says, we are just “a pale blue dot on a pale blue dot.”—Marina Harss (Joyce Theatre, June 4-9.)

Electronic Music

Under the alias Machinedrum, the electronic musician Travis Stewart conjures quirky, beat-driven music that distorts the dimensions of pop sounds into something otherworldly. A multiyear project called “Vapor City” envisioned urban planning through sound design, dedicating its songs to a dream metropolis, and the album “Human Energy,” from 2016, pursued the intangible in prismatic flashes. A new record, “3FOR82,” was inspired by a trip to Joshua Tree National Park, where solitude led Stewart to his old hard drives full of beats he had produced in the late nineties, using Impulse Tracker. The songs tap into the creativity that antiquated technology prompts, pulling an unconventional band of collaborators—aja monet, Tinashe, Jesse Boykins III, Topaz Jones, deem spencer, and more—into his superlunar orbit.—Sheldon Pearce (Market Hotel; June 7.)

Off Broadway
Performer Person Solo Performance Adult Dancing Leisure Activities Face Head Julia Masli

Photograph by Austin Ruffer

Photograph by Austin Ruffer

Julia Masli emerges from a dark corridor, a huge contraption looming over her narrow face—part witch’s hat, part Gigeresque GoPro lighting rig. “Ha ha ha,” she intones, the words so thickened by her Estonian accent that they sound like an owl hooting. Masli’s eldritch, exquisite show “Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha” was an Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit last year, a mix of elevated clown work (Masli operates in an improvisatory French bouffon tradition) and group-therapy session. Slowly, deliberately, she glides up to audience members: “Problem?” she asks. Whatever the problem is—sweatiness, grief, fear of failure on the night I saw it—she tries to solve it with what she has on hand, deploying a roll of electrical tape, for instance, to bind family members together, or exerting her weird, lachrymose compassion. “You’re amazing,” I heard her say to a woman with a hurt foot. “Your foot is metaphor.”—Helen Shaw (SoHo Playhouse; through June 8.)

Movies

In 1997, the Bulgarian-born, French-based filmmaker Mosco Boucault launched a series of documentaries about police investigations with “The Shooting on Mole Street,” centered on the killing of the fifteen-year-old Shafeeq Murrell, in the crossfire of a drug-gang war in Philadelphia. Boucault follows two police detectives (both white) in their maneuverings to meet and interrogate potential witnesses and suspects (who, like the victim, are Black); he encounters teens trapped in the carceral system and in cycles of violence, and neighbors whose mournful outrage at Shafeeq’s death is matched by fear of gang reprisals. Many in the neighborhood, struggling merely to live in peace, have the weary desperation of refugees at home.—Richard Brody (Streaming on OVID.tv.)

Image may contain Clothing Hat Stencil Body Part Hand Person Face and Head

Pick Three

The staff writer Rachel Syme shares current obsessions.

1. Every summer, I attempt a rewatch of an old, multi-season television show; it provides a soothing activity to look forward to on sticky days. (Whenever I get overheated, I just think, At least tonight I’ll get to bask in the A.C. with my little show.) This year, I’m rewatching “Six Feet Under,” the HBO masterpiece from the early two-thousands. It’s even better than I remembered. The acting is so strange and spiky and surprising, and the cold opens of most episodes—usually showing the bizarre death of a random person in Los Angeles—are still harrowing and brilliant. I know that when I get to the infamous finale, I’ll be a wreck all over again.

2. I cannot stop listening to the songs from “Stereophonic,” a new Broadway play that follows a band that may or may not be based on Fleetwood Mac, as it pushes through interpersonal drama to record a new album. The play’s songs, by Will Butler, formerly of the band Arcade Fire, so perfectly mimic a seventies Laurel Canyon sound that you might think that you’ve stumbled upon a cache of lost Stevie Nicks B-sides.

A motel key with a portrait of the main character in the tag
Illustration by Celia Jacobs

3. I’ve been pressing Miranda July’s new novel, “All Fours,” into the hands of many friends. I read it in two sittings and was despondent when it was over. No book has so accurately captured the wandering years that many women experience during their thirties and forties, when we are no longer young but also not yet prepared to be considered old. The book does for perimenopause what Melville did for whales: it makes the subject seem epic and earth-swallowing.

P.S. Good stuff on the Internet:

Look back on Rankin’s iconic 90s archive, starring Björk, Bowie, and more

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Look back on Rankin’s iconic 90s archive, starring Björk, Bowie, and more

As his new exhibition, Back in the Dazed, opens at 180 Studios, the photographer and Dazed co-founder shares memories and advice from across his star-studded career

31May 2024

If you picture a leading figure from the cutting-edge creative scene of the UK in the 90s, it’s pretty likely that you see them through Rankin’s lens. The photographer and co-founder of Dazed had a front-row seat to the parties, clubs, and shows that gave the era its lasting reputation, and the portraits in his archive – from musical icons, to supermodels, to cult celebrities – is a testament to that fact. Now, you can see it for yourself, courtesy of the new exhibition Back In the Dazed at 180 Studios.

Opening this week at 180 Strand, the show features photos created from 1991 to 2001, a formative period in Rankin’s life and career, marked by the inauguration of Dazed alongside co-founder Jefferson Hack and the blossoming of a broader creative community. Coming into the 90s, though, Rankin thought of himself as an outsider. “I was from nowhere,” he says. “And I thought of myself as a bit of a blank canvas, because [there was] nothing in my background that would have made people think I would be anything in the creative world at all.” This would quickly change.

At the time Dazed was founded in 1991, Rankin’s collaborators were just his mates. “None of us had ever done a magazine before,” he says. “We were all pretty new to it. I think [the] energy was really optimistic, very excited, quite DIY.” Early influences included Malcolm McLaren and Andy Warhol. By the mid-90s, Rankin was shooting with the likes of David Bowie, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, PJ Harvey, and Björk. The latter, he says: “Was a kind of seminal moment in my career.” Alongside his own shoots, the magazine was also reaching new heights, like the September 1998 issue, Fashion-Able, guest edited by Alexander McQueen with a cover shot by Nick Knight.

“I can’t underestimate how we didn’t think we were going to be talked about,” Rankin says of starting out. “There was an ambition to be talked about, but that doesn’t mean that we really believed that we would be.” Instead, the guiding force during the “challenging” early half of the 90s was to pursue collaborations that felt “organic and natural”.

Often, this took a nonconformist slant, from the Snog series (2000), styled by Alister Mackie, which played with contemporary ideas about intimacy, gender and sexuality, to a 1994 Dazed cover that depicted a girl weeping. “[That cover] came from our distributor saying, ‘You have to have a beautiful girl smiling with blue eyes,’” he adds, “and us going, ‘No we don’t, that’s bollocks.’” The ultimate goal? To create culture, as much as reporting on it.

All the while, of course, Rankin was developing his personal style as a photographer. (And still is. “You need to keep learning,” he says. “I’m still learning stuff after all these years. I’m very inquisitive about photography. I love the whole medium.”) “I knew that I wanted to do conceptual art photography, but I just felt that audience was so narrow, so I combined that with fashion and brought two things together,” he says. In that sense, he treated Dazed as a kind of “wolf in sheep’s clothing” – a bundle of ideas about art and culture, masquerading as a more straightforward and “seductive” style magazine.

“Then with portraiture, I just really loved people,” he says. This love has seen him shoot everyone from Britpop bands to the Queen, over the years, and early on he decided that each portrait should be a collaborative process. “I never really understood this idea of a transaction between the photographer and the person you’re shooting,” he explains. “My photography was always based on making something, not taking something.”

“Making something, not taking something,” is a good mantra to keep in mind, but even more important advice for young photographers starting out on their own path, Rankin suggests, is to develop a deeper critical understanding of photography as an art form.

“All the photographers I love have a very broad knowledge of photography, Richard Avedon, or Annie Leibovitz, people I admired when I was coming through, and even the young photographers that came along as I was starting, like Corinne Day and Juergen Teller,” he says. “Whereas this idea of a camera as [being] just an extension of your thoughts or feelings, that’s too easy. So I’d always recommend that people go back and do their homework.” Looking back through Rankin’s 90s archive in 2024, it feels fairly safe to say that he’s secured a spot on the syllabus himself.

Back in the Dazed is on show at 180 Studios until June 23.

Up in the air with the photographer who documents the world from 12,000 feet

By in Photography

Up in the air with the photographer who documents the world from 12,000 feet

London
CNN
 — 

“This is not daredevil stuff,” says 75-year-old fine art photographer Donn Delson as we sit in a helicopter with no door, almost 2,000 feet above London. At this height, the winds are numbing even in May, yet Delson, on the outermost seat, dangles his legs out as a diminutive Big Ben and Tower Bridge pass by beneath us. “On a good day I’ll go out on the (skid),” he says rather nonchalantly, referring to the two nail-bitingly thin helicopter landing bars beneath us. “But harnessed up, of course, and only when we’re hovering.”

While many may turn green at the thought of hanging out of a door-less helicopter, this is the desired set up for Delson — who refuses to put his camera lens anywhere near a window. “It’s really the only way I want to shoot,” he said, back on the ground the following day, of his penchant for working at height. “I do everything on a large scale, because I want people to get the feeling I have when I’m up there.”

The feeling, as it appeared sitting next to Delson in that same sky-high ‘copter, is one of complete calmness. Mid-flight, he grumbles at the fierce winds and asks the pilot to slow the aircraft down to a hover. Suddenly we’re suspended — wobbling in the air somewhere above the river Thames (a designated heli-lane intended to spare the rest of the city in the event of a crash) as Delson reaches under his headset to remove the black cap worn backwards on his head. “Much better,” he says, and gives the signal to fly on.

Delson's images are taken anywhere from 2,000 to 12,000 feet.

Delson, who is based in Los Angeles, began his career as an aerial photographer almost a decade ago. He’s since spent over 300 hours in a helicopter, capturing everything from the ephemeral cherry blossoms of Japan to rugged mountain trails hidden in the Red Sea — sometimes from as high as 12,000 feet. His preference to charter private helicopters, which costs him between $800 and $2,500 per hour, is made possible by the fact that this is his 9th career. “I’ve been fortunate to have been an entrepreneur most of my life, and be successful in my business activities,” Delson told CNN. After selling his last company BandMerch — one of the largest entertainment merchandise businesses in the world with Rihanna, Outkast and Billy Joel as his clientele — Delson was able to retire, briefly, before a chance holiday excursion set him on a new path.

On a trip flying 3,200 feet over Molokai, Hawaii, Delson was captured inside a rare double circular rainbow.

“We were on a trip to New Zealand, and my wife and I had the opportunity to go up in a helicopter to see a glacier,” he said. The pilot, noticing a hefty camera strapped around Delson, offered to open the door in order to let him shoot out unencumbered. “My wife said no. I said, ‘Sounds fabulous.’”

There’s an uncanniness to looking down at the world from above. The usual markers of your street-level experience have vanished, as has everyone else in the world. It’s quiet and still. If there wasn’t the looming anxiety of a potential helicopter malfunction, it might even be peaceful. Delson’s work leans into this strange, disembodied feeling by capturing scenes that trick the eye. A parking lot filled with cargo containers that look like musical bars on a xylophone; or the Red Sea’s sprawling canyons and gullies that could be the branches of an ancient tree. “The French term trompe l’oeil was used by painters whose paintings were so lifelike you’d think it’s a picture. I want to make audiences rethink assumptions about what they’re seeing.”

There’s no guarantee Delson will get one of these illusionary shots, however. In Japan, the photographer spent between 20 and 25 hours in the air over the course of a week — in Israel, he flew for a combined 36 hours. But sometimes he won’t take a single picture. “It’s a risk,” Delson said. “I have no idea when I go up whether or not I’m going to find anything.”

Even if he returns empty-handed, Delson believes there is more to be gained from the experience than simply making new work. “I’m definitely different than before I started flying,” he told CNN. “I’ve always considered myself to be a fairly spiritual person, but the perspective that one gets when you have the opportunity to do these things is transformative.”

Journeying back to the office at ground level, London seems a lot smaller. Just a few hours before, the capital was an intimidating, sprawling metropolis home to almost 9 million people. Now it feels almost bijou. The London Eye, what I considered to be the vertiginous pinnacle of the city at 10 years old, now feels laughably miniature; nothing more than a hamster wheel.  Even Canary Wharf struggles to seem as imposing once you’ve seen 50-storey landmark One Canada Square from 1,200 feet, shrunken to the size of a Lego brick.

“The world from above, it’s just so different from the world we know,” said Delson. For any newcomers or tourists, struggling with the numerous skyscrapers, boroughs, tube lines or zone demarcations — try stepping into a helicopter. The result is a city that feels much more manageable.

Stunning winners of 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year are out of this world!

By in Photography

Stunning winners of 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year are out of this world!

Travel photography website Capture the Atlas has revealed the winners of its seventh annual Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection. 

Editor-in-chief at Capture the Atlas, Dan Zafra, chose 25 winning photographs out of 5,000 entries. The winners range from 15 countries across the world including the US, Chile, Argentina, Australia, Oman and Jordan. 

The Milky Way is 50,000 light years across and is an enormous collection of over one billion stars, dust and gas. It’s called a spiral galaxy because if you were to view it from the top or bottom, it would look like a spinning pinwheel. 

At one end of the galaxy is the Sun, which is about 25,000 light years away from the center of the Milky Way. The speed of light is 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) per second, it would still take 25,000 years to reach the middle of the Milky Way. 

Our main image at the top was taken by Lorenzo Ranieri in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The photograph is a panorama consisting of several shots… The sky portion is composed of images taken with a Sony 35mm lens with exposures of 30s @ f/2, ISO 6400; the images have been tracked and stacked for noise reduction. 

The foreground is a panorama taken with a Sony 14mm lens with a 25s at f/2.2, ISO 8000, exposure focus stacked and stacked for noise reduction.   

Ranieri said: 

“Spending the night there was admittedly a bit nerve-wracking, but the opportunity to photograph such beauty made it worthwhile. The Milky Way’s arch, in all its splendor, rises above the pristine landscape, creating a truly mesmerizing scene.”

Here are some of my other favorite winners from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year awards… 

“Mother Juniper” taken by Benjamin Barakat in Jebel Shams, Oman (Image credit: Benjamin Barakat)

“Mother Juniper” was taken by Benjamin Barakat at the impressive Jebel Shams mountain, Oman. The foreground was shot using a Sony A7 IV, with an exposure os 120secs at f/3.2 ISO 400, with the sky being shot with shot using a Sony 12-24mm f/2.8.

Barakat said:

“I found myself beneath the juniper’s boughs, gazing up at the cosmic dance above, capturing its essence in the stillness of the night.”

“Atmospheric Fireworks” was taken by Julien Looten in Dordogne, France (Image credit: Julien Loote)

“Atmospheric Fireworks” was taken by Julien Looten in Dordogne, France.

The stunning image of a chateau under the Milky Way consists of 40 images across a 180 degree panorama showcasing the galactic arc, with 13 seconds per exposure.

Capturing the image took an hour of exposure time using a specially-modified Canon 6D Astrodon and a Sigma 28mm f/1.4 lens.

Looten said:

Last winter, I ventured to the foot of a medieval castle in France to capture the Milky Way’s “winter” arc. Alongside the stunning celestial vault, an exceptional airglow illuminated the sky, resembling multicolored clouds. This natural phenomenon occurs due to a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere, emitting a faint light known as chemiluminescence.

“The Celestial Symphony Above a High Desert Lagoon” taken by Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn in the Atacama Desert, Chile  (Image credit: Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn)

“The Celestial Symphony Above a High Desert Lagoon” by Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn was also taken in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Kerry-Anne Lecky Hepburn managed to capture this beautiful image in a single 25-second exposure taken with her modified Canon R6 at ISO 6400, using her Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye lens.  

She said: 

“One night, we embarked on an eerie 40-minute trek in the dark along a salt trail to photograph the Milky Way and one of several lagoons in the high elevations of the Atacama Desert. At 15,000 feet, it was easy to get out of breath while walking across this rugged terrain with camera gear. Originally planned for daylight hours, we postponed the hike due to fierce winds. During the day, the lagoons typically appear bright blue with the sun shining high in the sky. To replicate this effect at night, we used a flashlight to cast a beam across the tranquil waters during a long exposure, resulting in a surreal and mesmerizing scene.”

Check out our guide to the best cameras for astrophotography, and the best lenses to capture the Milky Way.

We’ve also got all the information you need about the best low light cameras in 2024. 

Donn Delson: The 75-year-old aerial photographer getting a unique bird’s eye view

By in Photography

Donn Delson: The 75-year-old aerial photographer getting a unique bird’s eye view

Leaning out the open door of a helicopter, 75-year-old photographer Donn Delson shows no fear as he clicks away on his camera capturing the buildings below.

Taking up aerial photography in his 60s, the LA-based entrepreneur has since sold nearly £1m worth of artwork since switching careers.

Donn Delson. Pic: Elizabeth Callaghan
Image:
Donn Delson. Pic: Elizabeth Callaghan

Delson has flown more than 300 hours in countries including Japan, the Netherlands, Hawaii and Israel but London, he tells Sky News, is his “favourite city”.

Before photography, Delson founded the world’s fourth-largest entertainment merchandising company, working with stars including Rihanna, Billy Joel and Alanis Morisette. He sold the company to AEG Live in 2007.

Strapped into a helicopter at heights of up to 12,000ft, Delson captures his artwork at a perspective and range that would be unachievable by drones due to height restrictions in urban areas.

He explains: “I need to be connected to what I am taking pictures of. When I don’t have a door and I can lean out and look down, I am able to have that emotional and spiritual connection.”

The artist likes to find “patterns” and “colours” in the scene but admits he doesn’t always find the right shot on every flight.

More on London

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It’s his aerial perspective which makes his large-scale artwork unique and while many of his peers are long since retired, he retains a youth and exuberance for life and his art.

Donn Delson. Pic: Elizabeth Callaghan
Image:
Donn Delson. Pic: Elizabeth Callaghan

When shooting, Delson likes to “look for things that may not be what they seem to be at first glance.”

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Here he shows the vivid turquoise dome of London’s British Museum – a feature unseen from below.

The Crown Jewel, British Museum, Donn Delson

Image:
Pic: The Crown Jewel/Donn Delson

Delson doesn’t only focus on the abstract, this photo London Lights is from his Points Of Light collection. He calls London a “special” place.

London Lights, Donn Delson

Pic: London Lights/Donn Delson
Image:
Pic: London Lights/Donn Delson

In Xylophones, Delson depicts rows of shipping containers at a port in Los Angeles.

He says: “At first glance, most people think it’s either bookshelves or a xylophone. Then they notice the truck, and sometimes it takes them a few seconds to study the image and to realise what it truly is.

Xylophones, Donn Delson

Pic: Xylophones,/Donn Delson
Image:
Pic: Xylophones,/Donn Delson

The famous cherry blossom season in Japan is usually admired from ground level but Delson captured it from an aerial perspective, east of Kyoto.

Cascade, Donn Delson

Pic: Cascade/Donn Delson
Image:
Pic: Cascade/Donn Delson

Another shot from outside Kyoto, this photo shows symmetrical rows of cherry trees which had been purposely planted.

Abacus, Donn Delson

Pic: Abacus/Donn Delson
Image:
Pic: Abacus/Donn Delson

Delson was commissioned to create Headdress for $45,000 (£35,000). It was taken above a marina in San Francisco.

Headdress, Donn Delson

Pic: Headdress/Donn Deson
Image:
Pic: Headdress/Donn Deson

Feathered was captured on another trip to London where he was flying down the River Thames towards O2 and spotted some containers.

Naming it, he said it looked like the features on the shaft of an arrow.

Feathered, Donn Delson

Pic: Feathered/Donn Delson
Image:
Pic: Feathered/Donn Delson

Taken over the Dead Sea in Israel, Tree of Life is part of Delson’s Holy Land collection.

Tree of Life, Donn Delson

Pic: Tree Of Life/Donn Delson
Image:
Pic: Tree Of Life/Donn Delson

Aviation photographer Paul Bowen on shooting from air to air

By in Photography

Aviation photographer Paul Bowen on shooting from air to air

Paul Bowen has spent his life behind the camera taking pictures of aircraft … from other aircraft.

He said he first started taking pictures at the beach of surfers and sunbathers in his native California. He originally came to Wichita in the early 1970s to direct a halfway house for a church but eventually found a job assisting a commercial photographer.

“So for $1.75 an hour, I learned what a commercial photographer was by carrying his cameras around, loading the film and keeping my eyes and ears open,” Bowen recalled. “Because if you’re a commercial photographer in Wichita, you eventually will take a picture of an airplane.”

Paul Bowen

/

Courtesy photo

Bowen originally came to Wichita in the early 1970s to direct a halfway house for a church but eventually found a job assisting a commercial photographer.

Bowen was taking pictures of sleeping bags for Coleman in Wichita one week … the next week, he was shooting airplanes in California.

“And I came back [from California] and told my wife, ‘I’ll be a much happier person, a better husband, and we’ll have more fun if I simply concentrate on aviation.’ ”

He’d eventually photograph all of the major players in Wichita aviation and around the world. But that came after he established himself first with Beechcraft.

His initial airplane pictures were taken on the ground. His first time shooting photos out of an airplane, though, did not go as planned.

“They took me up in the air, and I promptly got air sick,” said Bowen, a member of the Kansas Aviation Hall of Fame. “It’s very odd looking through a lens as you’re doing maneuvers. And so I got airsick on my first flight.

“Unfortunately, my camera bag was the target of my issues in the air. And afterwards, I was able to get what I needed shot.”

Bowen only has a handful of flight training hours in the cockpit, but he’s logged thousands of hours tethered into the rear gunner position of a World War II B-25 bomber. That’s where he takes the pictures he’s best known for: an airplane just above the clouds, highlighting an effect caused by air flowing over an aircraft’s wings that is only visible when there is a layer of clouds.

Paul Bowen

“The vortices was really a happy accident,” Bowen said.

“We usually shoot at sunrise and sunset because of the better lighting. And we were out in California, and we were slightly inland. But we knew that there was a marine layer of fog … off the coast that was coming up to the coastal range of mountains there in California. And part of the briefing was that we were wanting to get out over the marine layer.

“And as we did, and got just slightly above it, gravity revealed the vortices effect as we scooted along, just off the coast of California.”

Bowen published those pictures, and more, in a series of books called “Air To Air.”

Paul Bowen

Throughout his career, he’s seen technology go from physical film to digital photography. In 2001, the first digital camera came out, and he took it as a backup camera to a shoot in South Africa.

“The quality, quite frankly, wasn’t there at that time,” Bowen said. “It was at that point the light came on, and I realized how wonderful digital [photography] would be. And within a few years, when the technology got better, we switched entirely to digital.”

One of the many life lessons he’s learned while amassing thousands of magazine covers and accolades is to treat people the way he wants to be treated.

“Attention to detail, integrity, building relationships,” he said. “Someone I worked with… five years ago is now working for another company, and they remember working with me and that I was fairly easy to work with.

“And so all of those just very practical experiences like that have brought that home.”

Bowen is semi-retired and lives with his wife outside of Augusta. He keeps a surfboard in Hawaii so he can surf during their frequent visits there.

“I think it’s safe to say that I have the best job in aviation,” Bowen said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing pilots, to travel the world, to see beautiful airplanes in flight, to become friends with astronauts, with World War II heroes.

“And, again, I’m just kind of a kid with a camera, and I’ve had the opportunity to live a life that I could never have imagined. You know, at one point, I wanted to be a dentist. And so, thankfully, that didn’t happen.

“It’s a little bit like Garth Brooks, saying, ‘I thank God for unanswered prayers.’ So I have the best job in aviation.”

BITS & BYTES: Sculpture at The Mount; Frida Kahlo photography at The Springfield Museums; Jeffery Kay at Norfolk Library; Keb’ Mo’ at The Mahaiwe; Pride at Bottomless Bricks; Triplex Cinema online auction

By in Photography

BITS & BYTES: Sculpture at The Mount; Frida Kahlo photography at The Springfield Museums; Jeffery Kay at Norfolk Library; Keb’ Mo’ at The Mahaiwe; Pride at Bottomless Bricks; Triplex Cinema online auction

Sculpture at The Mount opens on Sunday, June 2nd

Lenox— The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home, is pleased to announce that the annual outdoor sculpture exhibition produced in the Berkshires for the past twenty-five years officially opens on Sunday, June 2nd. Visitors can experience the exhibition for free every day of the week, from dawn until dusk, through October 20th. 

The popular annual exhibition features 24 large-scale outdoor works by emerging and established artists in many sizes and media thoughtfully situated throughout The Mount’s lush gardens and grounds.

‘Keeping It Together’ by Justine Perlman. Courtesy The Mount.

Executive director of The Mount Susan Wissler said “There is great synergy between Wharton’s literary legacy and the compelling narratives expressed through contemporary sculpture. The exhibition encourages visitors to explore the intersection of literature, sculpture, and nature.”

The exhibit runs from June 2nd through October 20th at The Mount on Plunkett Street in Lenox. There is a “Meet the Artists” event on Sunday June 23, at 3 p.m. at which the 24 artists will share their stories and visions next to their pieces. Artist-led tours will also be available monthly. Registration and more information can be found online. 

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The Springfield Museums proudly present ‘Frida Kahlo, Her Photos,’ an exhibition that offers an intimate glimpse of the renowned Mexican artist

Springfield— From June 1st through September 8th, the Springfield Museums proudly present “Frida Kahlo, Her Photos,” a collection of images from a secret archive hidden at her residence, La Casa Azul (now Museo Frida Kahlo.)

Frida Kahlo with xoloitzcuintle dog in the Blue House, by Lola Álvarez Bravo, ca. 1944. Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Archives

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is recognized for her self-portraits that blend realism with fantasy. Her distinctive naïve folk-art style explores themes of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.  Although Kahlo remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, her work has been rediscovered by art historians and political activists, making her a symbol of Mexican national and Indigenous traditions, as well as a powerful voice for the female experience.

Curated by Mexican photographer and photo historian, Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, the exhibition features more than 200 images that illuminate Kahlo’s artistry, her life, and her deep connection to Mexico.

“The life and artwork of Frida Kahlo continue to inspire and captivate audiences worldwide,” says Heather Haskell-Burns, Vice President and Director of the art museums. “We are thrilled to host this collection of previously unseen images, offering our visitors a deeper insight into Kahlo through her photographic documentation of her personal and artistic journey.”

Muray, 1946. Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Archives

The exhibit runs from June 1st through September 8th at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts at 21 Edwards Street in Springfield. Tickets and more information can be found online. 

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Norfolk Library presents ‘Embers & Flames: 50 Years of Lights & Lenses,’ the photographs of Jeffery Kay

Norfolk, C.T.— Through the month of June, the Norfolk Library presents ‘Embers & Flames: 50 Years of Lights & Lenses,’ the photographs of Jeffery Kay.

Kay is a photographer from New York City who tells visual stories through rare and unusual vintage lenses. This exhibition of fine art prints showcases his decades-long exploration of visual storytelling, bokeh experimentation, and painterly abstraction in landscape and portraiture, in both black and white and color palettes.

Photo by Jeffrey Kay.

The exhibit runs through the month of June at The Norfolk Library at 9 Greenwoods Road East in Norfolk, C.T. There is an opening reception on Sunday, June 2nd from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at which poet Sarah Kay will join her father for a performance of spoken word poetry. More information can be found online.   

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Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center presents Keb’ Mo’

Great Barrington— On Saturday, June 15th at 8 p.m., the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center presents Keb’ Mo’.

Keb’ Mo’. Courtesy the Mahaiwe.

Keb’ Mo’s musical journey began nearly half a century ago, when he landed his first major gig in Papa John Creach’s band at the age of 21. Over the course of the next 20 years, Keb’ would go on to establish himself as a respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger, and though he recorded a one-off album in 1980 under his birth name, Kevin Moore, it wasn’t until 1994 that he would introduce the world to Keb’ Mo’ with the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. 

Critics were quick to take note of Keb’s modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds, and two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In the decades to come, Keb’ would take home five more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart seven times; perform everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate with many including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett; have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and Martin; appear in and compose music for films and TV shows, and earn the Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance.

The concert is on Saturday, June 15th at 8 p.m. at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center at 14 Castle Street in Great Barrington. Phillip-Michael Scales is the opening act. Tickets are $45 to $95, with limited availability. Tickets and more information can be found online. 

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Bottomless Bricks and Berkshire Pride present ‘Adult Build Night: Pride Edition!’

Pittsfield— On Tuesday, June 4th at 6 p.m., Bottomless Bricks and Berkshire Pride present “Adult Build Night: Pride Edition!,” a creative evening perfect for adults looking to express their pride through building and imagination.

Bottomless Bricks ‘Adult Build Night: Pride Edition!’

Think of this unique and colorful celebration as a Paint & Sip but with LEGO® elements. Come together with fellow community members to help build a stunning Pride Flag for Berkshire Pride using an array of LEGO® parts and pieces. All necessary parts and instructions will be provided, and no experience is necessary.

There is also an option to craft your own rainbow bowties. This wearable accessory can be built and purchased to take home for $10.

The 21+ event is on Tuesday, June 4th at 6 p.m. at Bottomless Bricks at 163 South Street in Pittsfield. BYOB. Registration is required. Registration and more information can be found online. 

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Online auction to benefit The Triplex Cinema

Great Barrington— From June 2nd through June 10th, there is an online auction to benefit The Triplex Cinema.

Have you ever wanted to eat dinner with a famous politician, lunch at a renowned estate with a celebrity, own an original drawing by a well-known artist, or acquire memorabilia from one of the most iconic films ever made? If so, you can bid on all of that and so much more at the Triplex Spring 2024 Online Auction.

Some of the items to be auctioned are:

•   A private dinner for 10 at the Red Lion Inn with former Governor Deval Patrick and First Lady Diane Patrick.

•   “Indiana Jones” vintage memorabilia from Karen Allen.

•   Lunch and garden tour at Blue Stone Manor with Dorinda Medley of the “Real Housewives of New York.”

•   A week at Jayne Atkinson and Michel Gill’s fabulous Michigan Lake house.

•   Dinner at The Elm with “Super-Agent” to the stars, Bart Walker.

•   An original signed drawing and book collection by artist Walton Ford.

•   Lauren Ambrose’s “Yellowjackets” bomber jacket from her hit series on Showtime.

•   Lunch at Zinc with Producer/director Matt Penn. Plus, a working copy of the screenplay “Alice’s Restaurant” with Arthur Penn’s handwritten notes.

•   Vacation for one week at the beautiful Casa Miel in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

•   James Hamilton (photographer to the stars) original signed photos.

•   A Spa Day for two at Canyon Ranch, and much much more.

Casa Miel in San Miguel Allende, Mexico.

The bidding will start on June 2nd at 9 a.m. and end on June 10th at 9 p.m. The auction can be viewed online.

Listicle: 10 drone photographers who are out of this world

By in Photography

Listicle: 10 drone photographers who are out of this world
ht_print | ByArshia Dhar

May 31, 2024 05:32 AM IST

Drone photography pages are taking Insta to higher ground. Here are 10 of our favourites from around the world

Simeon Pratt (@SimeonPratt): Pratt is a Chicago-based photographer and cinematographer. His drone shots: Container ships breaking ice as they glide through frigid seas, lone towers piercing clouds, cliffs at sunrise, roofs of European towns, focus on a stillness that only comes from being distant from your subject. His photographs, despite their grand scale, are meditative, playing with light and a hint of surrealism.

Simeon Pratt’s photos seem intimate despite the scale. (INSTAGRAM/@SIMEONPRATT)
Simeon Pratt’s photos seem intimate despite the scale. (INSTAGRAM/@SIMEONPRATT)

Priyansh M Jain’s shoots capture both landmarks and lesser-known corners of towns. (INSTAGRAM/@SHOTBYPRIYANSH)
Priyansh M Jain’s shoots capture both landmarks and lesser-known corners of towns. (INSTAGRAM/@SHOTBYPRIYANSH)
Mike Bishop images of the natural world makes the viewer question reality. (INSTAGRAM/@MIKEBISHOP.TV)
Mike Bishop images of the natural world makes the viewer question reality. (INSTAGRAM/@MIKEBISHOP.TV)
Delhi-based BeanSingh’s Instagram feed is a burst of colour. (INSTAGRAM/@IAMBEANSINGH)
Delhi-based BeanSingh’s Instagram feed is a burst of colour. (INSTAGRAM/@IAMBEANSINGH)
In Ashwin KC’s drone shots, human movements are depicted from a distance. (INSTAGRAM/@DRONEHOLIC_)
In Ashwin KC’s drone shots, human movements are depicted from a distance. (INSTAGRAM/@DRONEHOLIC_)
Photographer Gunj Guglani’s photos and videos have a cinematic quality. (INSTAGRAM/@GUNJGUGLANI)
Photographer Gunj Guglani’s photos and videos have a cinematic quality. (INSTAGRAM/@GUNJGUGLANI)
Ozzo’s photos capture the beauty of Iceland’s natural grandeur. (INSTAGRAM/@OZZOPHOTOGRAPHY)
Ozzo’s photos capture the beauty of Iceland’s natural grandeur. (INSTAGRAM/@OZZOPHOTOGRAPHY)
Erez Marom specialises in nature photography, capturing tiny subjects in extreme close-ups. (INSTAGRAM/@EREZMAROM)
Erez Marom specialises in nature photography, capturing tiny subjects in extreme close-ups. (INSTAGRAM/@EREZMAROM)
Stockholm-based Tobias Hägg’s photos resemble abstract art or watercolours. (INSTAGRAM/@AIRPIXELS)
Stockholm-based Tobias Hägg’s photos resemble abstract art or watercolours. (INSTAGRAM/@AIRPIXELS)
Alexandra Taylor features herself in her photos, adding a human touch to the natural phenomena around her. (INSTAGRAM/@ALLIEMTAYLOR)
Alexandra Taylor features herself in her photos, adding a human touch to the natural phenomena around her. (INSTAGRAM/@ALLIEMTAYLOR)

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