Northwest Florida Arts Association
Posts tagged Photography
The “Act Here. Love Now.” Tour
Sep 14th
Who says cool stuff only happens in big cities?
The “Act Here. Love Now. Tour” is coming to downtown Fort Walton Beach…
Act Here. Love Now. is a book that follows the journey of 11 student photographers who had a vision to change the world. They traveled through 36 countries documenting the lives of those they met. As they took photos and heard stories, they were overwhelmed with the needs that confronted them along the way. But as the days wore on, the girls realized they could make a difference, every day, with simple acts of genuine love. This book is a culmination of their stories, photos, and practical ways to impact your own community, city, and world.
Tonight at 6pm at the Art Lair, Savannah Chastain will be sharing stories of her journey, excerpts from their book and exhibit some of the photography they captured along the way. There will also be books for sale =)
Hope to see you there!
Louis Daguerre and the Daguerreotype
Nov 30th
As November ends, I wondered what event or happening in November had some impact on the art world. The easiest route, which of course I took, was who was born in November. There were plenty of wonderful artists to choose from: one of my favorite painters Claude Monet, painters Georgia O’Keefe and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, poet William Blake, cartoonist Charles Schultz, and sculptor Auguste Rodin. But the one person who truly has had an impact on my life and every other photographer is Louis Daguerre. Her perfected one of the first photography processes and was arrogant enough to name it after himself.
Louis-Jacques Daguerre was born on November 18, 1787, near Paris , France. By trade, Daguerre was a chemist and scene painter for the opera. In 1826, he became partners with Joseph Niepce. Niepce had already begun experimenting with heliographs or sun prints. The problem with Niepce’s process was the exposure took eight hours and the final product tended to fade rather quickly. Their partnership was short lived because Niepce died in 1833.
Boulevard du Temple, Paris by Louis Daguerre 1839
Daguerre accidentally discovered a more effective way to develop an exposed plate. In 1835, he left an exposed plate in a cabinet, not knowing there was a broken thermometer also in the cabinet. A few days later he discovered that the mercury vapor from the broken thermometer developed the latent image on the exposed plate. He also realized he could cut down the exposure time from eight hours to thirty minutes. After further refinement, the exposure time was cut down even more.
Abraham Lincoln by Nicholas H. Shepherd 1846
Edgar Allen Poe by W.S. Hartshorn 1848
At the meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, in August of 1839, Daguerre introduced the Daguerreotype process to the public. He and Niepce’s son sold the rights of the Daguerreotype to the French government later that year.
Louis Daguerre died on July 10, 1851.
Philippe Halsman
Nov 14th
Salvidor Dali
Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) arrived in the United States, fleeing Hitler’s invasion of France, in 1940. His friend Albert Einstein helped him get a US visa. Two years later Halsman was photographing covers for Life Magazine. He ended up with 101 covers to his credit, the most of any photographer.
Philippe Halsman by Yale Joel
Some of Halsman's Life Magazine covers.
Alfred Hitchcock
In 1952, after finishing his assignment, Halsman started to ask his subjects to jump. And so started his science of jumpology. Halsman himself described his newly invented science as “when you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so the real person appears.”
Bridgette Bardot
Marilyn Monroe
His book, Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, published in 1959, is a must read.
HDR Photography
Nov 11th
Exploring Kyoto at night
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. These images are examples of HDR photography and were taken by Trey Ratcliff. Trey has his own blog at
stuckincustoms.com. He also has a book coming out – A World in HDR!
Dosa
Tokyo Road
The River Runs Through the Andes
More on HDR in future posts.
