Today I want to riff on yesterday’s ruminations. What does it take to ”last” or be relevant as a photographer? Well, have you ever heard of Saul Leiter? I bet you have. But if I had asked the question five or six years ago? Maybe not. Sure, everyone knows and talks about the brilliance of Leiter these days, but it wasnt always the case.
I went to a presentation by Leiter at ICP a couple of years ago. It must have been in conjunction with the publication of Steidl’s Saul Leiter: Early Color. I remember he talked about how back in the 1940s and 1950s he got work, was able to pay the bills. But at some point, the work dropped off and by and large people pretty much forgot about him. And then, some 40 or 50 years later, “discovered” by Howard Greenberg of the Greenberg Gallery in New York, he was all the sudden the belle of the ball again and , according to Leiter, he was getting phone calls from friends he forgot he even knew. So what happened in all those intervening years? I have no idea, it is a mystery, or maybe it isnt…here’s an interesting quote from the man which might be illuminating:
In order to build a career and to be successful, one has to be determined. One has to be ambitious. I much prefer to drink coffee, listen to music and to paint when I feel like it.
Things to think about…But thankfully Saul Leiter’s work has been resurrected for all of us to see and enjoy, maybe even with a cup of coffee in hand…
Leiter’s work is all over the internet, so Google is going to be your best friend here. But you can see excerpts from his books over at Steidl here ; here he is on the roster of the Greenberg Gallery ; and here is a nice little write up over on lensculture. Oh wait, and even though it is in German, here is an interview with the man.
![theatlantic:
How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy
Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific scientist began to investigate, then asked: Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia? Now, his science-fiction hunch is gaining credence and shaping the emerging science of mind-controlling parasites. Read more.
[Image: Michal Novotný]](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz4p0iMCC11qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy
Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific scientist began to investigate, then asked: Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia? Now, his science-fiction hunch is gaining credence and shaping the emerging science of mind-controlling parasites. Read more.
[Image: Michal Novotný]
A Proposal for Penn Station and Madison Square Garden - NYTimes.com
Nearly a half-century has passed since the destruction of the great 1910 station designed by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White, a “monumental act of vandalism,” as aneditorial in The New York Times called the demolition in 1963. A vast steel, travertine and granite railway palace of the people, the old Pennsylvania Station had declined by the end into a symbol of bygone Gilded Age opulence. It was replaced by Penn Plaza and Madison Square Garden, Modernist mediocrities, erected to serve real estate interests, with a new subterranean Penn Station entombed below.
My favorite Santorum news yet.
That whale shark poses a real challenge. #SharkSnark
I should shoot film more. This carbeque has been sitting in my Mamiya 6 since December.
Sometimes the only thing you can do in a crowd is take a picture of a guy taking a picture of a crowd. It’s kind of fascinating how much we as a society experience life through pictures.
Eventually the police made everyone get off the street sweepers. I didn’t get any photos of that.
