Avedon/Kennedy

[ASRafferty]

Now at the PEM, if you're in the Boston (Salem) area...

http://www.pem.org/press/press_release/148-press_release_portraits_of_power_at_pem

This caught my eye in the press release:

"In Portrait of a Family, the combination of individual prints with enlarged contact sheets made for exhibition enables visitors to experience firsthand the decisions Avedon made in preparing his pictures for Harper's Bazaar. Together they reveal the decisions Avedon made when editing his pictures, showing the frames the artist decided to use and the ones he set aside, as well as the cropping, retouching, and other alterations that went into finalizing the images. Each choice was very consciously made to project a particular mood, meaning, or manner of being."

I think it would be interesting to see how quickly one can get past the too-well-remembered subjects and see what there is to learn from looking at the collection.

And the PEM is so cool, no matter what's going on.

Anyway, there you are....

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks, it's always very interesting and informative to see contact sheets and try to figure out why one photograph was used while others weren't. I have books about Walker Evans and Cartier-Bresson that contain a lot of their contact sheets. It's kind of comforting to see that even great photographers made vastly more pedestrian photographs than they did great ones.

[Rick Moore]

Thanks, Amy. I wish I was going to be in Boston during that period, but my company has virtually eliminated business travel for the time being.

[Nathan Potter]

The Peabody-Essex is one of the great little museums of New England started at the beginning of the 19th century with artifacts collected by whaling ships. You gotta have lunch in their museum restaurant - fine food and a sublime setting. Many thanks for a heads up on the Avedon exhibition Amy.

Ahh, you bring back a few memories on almost exactly the second anniversary of your late husband, Ted Harris, death. He was one very fine fellow. I had the great privilege to work with him at one of his last workshops in Pittsburg NH. in late 2007, along with Ritter and Barlow. Many here miss Teds' insights. Hope you are well Amy.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[ASRafferty]

Nate, thanks for the kind words... today is actually two years exactly since the gathering at our house in Enfield, and so many folks from here who have stayed in touch have sent kind remembrances and good wishes. He'd be so pleased that that day is fondly remembered!

And, of course, it's only April, so there's still snow on the ground in Pittsburg, NH! :)

In any event, I too hope people discover the PEM if they don't already know it, and not only for the Avedon exhibit...let's face it, if you can't find something to photograph in Salem, something's really wrong!

Thanks again,
Amy