TRAINS OF THOUGHTS by Timo Novotny / Music Video
This is a music video produced with material of the film “Trains Of Thoughts” - a documentary about subway systems worldwide (produced by my friend Timo Novotny with great new tracks by the Sofa Surfers).
You might ask yourself who the photographer in the first scenes is. And maybe you wonder what exactly my relation with that project is. Thoughts like that keep the mind busy and going, so keep on wondering…
Director: Timo Novotny / inLoops.com
Editor: Gerald Schober
Original Filmexcerpt (Poet) edited and composed by: Jakob Barth
Camera: Timo Novotny, Jakob Barth, Enzo Brandner, Simone Laimer, Katica De Pascale
Colors: Seven Film- & Postproduction
Music: Sofa Surfers
Starring: The Guy With The Shoés & The Unknown Poet
Producer: Ulrich Gehmacher / Orbrock
More posts about my Trains Of Thoughts experience here.
THE SENSELESS/NAMELESS SET - Part 3
Exposed
These two images don’t seem related when you first see them in combination (aside from the flowers), but take a second look: There are people in both pictures who are ‘naked’ in some way, exposed to ‘an external force’, the border police or the photographer.
IMAGE INFO:
#1: © Alex Webb, 1978, Border crossing, Mexico - USA
#2: © Ryan McGinley, ca. 2010s, Exhibition
© Edwin L. Wisherd, 1939, Mt. Rushmore, National Geographic
Thomas Jefferson at Mount Rushmore under construction, 1939.
Learn more about the making of Mt. Rushmore.
(thanks to / via: natgeofound)
© Thomas D. McAvoy / Getty Images, Apr 9, 1939, Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson performs (with Kosti Vehanen on piano) at the Lincoln Memorial in April 1939. Here’s a video of that performance:
© Richard Avedon, 1955, Portrait of Marian Anderson
Here is the great contralto singer Marian Anderson. By waiting for the moment when Anderson closed her eyes, Avedon was able to suggest her intense inner concentration on the song and to allow us, the viewer, to focus on her mouth. Even if the viewer knows nothing about Marian Anderson, one can still see in this photograph the total commitment to her voice, that she was the very embodiment of song.
And if in fact the viewer is aware of the social context of the photograph—that Anderson fought in a very quiet and effective way to be heard in the 1930s, despite attempts by the Daughters of the American Revolution to prevent her from singing at Washington D.C.’s DAR-owned Constitution Hall because of her race, which caused First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the organization—one would be able to detect a kind of moral probity and strength in this portrait as well. (+)
20 years ago yesterday, African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century, Marian Anderson died. May her soul rest in peace.
© Laurie Bloomfield / AP Photo, 1960s, Durban, South Africa
UPDATE / APR. 9, 2013
Thanks to Laurie Bloomfield’s daughter, South African journalist Jodi-Ann Pastorino, for identifying the photographer. Here’s the message she wrote on my Facebook page:
“I don’t have much detail as this all happened before I was born & my dad died a few years ago but I do know that particular photograph was printed in many publications around the world but was banned from being printed in South Africa by the then ruling National Party. It’s a shocking image of apartheid era. Thank you for choosing to post it on your website.”
I found an article with this photo on South African History Online, here’s the caption:
On 24 January 1960, Laurie Bloomfield, a photographer for the Daily News took a picture of rioting in Cato Manor, Durban which was immediately published around the world. The riots were sparked by the apartheid government’s attempt to forcibly remove black people from Cator Manor, an area inhabited by both Africans and Indians.
Rene de Villiers, the acting editor of the Daily News chose not to publish Bloomfield’s photograph because he considered it to be “too emotionally explosive”.
The original source provided me with different information, so I don’t know which one is true:
South African police beat women with clubs in Durban, South Africa, when the women raided and set fire to a beer hall in protest of police action against their home brewing activities. 17 April 1962, Durban.
If you have any more precise information on this photo please let me know!
(from my archives)
HEIN GORNY - NEW OBJECTIVITY
Collection Regard, 1920-1930s
The Spectrum Photogalerie Hanover, one of Europe’s first photo galleries, devoted the first exhibition in 1972 to the photographer Hein Gorny (1904 - 1967). 40 years later, the Collection Regard designed an “exhibition of an exhibition” with photographs of Hein Gorny and of Heinrich Riebesehl, under whose direction the exhibits of 1972 were produced.
Hein Gorny was a photographer of the New Objectivity art movement who’d mainly worked in advertisement and animal photography. A portfolio associated with Gorny filled with historical photographs of Berlin was collected by Marc Barbey of Collection Regard before being arbitrarily sold off in individual pieces.
In 1941 he was declared “unworthy to bear arms” because he is married to a Jewish woman - he is nevertheless allowed to continue working as photographer.
In 1967 Gorny was severely injured in a fire in his room; he dies from his injuries on June 14, 1967 at the age of 63. (+)
This time I’ll keep it short: THANK YOU!
I used one of my India photos displayed on my mobile phone and photographed with my friend Benni’s MacBook (PhotoBooth / Comic Book effect) for the picture above. No further retouching, only a little cropping.
© AP Photo, Unknown photographer, Mar. 24, 2013, Chongqing, China
A girl drinks fruit juice while resting in a hammock on a river bank near an industrial zone in southwestern China’s Chongqing city.
FRANCIS WU - 1950s and 1950s PORTRAITS
When he was eight or nine years old, Francis Wu (Cheong Kin) used to spend a weekend in a public park in Honolulu enjoying the scenery, the people and “all the things that appeared strange to me.” One day young Francis came across something “strange” – something he had never seen before. There it was: a sign saying “Your Picture While You Wait” and there was a crowd milling around a man with a big camera.
Young Francis was curious. He mingled with the crowd, waiting patiently for something to happen. In a few minutes, this man tucked his hand into the camera and out came a picture in black and white! Young Francis was stunned and thrilled by this strange feat.
That night young Francis couldn’t sleep, a wink, thinking and wondering about the ”strange thing.” This went on for a couple of nights until finally he heaped up enough courage and made a decision: to buy a folding vest pocket Kodak with his $6.00 savings.
A proud owner of the $6 camera, young Francis immediately bought a roll of film, inserted it into the camera and playfully clicked away. He just couldn’t wait to show his brothers and sisters what his camera could do. He opened his “treasure,” looked at the film, expecting to see the pictures all finished on a “While You Wait” basis, but found to his disappointment that there were no pictures but a roll of blank film.
Francis Wu, who is now one of the world’s top photographers still laughs about the incident. The 38 year old world famous Chinese cameraman recalls nostalgically the kind and generous drug store clerk who gave him a few pointers in photography and let him have access to the store’s photographic laboratory. (from Hongkong Standard, July 21, 1959)
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