1974, Jim McGuire.

Wild style hairdo, layers of pink brocade, big shoulders and more flauntable jewelry than you can shake a stick at – I’ll take everything but the cigarette please.
Italian Vogue March, 2009.

From the book 50 Portrait Lighting Techniques for Pictures That Sell by John Hart, 1995.  I find portrait art to be infinitely fascinating.  Hart’s book, apart from introducing the beginning photographer to lighting techniques, is an excellent journey to the mid 1990’s. 

The "wet" lighting technique

Fashion lighting technique

More "wet" lighting

World-famous and dearly beloved photographic exhibit curated by Luxembourg native Edward Steichen.  First shown in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in NY, it traveled the world and was viewed by more than 9 million people in 38 countries.  The only surviving edition is on display in Clervaux, Luxembourg.

“According to Steichen, the exhibition represented the ‘culmination of his career’. The 503 photos by 273 photographers in 68 countries were selected from almost 2 million pictures submitted by famous and unknown photographers. These photos offer a striking snapshot of the human experience that lingers on birth, love, and joy, but also touches war, privation, illness and death. His intention was to prove visually the universality of human experience and photography’s role in its documentation.” – from wikipedia.

You can see all the images reproduced in a book of the same name, but there’s something special about viewing these images in public with a group of people.  It’s an emotional sine wave and at the finish, you feel a profound sense of camaraderie for the group of perfect strangers you have shared the experience with.

Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange. Arguably the most recognizable image in the collection.

The journals of slain photojournalist, Dan Eldon.

Imagine this: It’s 1976 and you’re dating a man named Rick. He has a mustache and owns at least one reindeer sweater. High off of reading The Easter Parade and The Great Santini, he’s all pumped up to write the next great American novel but, to make ends meet, he’s currently working for Hallmark. He’s been really cagey about his latest project, only revealing that this will be the first time Hermann Zapf’s Crown font is used in a publication.

The fact is, things could be better between the two of you; he forgot your birthday… then your anniversary. Then there was that time he bit your head off on the car ride home for making fun of him during a game of Monopoly at a friend’s house.

Now, imagine it’s Valentine’s Day and you’re not expecting much – but Rick surprises you. It turns out that book he was working on – it’s all about you! And your relationship! Your eyes well up with tears of joy. Then, as you skim through, they become tears of something else. You discover that the book is full of lines like this: “Please don’t get mad at me if I forget your birthday or some special day we share.”

And this: “Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”

And there’s even a photo depicting couples board game night paired with this text: “Please don’t… make me look foolish in front of other people.”

I spotted this amazing treasure at Spoonbill and Sugartown and, of course, I had to buy it right away. Aside from the prose, the photographs are priceless – but even more priceless are the hand written annotations and underlined passages in my copy, beseeching the reader to re-read certain lines. It’s out of print (as you might have imagined) but, as your faithful friend, I’ve digitally preserved this amazing book; every magical page can be viewed after the jump.

This is the crowning glory of our book collection. Luke found it in a used book store in Austin, TX. For those of you who have not already been forced to look at it, here are a few of the hundreds of amazing and (for-real) inspiring images.

This is from the chapter that addresses lighting and good studio technique:

This is from the chapter about erotic photography.The author suggests that the human female face alone can be very sexy. A novel idea, but one that can be clearly expressed when the warm sensual curves of the face are contrasted to the cold hard edges of an unfeeling metal man:

This is my favorite model. She is also one of the author’s favorites and makes regular appearances throughout the book. She is a tigress of power and you almost believe that there could some day be women judges in the UK, but the hint of nipple quickly brings you back to happy reality:

This is from the chapter on airbrush techniques. Be sure to leave the face and pubis untouched:

This is Luke’s favorite for obvious reasons. The author clearly practiced good studio technique: