life:
Not published in LIFE. Gay rights event, 1971.
In late 1971, two years after the Stonewall riots in New York sparked the modern gay rights movement in America, and twelve months before LIFE ceased publishing as a weekly, the magazine featured an article on “gay liberation” that, seen a full 40 years later, feels sensational, measured and somehow endearingly, deeply square all at the same time.
Read more here.
Bloo & Darkstar/ Slab City, California/ 2011 (by spencerjharding.com)
Bloo was one of the few locals of slab city not taking advantage of all the free booze at our camp, her preferred to stay sober. He had only one hope, that people would see the beauty of the area and stay for awhile. “The desert reduces us down to our core to what is really important.” This was one of the only photos Bloo had ever taken with his dog, “I need to remember this because I will for sure outlive him.” He then gave me his email with strict instructions to never give it out due to his mother working for the CIA and was probably trying to locate him (sounds crazy but there was nothing but honesty in this mans heart and eyes). His attitudes are an echo of Chris McCandless, but Bloo has no knowledge of his story, he simply embodies that same amazing spirit of pure adventure.
According to an obituary published in The New York Times, Richard Avedon’s fashion and portrait photographs “helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century.”
Avedon was always interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul of its subject. As his reputation as a photographer grew, he brought in many celebrities and politicians to his studio and photographed them with a large-format 8x10 view camera. His subjects include (in order) Elizabeth Taylor, Buster Keaton, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Andy Warhol.
His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a sheer white background. At times, to evoke a reaction from his portrait subject, Avedon would bring up uncomfortable areas of discussion or asking them psychologically probing questions. Through this technique he would produce images that revealed aspects of his subject’s character and personality that were not typically captured by others.
Marilyn Monroe, photographed during shooting for Some Like It Hot (1959). ‘She was nice, smart, kind of amusing, and very approachable. Not a bimbo at all’
Elliott Erwitt
Jackson Pollock’s revolutionary ‘drip paintings’ put American art on the map, representing the first real break with the formal structures of European art.
