Matias Aguilar _Ft.G_2007Chelsea_UnSq2008

Copyright Matias Aguilar

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Square America

Courtesy Square America


Courtesy Square America



Courtesy Square America

I like to visit the Square America site to check for updates. It is maintained by Nicholas Osborn and specializes on vintage photography...
Square America is a site dedicated to preserving and displaying vintage snapshots from the first 3/4s of the 20th Century. Not only do these photographs contain a wealth of primary source information on how life was lived they also constitute a shadow history of photography, one too often ignored by museums and art galleries. Or at least that's what I tell people- more accurately, the site is a catalog of my obsession with vintage photographs. For the last eight years or so I've spent countless hours digging through boxes of old snapshots at flea markets (mostly here in Chicago and in NYC) and too much money buying photos on eBay. The site is my attempt to create some kind of organizational framework, however idiosyncratic, for the sprawling mess my collecting has created....( Nicholas Osborn, Square America)
...more here

I Heart Brigitte Bardot!

CopyrightTERRY O'NEILL
BRIGITTE BARDOT, SPAIN, 1971

I have recently been checking out a lot of French chansons from the sixties at Last FM. Along with Serge Gainsbourg and Francois Hardy I have been in particular enjoying listening to Brigitte Bardot, Especially La Madrague is a tune I like to listen to again and again. So I really had to buy the CD that features this track.

Sid Avery

An accomplished photographer depicting actors of the golden age of Hollywood’s 1950s and '60s is Sid Avery. With the film studios more and more courting the mass media to promote movies, Avery was often hired to shoot for magazines such as Life and Look to portray celebrities of that time in private surroundings. Gaining the trust of his subjects, the photographer never showed unfavorable sides of the actors. Translating the celluloid proven qualities of his characters into his pictures, Avery’s iconic photography was born out of the growing demand of feeding the public seemingly private glimpses of their favorite star.

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copyright Sid Avery
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and their son, in their home, Los Angeles, 1952

Find Sid Avery’s advertising photography here


Copyright Sid Avery
Couple on motorcycle - Honda ad

Floyd McCarty

Copyright Floyd McCarty


Copyright Floyd McCarty

Being Warner Brothers set photographer in the golden age of Hollywood movies Floyd McCarty has shot some of the most memorable film still photography you can imagine. We all know the pictures he took of James Dean at the sets of the movies East of Eden, Rebels without a Cause and Giants.
Although you can see a lot his his great pictures here and here I am really stunned and disappointed that my online search at google brought about only this short bio at mptv.net

He was born on June 22, 1913
Dates of professional Activity 1929 - 1975
Attended school up until the 7th Grade.
Worked for Various Newspapers and Magazines including New York Times, L. A. Examiner, (old) Dailey News, Chicago Sun (L.A. Bureau) Member of local 659 photographer’s union.
Worked for various film studios including Warner Brothers, Columbia and Universal.
Most prominent photographic subjects include James Dean, Bogart & Bacall, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Debbie Reynolds, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Doris Day among many others.
He was a still photographer for many films including East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause, Sayonara, The Left Handed Gun, Baby Doll, The Illustrated Man, Bonnie & Clyde and The Wrong Man and many more.- died October 5, 1999

Brian Wilson

Beach Boys by Peter Blake, 1964. Screenprint on paper. 53 x 30.8cm. Tate © Peter Blake

The Guardian has a little web gallery that features artwork from the exhibition If Everybody Had an Ocean - Brian Wilson: An Art Exhibition at Tate St. Ives here

Joe Strummer

Copyright Bob Gruen

The importance of style and fashion could be easily overlooked if you automatically relate fashion to hedonism and vanity. To me the first generation of Punk in New York and London proved that fast paced, pure Rockn’ Roll in conjunction with provocative style was a not only a blast. It actually changed the course of music.
But you would have to be as brilliant as the Clash to get away with telling people that by plainly being a rock star you could make bigger changes happen in the world. God bless him for that...

There is a Joe Strummer documentary The Future Is Unwritten by Julian Temple that I was not completely happy about. I did enjoy the film as a fan. The filmmaker had everything at hand, amazing footage, sufficient knowledge of the singer, interesting participants, etc. But sadly and annoyingly, too many of the interviews of Strummers friends, acquaintances and family members are conducted around campfires. We all know now that campfires meant a lot to the late singer and that you can draw a lot from reasoning sitting around campfires. Probably such primordial gatherings could also strengthen, even deepen comradeships. But honestly, I do not want to remember the singer from the Clash as the Punkrocker who also was a hippie at heart. That just does not seem right to me. I would have preferred a more sober focus on his work.

I loved this article from the NY Times by CHRIS SALEWICZ here

'Rock Dreams', by Guy Peellaert and Nic Cohn.

copyright Guy Peellaert
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"Sam Cooke. Sam Cooke, shot dead in a motel, was black but dressed up white, sang Soul but wrote Teendreams, wagged his ass but gently, with a certain deference." Nic Cohn


Copyright Guy Peellaert
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'Buddy Holly. Hey, what happened? One moment I was in Lubbock, Texas, and I had bad teeth, bad eyes and sang with my nostrils and adenoids, hiccoughing and whining. Everyone said I was crazy, so I left and came to New York, an I met a man who straightened my teeth, gave me new glasses, dressed me up real Italian sharp. Next he called me Buddy Holly, and what kind of name is that? Then he sent me out on tour, and put me on TV, and now I'm a Rock'n'Roll star. I like it. Everywhere I go, girls scream at me, boys ask for my autograph and I ride around in a Cadillac. But sometimes I can't believe it - I remember Lubbock, Texas, and everybody laughing and I ask myself, can it last?"... Nic Cohn
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I got this book featuring incredible works by Belgian illustrator Guy Peellaert accompanied by Nic Cohn's writing as a present at the age of 12. Having not seen the work in years I was really happy to buy myself a new copy.