Will Okun in the New York Timmes: "Afternoons with Worsom"

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/afternoons-with-worsom/<P>

 

<I>"Three days a week our high school?s photography class forgoes its lunch

period in favor of extended field trips throughout Chicago. The main purpose of

the class is for the students to use photography as a medium to recognize and

portray the beauty in themselves and in their fellow students.<P>

 

Another objective is to explore the many diverse communities and institutions of

Chicago. A typical week might take us from a local college to a museum to a

forest preserve to an ethnic neighborhood. We will go anywhere as long as the

destination is free. However, the students? favorite journey is our afternoon

visits to Worsom?s studio, located just a few blocks from our school.<P>

 

Everyone on the Westside of Chicago knows Worsom. As the sole photographer for

the Chicago Defender, one of the oldest African-American newspapers in the

country, his camera is omnipresent at any community, political or sporting event

of importance. He is a talented and respected portrait photographer, and his

pictures hang proudly in a dizzying number of Chicago homes. Worsom truly is a

modern day ?Picture Man.?</I><P>

 

Those are the first three paragraphs and it gets better from there.

Thanks Ellis.

 

Aren't we lucky to be where we are, living like we are, coming from where we were raised?

...and we're lucky to have the New York Times. Thanks Ellis.

I knew there was something I needed to do.

"...and we're lucky to have the New York Times."

 

Some people are just natural comedians....

Another excellent NYT article was in this Sunday's Books section, a brilliantly written review of Life of Picasso (one of several in a series on his life...goes up to 1930)...

 

Picasso was vastly more important to the sweep of photography itself than any "art photographer"... people like Brassai and David Douglas Duncan noticed, but "photo historians" are blind in this area and, as terrible writers, they are also blind to the importance of literature to photography.

 

Crucially important writers such as Norman Mailer, Malraux (who I mentioned earlier) and Rilke were drawn to him...painters and writers have always been far better educated than photographers IMO, as we tend to be technical types more than visual.

 

Flip the next page to a review of essays by Judith Thurman you'll find intensely interesting discussion related to Avedon ("...what's moving about fashion: It dies young.") and to Diane Arbus and Leni Riefenstahl (Thurman easily makes it obvious why Riefenstahl would embrace fascism and Hitler). Might buy that book.

 

It'd be great if the NYT had competition in cultural areas, including photography. The only similarly serious newspaper I know of is the LA Times.

Thanks for pointing us to the article, Ellis. A simple breath of fresh air, and a nice counterpoint to all of the "death of photography", digital/film, old/new, moral/amoral, navel gazing.

"Aren't we lucky to be where we are, living like we are, coming from where we were raised?"

 

Bill, it is interesting that most of us can sign that message wherever we come from and

whether we are daily readers of the New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais or Frankfurter

Allgemeine. Thanks for informing us. Interesting article.

actually, "most of us" isn't a very clear identifier. If "most of us" means the human race, then "most of us" wouldn't even be on the internet.<p>But if "most of us" means people at photo.net, then yep, we've all got it pretty sweet (comparatively)... t

Tom, to "sign" it means being on PN, "must of us" means us ! I agree with you.

What are the New York Timmes? Anything like the New York Jeffes or New York Mikees?