Photojournalism Category
Spellbinding prints of New York City In Neon
The brilliant Flashbak shop for archival prints has a new range of photographs by Gerry Cranham. The British photographer (born 1928), took these pictures and many more in the late 1960s, experimenting with speed and light. The results are spellbinding. New York City, London and Las Vegas throb with energy.
Gerry captures the thrill of seeing halos of bright hues appended against the black night sky as mankind’s wattage vies to usurp the moon and the give substance to life’s fragility. Rather than seeing the neon lights as part of messages to pull us in off the street and into restaurants and clubs, Cranham plays with them, creating transformative clusters of abstract images, so that words and signs show us how light sculpts, altering what we see and how we see it.
You can buy prints of Gerry Cranham’s spellbinding photographs in the Flashbak shop.
Copyright Gerry Cranham,. Pictures not be used without permission.
Posted: 20th, March 2022 | In: Photojournalism, The Consumer | Comment
Photos of sex and souvenirs on 42nd Street New York City in the 1980s
They sold sex and souvenirs on New York City’s 42nd Street in the 1980s. Artist Mitch O’Connell was there with his camera to take snapshots of the street nicknamed the “Deuce”, where you got. cultural fix of grindhouse, where according to the book Sleazoid Express, cinemas were frequented by:
depressives hiding from jobs, sexual obsessives, inner-city people seeking cheap diversions, teenagers skipping school, adventurous couples on dates, couples-chasers peeking on them, people getting high, homeless people sleeping, pickpockets…
Outside was even better:
phony drug salesman … low-level drug dealers, chain snatchers … [j]unkies alone in their heroin/cocaine dreamworld … predatory chickenhawks spying on underage trade looking for pickups … male prostitutes of all ages … [t]ranssexuals, hustlers, and closety gays with a fetishistic homo- or heterosexual itch to scratch … It was common to see porn stars whose films were playing at the adult houses promenade down the block. … Were you a freak? Not when you stepped onto the Deuce. Being a freak there would get you money, attention, entertainment, a starring part in a movie.
See them more of what 42nd Street looked like in the 1980s on Flashbak.
Posted: 5th, May 2021 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment
John Glenn, Ham the Monkey and The Mercury 6 Story
John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth when he sat in a small pod atop a huge rocket and blasted into space. On Flashbak, you can see the story of how he got up there in photos. And why a monkey call Ham got there first – and one named Goliath didn’t…
Via: The Mercury 6 Flight Story In Photos
Posted: 4th, September 2019 | In: News, Photojournalism, Technology | Comment
Remembering lost loves through the power of photography
Do you look at a photograph and hurtle back to a docent place and time? “Loved & Lost is a documentary that explores our experiences of loss through photography and audio interview,” says the project’s creator Simon Bray. “Each participant is asked to find a photograph of themselves with their lost loved one. We then return to the location of the original photograph to replicate the image.” It’s a brilliant idea expertly produced. We appreciate the power of photographs, and wonder which ones we should keep to live with and become part of who we are.
The images are snapshots of time. We see what was missed and what remains. “Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be,” wrote the journalist Joan Didion. Living becomes a challenge to survive. But the act of being, reason and remembering push back the maelstrom and calm the frenzy. The Romans told the bereaved, “Such a one has lived”. Less ‘loved and lost’ than ‘love and won’. Jews say “I wish you a long life” to the mourning. Death is the ever present in human history, and with it comes the chance to celebrate life. The Egyptians put it well:
‘Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum
Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora.’‘Think each day when past is thy last; the next day, as unexpected,
will be the more welcome.’ — [Hor., Ep., i. 4, 13.]
More on Flashbak.
Posted: 11th, December 2018 | In: Photojournalism | Comment
Looking for the May Day girl
On the brilliant Flashbak site a search is underway for the girl in the photo from a May Day parade in Lviv, Ukraine in 1968, when it was part of Soviet Union.
If you know more, do tell them…
Posted: 2nd, May 2018 | In: Photojournalism, Strange But True | Comment
Marijuana activists fly De Blasio 420 banner one day too late
Hats off to Animal New York and Josh Simenhoff for flying a pro-marijuana banner over Manhattan. The legend referenced New Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose own history of toking weed never did his career any harm, and a banner ordering the mayor to “get off the pot” and quit.
The banner was due to fly earlier but because of bad weather the launch date was put back to 4/20. But that date came and went. So. The banner flew on 4/21.
Still. It was fun, as AnimalNY reports:
And so on April 21, three months after we intended it to, our tongue-in-cheek, pro-cannabis banner finally hit the Manhattan skyline. After all of the back-and-forth, it was still worth it. “I did this in the pursuit of happiness and I’m proud to be an American,” said Simenhoff. Ditto for us. Also, legalize weed.
Because weed never did Blasio ever harm, nor any of his politico pals, like Barack Obama, David Cameron, Bill Clinton (who took weed by osmosis), Michael Bloomberg, Andrew Cuomo and George W. Bush. Unless, of course, it made them nuts..?
Posted: 22nd, April 2015 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment
Faces of The Day: Bridget Mulread And Mona Venables Enjoy The Kildare World Cup Party
FACES of the week: Bridget Mulread (left) and Mona Venables, residents of Curragh Lawn nursing home in Kildare were treated to a world cup party and BBQ on Tuesday June 17, 2014. Niall Carson/PA Wire.
Posted: 21st, June 2014 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment
Face of the Day: Russians Holiday On The Crimea’s Seized Beaches
WHAT did you do in the war, dad?
Russian tourists enjoy a Black Sea beach about 35 kms (22 miles) from Yalta, Crimea, Sunday, June 15, 2014. When Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea earlier this year, it regained not only harbors for its navy and abandoned Ukrainian military bases but also long stretches of pebble beaches that were the summer destination of choice for millions of Soviet citizens. The Kremlin is hoping to attract tourists to Crimea, which Russia annexed in March, by asking state-controlled companies to send their employees on free vacation trips.(AP Photo/Andrew Lubimov)
Date: 15/06/2014
Posted: 18th, June 2014 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment
1959: A Nurse Injects A Dummy At The Nursing & Health Exhibition
FLASHBACK to March 2 959:
Nursing & Health Exhibition at County Hall: A nursing sister shows how an injection is given. The exhibition was organised by the London County Council.
(Because dummies are terrifying.)
Posted: 18th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment (1)
1969: KFC’s Colonel Harlan Sanders In Las Vegas
FLASHBACK to 21/01/1969:
Col. Harlan Sanders, who operates Kentucky Fried Chicken stands across the country, meets employees on visit to the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, Jan. 21, 1969. Sanders was in town for the company’s convention.
And, yes, he did eat the stuff:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 17th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment (1)
1930: The Mechanical Hen Demonstrates The Anatomy Of A Chicken
FLASHBACK to 1930:
The hen with the mechanical internal organs, who surprised visitors at the World’s Poultry Congress in London by giving a brief lecture on how she utilized her food to make eggs. The exhibit was prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture Office of Exhibits. H. L. Shrader, poultry expert, is shown at work on the huge bird before it was shipped to London.”
Spotter: Harris & Ewing Collection
Posted: 16th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment
1970: US Soldiers In Vietnam Smoking Marijuana Through A Shotgun Barrel
FLASHBACK to November 13, 1970:
Soldiers in fire support base Aries, a small clearing in the jungles of War Zone D, 50 miles from Saigon, smoke marijuana using the barrel of a shotgun they nicknamed “Ralph” to get high.
Posted: 11th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment
10 Epic Failed Political Photo-Ops
Failed political photo-ops
DAVID Cameron is facing ridicule once again. His latest gaffe was to tweet a picture of himself looking serious and statesmanlike while having a serious statesmanlike phone call with Barak Obama. The problem, aside from the typically patronising pomposity of the gesture, was that he looked singularly un-statesmanlike. In fact, he resembled nothing do much as a perplexed pudding.
Of course, he has plenty of competition in the failed phot-op stakes.
Here’s George Osborne, Chancellor and Chelsea fan, in ‘man of the people’ pose, manfully working late while snacking on a burger and fries. His tweet backfired when said burger was identified as coming from posh nosh joint Byron.
Oh, hello! Talking of burgers…
Hey presto – instant ridicule. What a Gummer.
But frankfurters are even more risky. Republican Presidential nominee Michele Bachmann has been dubbed Palin 2.0 thanks to her numerous factual and logical gaffes. On this occasion, however, she was guilty of nothing more than innocent naivety, and chomped on a corn dog in full view of the press without considering the consequences.
Best to stick with a beer. In Nigel Farrage’s case almost literally so, as he clings to his pint prop as tenaciously as Tony Blair clung to his ubiquitous ‘ordinary guy’ coffee mug. Asked about it, he replied: ‘I’ll tell you something. I work an 18 hour day most days and I think I’m entitled at lunchtime to a pint.’
William Hague famously claimed to have regularly drunk 14 pints a day as a schoolboy, and he wasn’t averse to being pictured pint-pot in hand. But his most risible moment was this fashion faux pas which was intended to make him look cool, but didn’t.
Even without the banana, David Miliband achieves the extraordinary feat of making his brother look normal.
But what the hell – normal’s overrated, right? Just ask Francois Hollande. Actually don’t ask him, as he appears to be a bit sensitive about it. In fact, two French press agencies even took the unusual step of withdrawing this unflattering portrait of the French president.
Ask former US Congressman Chris Lee instead. Or better still, just admire this picture of himself that he utilised in the services of his reply to a sex ad on Craigslist.
Of course anyone can have an off-day. But for one man, it happened to be Groundhog Day.
In the end, you just have to laugh along and rise above it.
Posted: 10th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Photojournalism, Politicians | Comment
1943: Olive McDonald Brands The Casting Of A 3-inch Mortar-Bomb
FLASHBACK to May 5th 1943:
Olive McDonald, branding the casing of a 3-inch mortar-bomb, at a factory somewhere in England, on May 4, 1943.
Posted: 9th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism, Technology | Comment
Classic Photo: April 29th 1962 – Norwich City Celebrate Winning The Second Division Championship
FOOTBALL flashback to April 29th 1972: Norwich City celebrate winning the Second Division Championship in the dressing room: (l-r) Graham Paddon, trainer, Doug Livermore, Kevin Keelan, Terry Anderson, Duncan Forbes, manager Ron Saunders, Trevor Howard
Paper plate: model’s own.
Posted: 5th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism, Sports | Comment
1972: Jennie Jaconello From Weybridge Relaxes In A Peter Banks Stereo Chair
FLASHBACK to February 5 1972: the Stereo Chair.
Jennie Jaconello from Weybridge relaxes in a Stereo Chair on show at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, Feb. 5, 1972. The chair designed by Peter Banks is the theme of the display by Banks Heeley Plastics Ltd., at the furniture show, which opens at London’s Earls Court on February 6. The chair permits a stereo and radio unit to be fitted on to one of its arms. The addition of a pair of headphones enables the occupant of the chair to recline into his on her private world of music-and ignore the television, radio or record-player that may be operating in the same room.
Posted: 4th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism, Technology | Comment
1945: ‘Popeye The Sailor’ Poses At The US Naval Headquarters In The Pacific
FLASHBACK to 23/06/1945:
Hollywood experience could be responsible for this Popeye the sailor pose of Edward R. Baker, Phom 3/c, of North Hollywood, Calif. Baker is a former film industry employee stationed at advance naval headquarters in the Pacific on June 23, 1945.
Posted: 4th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment (1)
1968: Posters Go Up For Birmingham City V Arsenal, Spurs And The Mighty Orient
FLASHBACK to 09/02/1968: (L-R) Birmingham City’s George Moore and Tommy Bell prepare to paste up a poster advertising the forthcoming fixtures taking place at St Andrew’s.
Posted: 3rd, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism, Sports | Comment
