Infinitesimally slow changes

Four sisters. Forty years. This simple and beautiful pictorial story started in 1975 with a delightful image.

— photo by Nicholas Nixon, annotated by William Skyvington

The original photo was taken in Connecticut by Nicholas Nixon, who happened to be the husband of the young woman named Bebe Brown. Afterwards—year in, year out, for 40 years—Nicholas called upon his wife and her sisters for the creation of an updated portrait. Click here to see the result, published by the New York Times.

I’m reminded of a fascinating theme for reflection, inspired by Richard Dawkins, concerning the impossibility of ascertaining the moment at which one kind of being is transformed into another kind of being, one species into another, one fossil into another. Was there a year in which the lovely Brown sisters ceased to be “girls”, changing into “young women”, followed by later years in which they became “women”, then “middle-aged women” ? No, it would be pointless, if not stupid, to seek such punctual moments. Everything happened gradually.

We are often tempted to imagine that life is punctuated by so-called events, when the present leaps instantly towards the future. In fact, time never “leaps”. It simply nudges imperceptibly forwards… as in the case of the Brown sisters.

First photo of a human being

In our modern world of cheap senseless selfies and trashy paparazzi images, it’s nice to be able to look back at the first fellow who happened to get stuck on the wrong side of a photographer’s lens.

Click to enlarge slightly.

This image was taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838 or 1839 in the Boulevard du Temple, Paris.

Thank God (for posterity) that nothing proves that the subject might or might not have been taking a leak with one leg raised upon a fountain, in the doggy style of our distinguished Aussie PM Tony Abbott.

Thank God, too, that the nasty Photoshop product had not yet been invented.

Biting artistically the dust

The Italian artist Sandro Giordano offers us a fascinating series of 15 photos on the theme of falling artistically onto (or often into) the ground. The series bears the title In extremis, and Giordano’s subtitle states explicitly that the various fallen bodies were “with no regret”. So, all’s well that ends well. Click here to view this series of delightful photos, presented by the French weekly Nouvel Observateur.

In the following photo from the series, the dog is wagging its tail with joy:

To my mind, this proves clearly—if need be—that no innocent animals were hurt or even distressed in any way whatsoever during the production of this set of artistic photos.

Photographic blues

The following image shows a group of women attending an electoral meeting in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

The name of the professional photographer who obtained the image that you see here, published by AFP, is Shah Marai. On the other hand, we know nothing of the identity of the attendee who was using a blue smartphone to take a photo of her surroundings, nor do we have a copy of the image she obtained. There’s no doubt about it: the blue tones create a soothing esthetic effect, disrupted strikingly by the lady’s bordeaux garments. Needless to say, it’s a huge challenge to reveal the essential human dimensions in the case of a refractory subject such as this, and few photographers can hope to succeed. Curiously, Shah Marai’s photo seems to be marred by a small but intrusive patch of blinding white light (no doubt a technical blunder, which could easily be Photoshoped out) near the right-hand-shoulder of the lady in blue. It would be interesting to know how the image might (or might not) have been enhanced by the use of a blue filter.

Great images on French website

The French website of Le Nouvel Observateur offers us regularly various collections of great images. I would imagine that this stuff should be accessible throughout the world. So, I'm including links to two specimens:

• In this collection of kitsch record covers [access], it's amusing to notice the presence of a few dumb-looking Jesus followers wearing glasses or woollen pullovers. It makes me wonder whether maybe Jesus himself might have been a kind of dumb-looking American guy with eye problems and kitsch tastes in clothing.

• The second collection presents photos from the night life of Cardiff in Wales [access]. Strictly nothing to do with Jesus.

Photographer wins gold at Moscow

Here's a portrait of the real winner of the 100 m sprint at Moscow:

He's a photographer named Olivier Morin, who works for AFP. Even Usain Bolt himself tweeted his congratulations to the photographer.

Click here to see the famous photo. Click here to see the story of this amazing photo in Mail Online. And click here to access Olivier's Morin's portfolio.