THE HAWTHORNE is open for business

•December 5, 2011 • 2 Comments

My wife Alison Sheffield and I have designed a hotel lounge in Boston, Massachusetts called The Hawthorne and it is finally open.

Here are some early pics.  I will post more as the dust settles and I can contain it all in a blog post.

Lounge one

Lounge Four

Bar One

Opening night

Press for The Hawthorne:

The Boston Globe

Boston Magazine

Urban Daddy

Askmen.com

Chowhound.com

Sally Moore: Human/Nature

•October 15, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Every semester I take my advanced black and white silver photography majors out to see what happens to be showing in some of Boston’s galleries.  One of our most consistent stops is The Barbara Krakow Gallery. The work there is constantly excellent and of a world-class caliber.

This month did not disappoint. Sally Moore’s show Human/Nature is stunning, playful and intellectually provocative.  I visited the gallery three days in a row, two times with my 2 different sections of photography students, and once with my 6 year old son who was particularly interested in the piece titled, Trophy.

Sally B. Moore holds a BFA in painting and an MFA in sculpture from MassArt, and a BA in Theater Arts from Vassar College. Shows include the 2005 DeCordova Annual, and solo exhibitions at the Barbara Krakow Gallery in 2005, 2008 and 2011. She recently completed a large commission of eight sculptures for the Ames Hotel in Boston. She was a finalist in 2003, 2005, and 2007 for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Artist Fellowship Award and received an Artist’s Resource Trust grant from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation in 2004. Her work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Sculpture, Art New England, and is included in the collections of the DeCordova Museum, Fidelity Investments, Simmons College, and Wellington Management. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at Fitchburg State College.

Partners in Surrealism

•October 9, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Man Ray and Lee Miller!

click link for details of the amazing exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum.

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From 1929 to 1932, Man Ray and Lee Miller — two giants of the European Surrealism movement — lived together in Paris, first as teacher and student, and later as lovers. Their mercurial relationship resulted in some of the most powerful work of each artist‘s career, and helped shape the course of modern art and photography. Combining rare vintage photographs, paintings, sculpture and drawings, this exhibition tells the story of the artists’ brief but intense association and reveals the nature of their creative partnership.

A gallery of some of my favorite Man Ray images and objects, and of some of my favorite Lee Miller images and images of Lee Miller.

She appeared in front of the camera just when photographers as well as their models were beginning to attain celebrity. Arriving in Paris in 1929, Miller made a rendezvous not only with Man Ray but with her artistic destiny. She quickly moved behind the camera, in a milieu where the photographer was gaining acceptance as an artist rather than a purveyor of ersatz substituting for “real” art. In their studios, Miller and Ray worked with barely mobile devices recording images on sheet film or glass plates. When they went out to photograph in the streets of Paris, they used the simple folding cameras of the day.   Click for the complete article on Lee Miller from Columbia Magazine

A Link to The Man Ray Trust

Elliot Erwitt is still going

•August 16, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Check out this great segment and article on NPR.

http://tinyurl.com/3regcfm

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Anatomy of a Corporate Art Project #2: Island Creek Oyster Bar, Boston

•June 29, 2011 • 6 Comments

Early March 2010, I was approached by Garrett Harker, the owner of Eastern Standard Kitchen and Drinks about an new project he was starting in partnership with the Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury, MA.  He asked me to create a piece of art for his new restaurant, and the space for me to work with was one whole wall in the dining room.  Initially I was thinking it would be something along the lines of what I had done for him at Eastern Standard.  As it turned out the wall was 15 feet by 38 feet!!

Here is a photographic document of the process from scouting to sketching to installation.  Enjoy!

The artwork was printed, mounted and installed by ICL Imaging in Framingham, MA.

The Interior Design for ICOB was done by Bentel & Bentel, form NY, NY.

Beautiful Mug Shots – (in honor of my 100th post)

•June 8, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Beautiful Mug Shots –  

Wearing top hats and waistcoats and staring fixedly back at the camera, these men could have been posing for a family snapshot.

 

But these amazing images from the 1910s to 1930s are actually police  mug shots taken of convicted criminals arrested in Australia.

 

The collection of black and white pictures are from a series of around 2,500 ‘special photographs’ taken by the New South Wales Police Department photographers.

Brazen: William Stanley Moore is pictured on May 1st, 1925 with a cigarette in hand. He was described as an opium dealer who operated with large quantities of fake opium and cocaine. He also had associations with water front thieves and drug traders
Strike a pose: William Cahill stands with a far away look in his eyes and a hint of a smirk in this photograph on July 30, 1923. Details of his crime are unknown
Tough guy: Sidney Keller was arrested several times and featured in Australian newspapers in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. He was charged with shooting, assault and running an illegal baccarat game in Sydney in the 1940s

No remorse: Albert Stewart Warnkin was charged with attempting to carnally know a girl aged just eight in November 1920. Right, no entry was found for Adolf Gustave Beutler, but 'willful and indecent exposure' is inscribed on the picture
Got any hairspray? Harry Williams, who has a passing resemblance to Cheers bartender Ted Danson, was sentenced to 12 months hard labour in 1929 for breaking, entering and stealing
Mob mentality: All four of these men, pictured in 1921, are wearing sharp suits and carrying hats for their mugshot
Rugged: Walter Smith is listed in the NSW Police Gazette, 24 December 1924, as 'charged with breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Edward Mulligan
Unknown crimes: John Walter Ford and Oswald Clive Nash in June 1921
Triple trouble: 'Silent Tom' Richards and T Ross, alias Walton and an unknown man appear in this photo on April 12, 1920
Dapper: Sydney Skukerman, alias Cecil Landan, 'obtained goods from warehousemen by falsely representing he was in business'
Fresh faced: Joseph Messenger was arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats, valued at 29 pounds and three shillings.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000227/They-dont-make-mugshots-like-anymore-Amazing-police-photos-1920s-criminals-arrested-Australia.html#ixzz1OeilWN5i

Anatomy of: an album cover

•May 4, 2011 • 3 Comments

A photo shoot with Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo

a.k.a. Dream Job!

Here is a photo document leading up to the final cover, inside pages and press kit photographs for an upcoming jazz disc from Branford Marsalis and Joey Caldrazzo, titled Songs of Mirth and Melancholy.

I have also been given permission to include an amazing track titled: Endymion.

Album Cover artwork

Album cover artwork for Songs of Mirth and Melancholy

Label President Sherry McAdams, The designer, Steve Jurgensmeyer, and I had story boarded the shots we needed and were in desperate need of a location. After scouting for what seemed like weeks (maybe it was just days), we were given permission to shoot in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts newly constructed modern wing. Steve had pitched the idea to emulate, but not copy, the clean, cool look and feel of the great turn-of-the-century jazz album covers. The MFA turned out to be the perfect spot to cover all of our aesthetic needs, and being so full of natural light, all I needed was one excellent assistant and no lights whatsoever save for the occasional bounce card.

Call time was 6:30 am, and Branford had just come up from NYC after a four-day stint performing with the New York Philharmonic, and Joey had just returned from tour dates in Europe. They were NOT overjoyed to be dressed up and bossed around. The fact that we knew what we wanted and made every effort to keep the stress low and the mood light kept the shoot on schedule and the artists happy.

Here are some of the test photographs, outtakes from the shoot and favs of mine, as well as the images actually used on the CD packaging.

HUGE thanks to my amazing assistant (and a great artist in his own right) Darren Stahlman, stylist extraordinaire and great friend Jennifer Dunlea, and great friend and label president, Sherry McAdams, who asked me to join the team on this amazing project.

For more info on Branford Marsalis and many other amazing musicians, head to www.marsalismusic.com and be amazed.

The one ‘color’ image of mine from the Instant Connections show.

•April 27, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Untitled (lovers)

Instant Connections: A Polaroid Themed Exhibition

Untitled (lovers), is the one ‘color’ photograph of mine included in the Instant Connections show at the Panopticon Gallery in Boston.

The print is from a scan from an uncleared Polaroid T-55 negative. The negative itself is black and white, but the caustic jelly that was left on the negative captured by the scanner has created a beautiful array of colors and a wonderful sense of decay.

I Shot Dr. Land

•April 25, 2011 • Leave a Comment

A behind-the-scenes look at a photo shoot as I recreate a famous photograph of the creator of Polaroid, Dr. Edwin Land.

Instant Connections, a Polaroid group exhibition to Open at Panopticon Gallery

BOSTON, MA: Panopticon Gallery is delighted to announce our Polaroid themed group

exhibition, Instant Connections, co-curated by advertising Creative Director, Independent

Curator, and former Executive Director of the Photographic Resource Center Jim Fitts

The exhibition will run from March 31 – May 2, 2011 with an opening reception on

Thursday, March 31st from 5:30-7:30pm.

Instant Connections brings together some of the most noted photographers who have

made enormous contributions to the world of photography through their use of Polaroid

film coupled with some up-and-coming emerging artists. They include:

Andy Warhol Chuck Close Vik Muniz William Wegman

David Levinthal James Casebere John O\’Reilly Stephen Sheffield

Olivia Parker Marie Cosindas Ellen Carey Arno Rafael Minkkinen

John Reuter Bill Burke Tom Baril Len Gittleman

Anna Tomczak Elsa Dorfman Amanda Means Rick Ashley

Mimi Youn Nicholas Winter Sue-Yee Leung John Keough

Robert Siegelman Mark Younkle Samuel Quinn and a few surprises!

“The contribution that Polaroid has made to fine arts photography is both incredibly broad

and deep, and no single exhibition could do it complete justice,“ Jim Fitts, co-curator

states. “Instant Connections focuses on bringing together a number of photographers

whose work demonstrates just how diverse a medium Polaroid was. There is no question

that the work of each artist in the exhibition stands on its own, but it is fascinating to

compare and contrast it with the work of other artists in the exhibition.”

Currently celebrating our 40th Anniversary, Panopticon Gallery, (est.1971) is one of the

oldest fine art photography galleries in the United States specializing in contemporary,

modern and vintage photography. represent established and emerging photographers with

a primary focus on developing and expanding their careers. The gallery regularly assists

collectors in buying, selling and locating photographs and supports local educational

institutions and regional art museums. Panopticon Gallery is located inside the Hotel

Commonwealth in Boston, Massachusetts.

Follow Us: www.facebook.com/panopticongallery

www.panopticongallery.com

Video clip of my portrait shoot of Panopticon Gallery owner, Jason Landry as Dr. Edwin Land, the inventor of Polaroid.

•March 20, 2011 • Leave a Comment

 
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