Alejandro Cartagena’s long-term photographic study focuses on the expanding suburbs outside of his home in Monterrey, Mexico. Wandering around the region for over five years, Cartagena was originally drawn to the infrastructure sprouting up in the hills seemingly overnight. These prefab, cookie-cutter, single family homes were emblematic of an expanding middle class but also of a creeping encroachment upon the natural landscape.

Alejandro Cartagena, Fragmented Cities, Santa Catarina, 2008

Photographing with a large format camera, Cartagena aesthetically references the topographic surveys of the American West undertaken by photographers such as Carleton Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan and William Henry Jackson. Spurred by curiosity, economics and notions of “manifest destiny” these photographers recorded the majestic West before it became subjugated to the needs of private interests and expanding population.  Jackson’s photographs, in fact, were an inspiration behind the creation of Yellowstone National Park (America’s first) in 1872.

The stark contrast in Cartagena’s photograph is suggestive of his intent. In the image, a parade of identical concrete-block housing units march unrelentingly towards a magnificent peak. This progress, if we are to call it that, will inevitably contribute to the forces eroding the grand rock-face of nature, in Mexico and beyond.

Read more about Michael Itkoff’s publication Daylight Magazine and browse his Street Portraits series, one of which is featured our 2011 Benefit Auction.

By Tom Hoehn, Guest Blogger and George Eastman House member (“and proud of it!”)

My name is Tom Hoehn, a longtime member of George Eastman House. The current exhibit, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera,” (which, by the way, is just fantastic!) brought back a memory from my days as a kid in Rome, N.Y., that I wanted to share as guest blogger.

I was a fan of Norman Rockwell’s paintings, who wasn’t? As a kid I would write letters to people and almost 100% of the time I would get a
personal response. I couldn’t text them, “friend” them on Facebook, Google their address. I had to take a pen (or pencil in my case) to paper. My kids, who
can’t comprehend a world like this, wonder if dinosaurs wandered the streets of my hometown at that time as well.

I had a print of a Rockwell painting, his well-known self portrait, featuring him peeking around the canvas at a mirror. I had the idea of sending
it to him for a signature. Industrious kid that I was I put it in a mailing tube and carefully penned his name in his trademark block letter style hoping
to get his attention.  I addressed it “Norman Rockwell, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.” It had to find its way to him. I was a kid, what did I know? I also enclosed two $1 bills for return postage.

A short time later I got a response! Unfortunately, it was my print, unsigned, with a letter stating he was under contract and couldn’t sign
prints. However, Mr. Rockwell took the time to send me this postcard.

I also noted he hand wrote his return address on the envelope. Taking time to personally respond to a kid. What a guy.

I was happy because I got my requested signature! But that isn’t the end of the story. About a week later I got another envelope from Norman Rockwell, again with a handwritten address. Enclosed was the reminder of my $2 — in 13-cent stamps!

That’s just so, well, Norman Rockwell!

I suppose it’s the feeling you get when you look at a garden you have cared for. Nothing can compare to experiencing it with your own senses, to see firsthand the fruits of your labor … that what you have planted, fed, and watered has flourished.

That was the feeling in the air at George Eastman House on Saturday, July 16, as National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter toured Eastman House.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman, left, and George Eastman House’s Tony Bannon discuss the three-strip Technicolor process in the camera gallery at Eastman House.

Hosted by Tony Bannon, the museum’s Ron and Donna Fielding Director, the guests were shown the Speed Graphic camera that shot the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, displayed alongside the image, as well as a NASA Lunar Orbiter, Lumiere Cinematographe, and a three-strip Technicolor camera that had been used on studio lots for many celebrated MGM films.

And this was all before Landesman and Congresswoman Slaughter took their seats in the Dryden Theatre to experience films from the Eastman House motion picture archive, restored with the support from the NEA. The selected titles included the oldest film version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910), an early sound film from Theodore Case (1925), screen tests from Gone With the Wind (1939), and a documentary directed by Paul Morrissey (1965).

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, co-chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus, tells why it’s important to support the arts in Rochester and nationally.

Slaughter, co-chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus, is a longtime supporter of the arts as well as Eastman House, continuing to connect Rochester to the leadership of the arts in Washington, D.C. It for this tireless work the museum honored her with the inaugural George Eastman Medal of Honor in 2006.

The threads of George Eastman House are intertwined with those of federal agencies that serve the public, such as the Library of Congress and the National Archives. In this vein the museum’s collections and preservation schools and workshops have national and global reach and impact. But this, of course, cannot be achieved without support.

Both Landesman and Slaughter told local TV press how important it is to experience the country’s leading cultural organizations firsthand, in person.

“Film is a great art form, our cultural heritage, and right here is where it is preserved,” Landesman said. “Tony Bannon is a legend throughout the country for the work he does and we want to support him and George Eastman House.”

A private viewing in the Dryden Theatre of films from the Eastman House archive restored via support from the NEA. On the screen here is the oldest film version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (1910)

In just over a year’s time George Eastman House has been painted with large splashes of Technicolor, Colorama, and now Kodachrome, via three important acquisitions.

As the world’s oldest museum photography, the vast collections feature all processes and formats of motion pictures and photography. And the color collections continue to expand. The Technicolor corporate archive was formally acquired in March 2010, followed by Kodak’s gift of the Colorama archive – the images and history of the 60×18-foot images that dominated Grand Central Terminal from 1950 to 1990 –  announced in June 2010.

An elder from the Rubari tribe, from the last roll of Kodachrome, photographed by Steve McCurry in India.

Fast forward one year and the photographs from the last roll Kodachrome were donated to Eastman House on June 12, 2011. Kodachrome was the first commercially successful color film, and experienced a quarter-century of rich, unparalleled colors as well as a love affair with countless photographers. Kodachrome film was manufactured in various formats to suit still and motion picture cameras, and required a complex processing system.

When Kodak announced in 2009 it would no longer produce Kodachrome film, company officials announced two ways the famed film would be celebrated: 1) National Geographic and Magnum photographer Steve McCurry would be given the last roll off the Kodak production line and 2) the images from that historic roll would be donated to the archives at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.

McCurry’s historic journey took him in 2010 to his hometown of New York City to western India and finally to Parsons, Kansas. That final stop was to the last lab in existence to process Kodachrome, which would close at the end of 2010, but not before developing his precious roll.

“I don’t think there’s ever been, in the history of photography, a better film, a better way to actually look at the world than with Kodachrome,” McCurry said. “This was the only way I shot for decades.”

McCurry spoke at Eastman House this week before a capacity audience, shared the 31 photographs he captured from the 36-frame roll — some frames were duplicate images — and told stories of his travels and his fears the roll would be harmed by airport security scanners. He talked with the audience and Anthony Bannon, the Ron and Donna Fielding Director at Eastman House, about celebrating Kodachrome. A color film process that lasted longer than any other, it was extolled since the Great Depression for its sharpness, archival durability, and vibrant yet realistic hues.

Dr. Anthony Bannon, left, and Steve McCurry with prints from the final roll of Kodachrome.

The subjects McCurry shot on the last roll include Robert DeNiro and photographer Elliott Erwitt, plus unknown people in various parks in New York City; McCurry in his hotel room in Parsons awaiting film processing; and in India – where McCurry noted “color is important culturally” and where he used Kodachrome’s magic to subtly render contrast and color harmony in depictions of Bollywood luminaries in Mumbai and the Rubari tribe in Rajasthan on the verge of extinction.

“I thought, ‘What better way to honor the memory of Kodachrome than to try and photograph iconic places and people?’ It’s in (my) DNA to want to tell stories where the action is, that shed light on the human condition,” McCurry said. He planned the trip, which he calls “a six-week odyssey,” for nine months. A crew from the National Geographic Channel followed him on his journey. That special has not aired yet in the United States but debuted this spring on European television.

Kodachrome was produced for 74 years, from 1935 to 2009, in a wide variety of formats, including 35mm slide film and 8mm movie film. McCurry used Kodachrome for his well-known 1984 portrait of the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” on the cover of National Geographic.

Kodachrome is appreciated in the archival and professional market for its dark-storage longevity, with colors remaining intact for decades. The early papers of one of the creators of Kodachrome, Leopold Godowsky, are held in the archives at Eastman House, as are many varieties of Kodachrome film in original boxes from several decades as well as moving footage, slides, and photographs, including the documentation of Sir Edmund Hillary’s history ascent of Mt. Everest.

“It’s definitely the end of an era,” he said of Kodachrome. “It has such a wonderful color palette…a poetic look, not particularly garish or cartoonish, but wonderful, true colors that were vibrant, but true to what you were shooting. It was the gold standard of imagery.”

Proof of its affect on popular culture, Kodachrome was the subject of Paul Simon’s song “Kodachrome” and Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah was named for it, becoming the only park named for a brand of film.

Eastman House will present a display of projected images in early July and will mount an international tour of the photographs in 2012.

Water and it’s elemental forces have always been, artistic indicators for self-experience and self-loss. Images of the ocean determine the iconographic nature of the history of art. The sea has remained to this day one of the archetypal natural landscapes of our planet and therefore has not lost any of its enchantment.  The ocean: a collective metaphor and a space of projection for our longings and desires. Therefore, on first encounter, Renate Aller’s Oceanscapes appear so familiar to us. What we are seeing is nothing new, but how it is presented to us is what makes the difference.

Renate Aller, from the series ‘Oceanscapes: One View, Ten Years’, 2008.  The photographer captured this Long Island viewpoint over the decade.

With an eye for detail and an accomplished technique, Aller knows how to capture the full chromatic spectrum of nature in all its breathtaking variety. In some images, there is an interplay of clouds and reflections on the surface of the water. In others, the roughened surface of the ocean transforms itself into a metallic sandy desert, a silvery moonscape, a glittering diamond field, or a crusted icy plane. It is the light, above all else, giving the images their powerful color and creating unique textures.

The ever-changing horizon in the individual pieces reminds us of the swaying amplitude in a piece of music. Aller’s ocean compositions appear to be visualizing the universal rhythms of life: ebb and tide, coming and going, life and death – an endless melody. She constructs mental images and raises sensory issues highly reminiscent of the ideology and concepts of the 19th century with her sublime oceanscapes. Something of the sublimity of the great romantic landscape paintings, especially those of Caspar David Friedrich clearly oscillates in her iconography of melancholy and silence. The absence of Friedrich’s familiar rear-view figure demands an even greater need for the active presence of the viewer.

Aller’s works present us with visual experiences of striking activity, in which landscape becomes the stage: nature performs it’s dramatic spectacle of life and death – everything  is in a permanent process of renewal. Her point of view is as well renewed at every moment. In her opinion it is unavoidable and necessary that humans adapt constantly and akin to their environment. Therefore she will, most likely, never stop the creation of these impressive images of the ocean.

Editor’s note: In conjunction with our upcoming Auction this fall , a series of  guest bloggers will be sharing an in-depth look at some of the artist’s works featured in this year’s event.  Read Auction Coorinator Olivia Arnone’s kickoff blog here.