The Torn-Up Credit Card Application - A Cautionary tale

The Torn-Up Credit Card Application: "You should probably buy a shredder today.
"

Michael McGuire at Watertower

McGuire showed some very intriguing panorama images. Some of them are collages, which for me lessens their impact. I like things that appear to be photographs to be closer to reality than a collage. Somehow, faking the image after the fact diminishes the impact on my soul. This is odd, because regular painting "art" is completely artificial and faked (hence art?) -- but can appear to be really real, and have great impact. Go figure. 

In the interest of fairness, Abigail and Julia are Jacob's sisters

  

Jacob, my grandson, age 8.

I was playing with my new toy - a Fuji Finepix F11 - and captured this image at ISO 800. Remarkable for this generation of P&S digicams - probably ho-hum standard for the next generation.

Good stuff at the Art Institute of Chicago

Last Friday I visited the Art Institute of Chicago. They had two fascinating exhibits on display - both worth a visit

From Darkroom to Digital: Photographic Variations is a show of more than 40 objects from the permanent collection features variants and alternative prints by Ansel Adams, Tom Arndt, Chuck Close, Patty Carroll, Frank Eugene, Gertrude Kasebier, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, and others.

Girodet: Romantic Rebel is the first retrospective in the United States devoted to the works of gifted French painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1767–1824). The exhibition assembles more than 100 seminal works (about 60 paintings and 40 drawings) that demonstrate the artist’s impressive range as a painter as well as a draftsman.

Leica and the Nazis

In an article entitled Leica and the Nazis Andrew Nemeth notes:

Some German corporations didn't exactly distinguish themselves during WW2, with many fostering an unnaturally close association with the Nazi regime, as well as ruthlessly exploiting their slave labourers & employees.

I'm sure many of you have wondered: "Where were Leica in all this? How deeply did they get involved? Were they Good Blokes, or Creeps?"

Thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Frank Dabba Smith, George Gilbert and Norman C. Lipton, the good news is that in this particular case, E.Leitz did do the right thing. Not only did they treat their workforce reasonably well, but they also helped many Jews (and others) escape the depravity of the Thousand Years Reich - often at great personal risk.