I met curator Julie Grahame from aCurator.com a few months ago at the NYC Fotorworks Portfolio Reviews and she really responded to my Rally Biker series. This week they featured the project on aCurator. Julie has a great eye for projects with an emotional connection and depth (if I do say so myself). You can also follow aCurator on Facebook.
For more of the Rally Biker series, you can view the online gallery or buy a copy of the catalog at MagCloud.com
Michel Leroy goes Orange [...]
Resource Magazine editors, Aurelie Jezequel & Alexandra Niki did a profile of my Rally Biker Series in the Summer 2011 Photo Deco-Page. You can buy the whole issue online if it’s not sold at your favorite book store. Have a look at the fresh layout. Thanks for the page play! You ladies ROCK!
To give a little behind the scenes preview and share some of the details of how I lit this portfolio of unrelenting Black and White portraits have a look at the lighting diagrams.
Chris Duffy, the son of the photo legend, Brain Duffy, has produced an intimate and touching film, The Man Who Shot the Sixties, about the explosive and gifted photographer. Duffy’s flame burned hot and burned bright before he torched his archive in 1979 and left photography cold to become a leading restorer of Regency furniture. Contrast in vision and in life.
Duffy, a pillar of “The Black Trinity”, a phrase coined by British fashion photographer Norman Parkinson, defined the photographer-as-rock-star spirit of the 1960′s with edgy portraits of musicians, actors and models. Together with David Bailey and Terence Donovan, the trio of photographers were more famous then the celebrities they photographed and epitomized reputations of cantankerous charm and wonderfully opinionated gentleman photographers. The vision and passion of their images broke all the rules of composition and balance of the time. Stretching the edges of the frame and stripping away visual distractions, they created moments of stylized human insight and emotional connection that define a genre.
This is an amazing series of images from The Observer by the pair Yves & Romain about the remains of Detroit’s Gilded Age. For more about the artists, Kisa Lala wrote a great piece on the pair. For more great finds Kisa’s essays are on the pulse.
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
This issue of VENEER represents the diversity of bikers through the people who keep the spirit and legacy of the community alive. The style is unrelenting black and white images that reveal texture and detail beyond the casual glance by Michel Leroy PHOTOGRAPHER.
Meeting Rally Bikers as we pass on the street, in a parking lot or at a car wash, I photograph riders in a portable studio to capture that moment just after we meet, that point of simple truth while the shared humanity is still in our eyes. The studio serves to remove visual distractions and allows pause for a more intimate portrait, a brief moment to reveal the truth and the veneer of identity.
See the Preview at MagCould.com
A few nights ago I was talking with an aspiring young photographer at an AdhesiveNYC event aboard the improbably wonderful Fryingpan along the West Side highway. The soft July air stirred with the swaying of the boat as hundreds of energetic creatives mingled and spoke of talent. This newly-minted shooter outlined some of her possible career paths in New York City and asked what I thought she should do. It was textbook “When I get to NY I will _______!”. I can remember my own plans with clarity from those intoxicating days just ten years ago.
I suggested key insights earned over a decade of shooting in NY that might help her choose the most direct career path. Whatever her choices were regarding how and when, I suggested she read a fantastic Malcolm Gladwell article, “Late Bloomers” in the October 20th, 2008 issue of The New Yorker. The emergence of talent is an eternal question that Gladwell explores with the depth and skill New Yorker readers love him for.
“…sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.” – GladwellIf you find yourself wandering, this article is well worth the time. Exploration vs Experimentation.
Michel Leroy
Today, I saw an interactive advertisement in the 34th street subway station for Travelers Insurance. It’s not Minority Report caliber yet but we’re well on our way to advertising that “reacts” to viewers. It’s a projection of an umbrella that gets whisked away as you walk by. Very fun, very simple and an ad that actually made me stop and go back. Not many ads have that kind of stopping power. Advertising with customer interaction.
michel-leroy_travelers
INTERACTIVE WALLFX CAMPAIGN
Agency: Fallon & Monster Media
Advertiser: Travelers Insurance
If you want to check it out go to the 6th Ave subway entrance, between 32-33rd streets, West side. Just below the Manhattan Mall. I saw something like it at the Minneapolis airport a few weeks ago.
It’s worth a visit. From static to dynamic.
A tribute to legendary photographer Brian Duffy who passed away yesterday.
Adobe loves Apple
An ad on the NTimes.com site sparked my interest this morning. Two weeks ago when Steve Jobs at Apple wrote an unusual open letter blasting Adobe’s Flash product and listing a slew of reasons why his iTool family of hardware will never use Flash it stirred up a PR battle royal. Adobe claiming that they are open source while Apple claiming they aren’t. Who’s going to loose this one, customers for sure. Luckily we all have ring side seats to the battle for the hearts, minds and apps that will decide if it is the hardware of the software that wins in the new mobile touch device world of web v3.0.
Lets feel the hits and share the love.
Letter from Steve Jobs at Apple.
Letter from Chuck Geschke & John Warnock at Adobe.
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