| Tim Hawkinson | Octopus | | Cindy Sherman | Untitled Film Still #82 | | Robert Glenn Ketchum | Lakeshore in Morning Fog | | Abelardo Morell | Camera Obscura Image of the Grand Tetons in Resort Room, Jackson Hole, Wyoming | | John Sanchez | Rachel Rosenthal, Artist | | Mitch Epstein | Buena Vista, Colorado | | Leland Rice | Volkswagen With Figure | | Catherine Wagner | The Lamps of 1900 | | Ned Sloane | Telephone Pole Piece, Los Angeles: Photograph of Kim Jones | | Andrew Freeman | #3.4.04- Don Becker's Garage & Guesthouse, Independence, California N36O.48.229 - W118O.11.620 | | Ken Gonzales-Day | Franklin Avenue (1920) | | Jo Ann Callis | Man in Tie | | Bruce Nauman | Burning Small Fires (Artist Book) | | Annie Leibovitz | Scarlett Johansson, Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood | | David Maisel | Oblivion 1382-52p | | Gilbert B. Weingourt | Timothy Leary | | Richard Misrach | Untitled (Ocotillo) | | Edward Steichen | Sylvia Sidney, Hollywood | | Ruben Ochoa | Fwy Wall Extraction | | Hunter S. Thompson and others | From "Gonzo" | | Henry Wessel | Las Vegas No. 15 | | James Fee | Epiphany | | John Baldessari | Face (with Red Nose): Plus Four Alternate Noses | | Anthony Hernandez | Everything #2 | | Ansel Adams | Graduation dress | | Loretta Ayeroff | Mountain View, Edris Drive | | Grant Mudford | Walt Disney Concert Hall, Under Construction #7 | | Frederick Sommer | Stendhal | | Tina Modotti | Interior of the Church Tower at Tepotzotlan | | Henri Cartier-Bresson | Mexico City | | Irving Penn | Hell's Angels, San Francisco | | William Dassonville | From Glacier Point | | Christina Fernandez | Fashion International | | Mark Laita | Air Traffic Controller, Todd Phipps, Palmdale, California, May 5, 2006
Juggler, Sergey Gripkov, Los Angeles, February 21, 2000 | | Mark Wyse | Untitled Landscape | | U.S. Air Force 1352nd Photographic Group, Lookout Mountain Station | Sugar, 1.2 Kilotons, Nevada | | Julius Shulman | Von Sternberg Residence, Northridge | | Joaquin Trujillo | Amy, Los Ninos | | Robert Heinecken | Shiva Manifesting as a Single Mother | | Han Nguyen | Tsunami | | Melanie Einzig | Bikram Yoga Instructor, North Beach, San Francisco | | John Patrick Salisbury | Untitled No. 134 | | Karen Halverson | Gamble House Entry | | Bill Owens | 4th of July Parade, Pleasanton, California | | Catherine Opie | My Studio, Suzanne's Work | | Eliot Porter | Reflections in Pool, Escalante River, Utah | | Adam Bartos | Los Angeles | | Stan Honda | From the Heart Mountain Barracks Project | | Hiromu Kira | The Thinker | | Jeff Mermelstein | Yosemite National Park, California | | Lewis Baltz | West Wall, Unoccupied Industrial Structure, 20 Airway Drive, Costa Mesa | | Dennis Hopper | Robert Irwin | | Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel | S.F. Water Front | | Edward Burtynsky | Oxford Tire Pile #8, Westley, California | | Beahan & McPhee | Almond Trees and Flood Irrigation, Oakdale | | Larry Sultan | Boxers, Mission Hills | | Isabel Gomes | Blue Horizon, Santa Rosa Island | | Edward Weston | Cabbage Leaf | | Anthony Friedkin | Offshore Winds, Zuma Beach | | Richard Long | Donner Pass Circle: Along a 20 Day Walk from Ebbetts Pass to the North Fork Feather River Sierra Nevada California 2005 | | John Swope | Dorothy McGuire, Beverly Hills | | Hans-Christian Schink | LA Night #1 | | Herve Friend | Redlands From Smiley Hill | | Joel Sternfeld | Queen of the Prom, the Range Nightclub, Slab City, California |
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Irving Penn
Hell's Angels, San Francisco
1967
© 1967 by Irving Penn; Courtesy Christie's Images Ltd
LL/16176
Photo Synthesis
Colin Westerbeck
A platinum-palladium print of Penn's image will be included in the fall auction preview at Christie's Beverly Hills Oct. 3-6. (2006)
Condé Nast, the parent company of Vogue, still provides a full-time studio for Irving Penn because the fashion magazine publishes new work by him regularly. Now approaching his 90th birthday, Penn has photographed for Vogue continuously since 1943. This longevity is the result of an equilibrium Penn has maintained throughout his career. To balance the fickle worlds of celebrity portraiture and fashion photography, he has also made pictures of anonymous people wearing their everyday clothes.
The portrait above is of this sort. Warehouse space was rented as a studio because reinforced floors were needed to support the no-seam that Penn wanted. A no-seam is a curved surface from the studio wall to the floor that eliminates the right angle at which the two meet. Its purpose is to make the photograph's background neutral and indefinite. Though usually cloth or paper, Penn wanted this one to be poured concrete so his subjects could park their motorcycles on it.
The Hells Angels were not a fun group. They demanded a considerable fee for the privilege of being immortalized by Penn. "They were like coiled springs ready to fly loose," he recalled. An unexpected benefit was that the concrete no-seam later served as a perfect setting on which to photograph a nude dance troupe.
[Originally published in West Magazine : October 1, 2006 p.13]
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