CPG Gallery Anniversary

The CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHERS GUILD was started 5 years ago by GEORGE ROOS. I was an early Vice President, maybe the first. We wanted to find exhibition spaces where we could hang work and sometimes had multiple openings per month. Our goal was simple; to bring our ART to the public AND to also help out non-profits and charities with our good will. (IE. we went into nursing homes to teach digital photogaphy etc.)
A year ago our membership which ran about 20 photographers decided to rent a space which we have turned into a gallery. It is in STATEN ISLAND NY across from SNUG HARBOR CULTURAL CENTER. It is S.I.'s only gallery devoted to Photographic images. (I did operate a photo gallery a few years ago but that is no more) This one is a co-cooperative, we are all part owners and share the expenses. It is based on www.SohoPhoto.com and www.Bwac.org. We are small but we love what we are doing. I welcome the challenge of creating new work each month to fit the theme. The current show is called "FOUND OBJECTS" and the featured member photographer is Richard Cupuozzo who has his own wall. The two images above are mine and were shot the day before they got hung.

www.EliteDentalOfSi.com

The last time I photographed Dr. Steven Acker, DDS was for the www.FerryAds.com Advertisement with Raffaele M. Branca, the President of www.VictoryStateBank.com. It was such a pleasure that I thought after a long hard day standing & photographing Real Estate Agents in my mini studio for the Staten Island Board of Realtors (www.SiboRealtors.com) at the www.ExcelsiorGrand.com. What better way to relax than to sit in the good Doctors chair until it was time FOR MY TOOTH TO COME OUT!!

www.Ringling.org

When traveling I always try to hit the nearby important spots and it just happens that The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the state art museum of Florida and located within walking distance of the hotel we were staying at. I always like to find a tour and tag along to listen and learn. I enjoy museums as much as photo conventions and workshops, without the knowledge I get from viewing great works of art I would be just another clown with a camera.

The Museum of Art, built by John Ringling to house his personal collection of masterpieces, today features paintings and sculptures by the great Old Masters including Rubens, van Dyck, Velázquez, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, El Greco, Gainsborough and more. The European, American and Asian masterworks available here make the Museum of Art an awe-inspiring retreat. It is a palace for treasures emulating the footprint of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, echoing its grace and grandeur.

In 1925, Ringling engaged architect John H. Phillips to design the museum. Construction began in 1927, but was slowed almost immediately by the collapse of Florida’s land boom and later, Wall Street’s stock market crash. Financial misfortune and Mable’s death in 1929 might have ended the dream, but John Ringling instead gained a new resolve to complete the museum, borrowing money as needed, knowing that it would perpetuate the memory of his beloved Mable.
In October 1931, “The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art” was officially opened to the public.

The Courtyard of the Museum of Art features casts of original antiquities and renaissance sculptures, including the towering David by Michelangelo. The Courtyard features two fountains - Fountain of Tortoises, one of three replicas from the Piazza Mattei in Rome, and the Oceanus Fountain, copied from the 16th century original by Giovanni Bologna in Florence’s Boboli Gardens.

The Museum and its collections continue to grow. In 2006, a combined endowment, building and collection gift from noted Asian art collector and philanthropist Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt, substantially bolstered the Ringling Musuem's Asian art initiative which aims to establish the Museum as an important venue in Florida for the study of Asian Art.

Did you know you can visit the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art free of charge? Although it is not advertised on their website, this was a stipulation of John Ringling himself - that one day a week the Museum of Art would be open to the public at no charge, that day is Mondays. All other days it costs 25 dollars to get in.

It is also a wonderful place to have your wedding reception, just email rentals@ringling.org and/or visit www.TrevisoRestaurant.com for more info.

special note:two photos above were made with the help of TERRY GEERDTS of www.aPrettyPixel.com, Thank you Terry oxoxo

Copyright controversy and the difference a GREAT PHOTOGRAPHER makes

Even as I approached the statue from behind I knew exactly what I was coming upon; a tribute to the great photographer ALFRED EISENSTAEDT. It really bothered me not to see his name associated with this work of art, just "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" by J.Seward Johnson. Not far from Downtown Sarasota Florida where there is a thriving art district, it is quite a tourist attraction. The weekly neighborhood paper talked about the piece in no less than three articles (never once mentioning EISENSTAEDT) They couldn't decide if they liked it , hated it, if it was indeed a work of art and even if it attracted the wrong elements to their town!?!

Being the big proponent of copyright infringement and intellectual property rights
(I had to sue a Staten Island Wedding photographer when he used my b/w infrared photo of a bride he had no connection with. He said he thought I would be thrilled that that he was publishing my image to promote his business but without my byline or licensing fees it destroyed my friendship with him. He would not stop using the photo as his main image in Bridal magazines and in his storefront and at Bridal shows for 5 years! Yes I gave him the negative so he could make a print to secure a special job but to use it for other things should definitely have had my permission!) That *$%#@?!! of a $#%#$&*^&%!!

So I researched and found out that "V–J day in Times Square", a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, was published in Life in 1945 with the caption: In New York's Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers. In the photograpger's own words:
I was walking through the crowds on V-J Day, looking for pictures. I noticed a sailor coming my way. He was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them all — young girls and old ladies alike. Then I noticed the nurse, standing in that enormous crowd. I focused on her, and just as I'd hoped, the sailor came along, grabbed the nurse, and bent down to kiss her. Now if this girl hadn't been a nurse, if she'd been dressed dark clothes, I wouldn't have had a picture. The contrast between her white dress and the sailor's dark uniform gives the photograph its extra impact.

It became a cultural icon overnight and by establishing his copyright, the photographer carefully controlled the rights to it, only allowing a limited number of reproductions which determined how it could be used. Since his death in 1995, the rights to the photograph have passed to a Getty Museum as part of the LIFE archives.

U.S. Navy photo journalist Victor Jorgensen captured another view of the same scene, which was published in the New York Times the following day. Jorgensen titled his photograph Kissing the War Goodbye. It shows less of Times Square in the background, lacking the characteristic view of the complex intersection so that the location needs to be identified, it is dark and shows few details of the main subjects, and it does not show the lower legs and feet of the subjects.
Unlike the Eisenstaedt photograph, which is protected by copyright, this Navy photograph is in the public domain as it was produced by a federal government employee on official duty.

In 2005 Seward Johnson used a computer to design a life-scale bronze statue that he titled Unconditional Surrender. This statue and several large versions in styrofoam and aluminum have been exhibited at several locations in the United States. A spokesperson has stated that it is based on the Jorgensen photograph titled Kissing the War Goodbye, but a spokesperson for Life has called it a copyright infringement of the photograph by Eisenstaedt.