JULIUS SHULMAN: PHOTOGRAPHER

All these photos are by Julius Shulman, the greatest architectural photographer of the 20th Century,  maybe maybe the greatest ever. Shulman lived here in L.A. and a lot of the houses he photographed were in Southern California.

Shulman didn't build these houses, he just photographed them. It's always tempting to imagine that a good photographer just gets lucky, but that wasn't true in Shulman's case. He had a vision which he imposed on his subjects.  Modern architecture for Shulman wasn't only about angles and light, it was about a new sensibility which was light hearted, optimistic, adventurous and intelligent, and which somehow told a story. It was said that sometimes Shulman's photos were better than the buildings he shot.

Here (above) the architect attempted to prevent Shulman from taking the picture because he thought the house wouldn't photograph well in the fading light.  Fortunately for the architect, Shulman did it anyway. 

Shulman loved modern architecture. He loved it so much that, when modern became post-modern he packed up his equipment and quit. He hated postmodernism, and I feel the same way.

Modernism at its best had a heroic, optimistic and pioneering feel to it. Post modernism seems to say, "Look, everything worth doing has been done, so we'll just do modern versions of what the Romans did 2,000 years ago."

Shulman's best work was done in black and white, but he slowly adapted to color a little bit at a time. That diagonal above is based on a sketch by Leonardo DaVinci.

Shulman often favored one point perspective. He liked the way it made details rush out at you, and simultaneously suck you into the picture. Sometimes he completely re-arranged the furniture to heighten the speed effect. Is that blurring on the right side a deliberate attmpt to get movement into the shot?

Just for the heck of it,  I deleted the color from Shulman's picture. Most of it works fine this way, though the black and white drains some of the vibrancy from the right.

Here's (above) a modernist house with a strong Japanese influence. I wouldn't say it was completely practical, but it sure looks good in this Shulman picture. Should houses be practical? Maybe the architect's done his job by creating fascinating spaces that clients can customize later.  What do you think?

Anyway, the drawing on the right illustrates what was wrong with certain modernist houses. When the blinds were open and the walls were transparent, the house looked great.  When the blinds were closed, and the walls were opaque,  the house was reduced to a big, unadorned shoebox.

It's a fixable problem...you just vary the shapes...but some modern architects considered that to be a dilution, a compromise with the old ornamental bias. Well, Shulman's job was to make the houses look good, and you can't deny that he did that.

 I'll end with one more Shulman picture (above)....

...and a picture of the man at his desk. He was in his mid 90s when this photo was taken, and still perfectly lucid and thoughtful.  Get Netflix to send you the documentary about him called, "Visual Acoustics." There's a book by the same name.

BTW: Is that not a tres cool design for a workspace? Oh, what I'd give to have a room like that!

And BTW again: I have lots more to say about Shulman and the vision he imposed on modernism. I'll try to post about him again soon.

OVERWEIGHT/UNDERWEIGHT

No doubt about it, skinny and fat are funny.  It's hard to make fun of skinny people, though. It's actually fashionable to be skinny now. 

Emos made it hip to be that way. Have you seen the jeans guys are wearing now?

Maybe it was always hip to be thin. I mean, look at Sinatra. He could walk in the rain without getting wet.

 Guys like that probably get beaten up a lot in high school, but the ones who survive have it made for the rest of their lives. 

Girls love skinny guys. Frank needed body guards to fend them off.

Thankfully the gods of comedy have supplied us with overweight people in abundance. The problem is, that they're too easy a target. It's hard to think of a fat joke that hasn't been done before. 

That's why I think stocky is the new fat. There's plenty of stocky people, and stocky is funny. You just know that there's millions of stocky jokes just waiting to be written.

Stocky is everywhere. It's what happens when your body expands in every direction, not just your stomach and hips.

So that's my resolution for 2011: learn to draw stocky.  Revel in it. Try to understand the stocky universe.

BTW: I need to take a few days off. I'll be back Wednesday night, Feb. 2nd!

POETRY CORNER: THREE NIFTY POEMS

Here's three readings of poems that I think you'll like. The first is a Paul McCartney poem, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (above).  Of course that was a Beatles song, but Paul wants it to be remembered as a poem as well as a song, and for good reason...it sounds good to the ear, even when it's spoken.

John Lenon hated this song, which he regarded as one of Paul's "granny" poems. He called it "fruity." I disagree. Paul was fascinated with the English ability to abstract macabre crimes and make them seem somehow cute. The English are a sentimental people, and Paul thought that was worth noting in a song and a poem. He was right.

Anyway, give a listen and try to regard the lyrics as poetry. Here's (below) a print version of the opening:

Hmmmm. The lyrics are written out in a way that makes the cadence hard to decipher if you don't know the melody. I'd have written them the way they're sung, like this:

Joan was quizzical; studied pataphysical
Sci-ence in the home.
Late nights all a-lone with a test tube; Oh,
Oh, oh, oh.



Here's (above) a reading of W. H. Auden's "Stop All the Clocks." Auden dispenses with overt poetic flourish (or wants us to think he does) and speaks plainly and sincerely about the death of a friend. It's very touching.




Here's (above) a dramatic reading of a real breakup letter.  It's poetry of a sort, though you only think of it that way when you hear it read the proper way, as it is here. This would be a hit at a poetry reading!



Above, an unannounced bonus!