Bob Rosenthal Interview (On Photography) – 2

August 28, 2018Simon Pettet

John Shoesmith’s interview with Bob Rosenthal continues

JS: Would the captions change much then, the more he was captioning? Especially some of the iconic ones which he must have captioned dozens of times.

BR: Sometimes the difference would be the change of an adjective, a tweaking, but sometimes something will come up and it gets longer and longer. They all build on each other. Writing about it is the memory of the sacred. This is what the prints represent. But those silver gelatin prints, they have an eternal etching to them, and the way the eyes look, the communication is … Read More

Jacqueline Gens Interview – part 2

August 21, 2018Simon Pettet

Robert Frank – New York City, September 1993 – photo: Allen Ginsberg]

John Shoesmith interviews Jacqueline Gens on Allen Ginsberg’s Photography – continues

JS: Do you have any favourites from the collection?

JG: I loved the portraits from the 1980s. The one of Juanita Lieberman, from the Twelve Trees book, one of the few females he photographed, I think that’s a magnificent one, the stress that’s going on between Peter (Orlovsky, her boyfriend) and Juanita is clearly seen in her face. And then there’s Anne Waldman, Allen’s long-time friend and colleague, the famous Joanne Kyger photo taken … Read More

Jacqueline Gens Interview

August 20, 2018Simon Pettet

[Jacqueline Gens – Photo: Allen Ginsberg]

Long before she began working with Allen Ginsberg in the 1980s, Jacqueline Gens was inspired by the Beat writers. Discovering their work when she was in her teens, she points to Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Kaddish” as one that “just rocked my world.” A poet in her own right – she was a director and a founder of the Master of Fine Arts Programme in Poetry at New England College, and for many years worked at the Naropa Institute (now University) in Boulder, Colorado, where she first met Ginsberg – Gens played a crucial … Read More

Sid Kaplan Interview – part 2

August 14, 2018Simon Pettet

[Sid Kaplan – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg]

John Shoesmith interview with Sid Kaplan on his work as printer of Allen Ginsberg’s photography continues 

 

JS: I’m sure that famous Kerouac photo on the fire escape was one you probably could have done in your sleep, seeing as you probably printed it dozens of times.

SK: That was very tricky print to do. It was very underdeveloped, and at the time, I didn’t have the magic fluid handy. What happened with the Kerouac thing, we had it printed on a very hard grade of paper. The difference between the face and … Read More

Sid Kaplan Interview

August 13, 2018Simon Pettet

[Sid Kaplan – photo: Allen Ginsberg]

John Shoesmith’s interviews with those involved with Allen as a photographer continues.  Today – Sid Kaplan

Although largely known outside the world of photography, the name Sid Kaplan is legendary, particularly within the New York City photography scene. While a highly-respected photographer in his own right, Kaplan is revered for his photo printing expertise, a reputation he gained largely through his decades-long work with the legendary photographer Robert Frank. Through Frank he met Allen Ginsberg and began working on printing and processing the Ginsberg photos up until the poet’s death.

Although appraching his … Read More

Brian Graham Interview – part 2

August 7, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in his kitchen, New York City, 1988 – photo: Brian Graham]

Brian Graham on Allen Ginsberg’s photography – continues

JS: I’m interested in Allen and his photographic “eye” – did he know what he was looking for when he was looking at a contact sheet and what he’d want printed?

BG: Robert had a lot of influence over Allen (when it came to deciding what photos to print). But Allen took the pictures, so he knew what he was after. And there are a lot of good ones.He had a quirky kind of sensibility. Like the picture of … Read More

Brian Graham on The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg

August 6, 2018Simon Pettet

[Brian Graham – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg]

Brian Graham‘s journey from his birthplace of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia to New York City bgan in the early 1980’s when he met the famed photographer Robert Frank, who for many years has spent his summers in the Maritimes. Sensing that Graham was curious about photography, Frank invited him to New York City. While he began with carpentry work at Frank’s Bleecker Street apartment, it eventually led to helping Frank in the darkroom. “I learned how to print with Robert in the darkroom, which was really something.” Graham eventually established his … Read More

Raymond Foye on Allen Ginsberg’s Photography – part 2

July 31, 2018Simon Pettet

Raymond Foye on Allen Ginsberg’s photography – continued from yesterday

JS: Robert Frank was obviously an important influence for Allen.

RF: For most people I knew, Allen was a real hero, but Allen had his own heroes, and Robert was certainly one of them. Allen worshipped Robert. So the photography was a way for him to bond with Robert, and to be his student. He had another friend who was a photographer, who lived above Strand Books (in New York), Hank O”Neal. He was the commercial agent for Berenice Abbott. He was another person whom Allen relied on for … Read More

Raymond Foye on Allen Ginsberg’s Photography

July 30, 2018Simon Pettet

[Raymond Foye – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg]

John Shoesmith interviews Raymond Foye on Allen Ginsberg’s photography

JS: You knew Allen before you started working with the photographs. How did your role with the photos begin?

RF: I met Allen in 1973 when I was sixteen, and a junior at Lowell High School. I went with the senior English honors class to a Kerouac symposium held at Salem State College, in Massachusetts. My English teacher, a lovely woman named Rita Sullivan, allowed me to go with the senior class, even though I was a junior, because she knew I was reading … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 353

February 16, 2018Simon Pettet

[Allen Ginsberg in his kitchen, 1988 – Photograph by Brian Graham]

The Toronto photo show, “Fleeting Moments, Floating Worlds..,“ that we mentioned last week continues. What we omitted to mention was the accompanying catalog (printed and designed by the legendary Coach House Press). As curator, John Shoesmith writes in the forward – “The accompanying catalog attempts to further the story behind the Ginsberg photographs. It contains the voices of several key individuals who were crucial to the poet’s “second coming” as a photographer, beginning in the mid-1980s; from the person who planted the seed within Ginsberg to … Read More