Michael Davydov places his handmade tiny houses, trees, moons and barns in precarious worlds. Inspired by architecture and nature growing up in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod, he began to sketch and create little sculptures. He was soon making miniature worlds in which buildings and nature come together.

The thing with small is that it can look inadequate. On a table top or bookshelves, his work could appear endearing in a childlike way and a little sweet. But when encased in glass domes and vials, the same work takes on a fairy-like quality, a bit of timeless magic, as if he’s not been building, but collecting and preserving wonderful things the rest of us have missed.

“I come from a small town in central Russia, located on a riverbank and surrounded by forests. I lived there until my student years and often spent time outdoors – this partially influenced my work and became an integral part of it.”

– Michael Davydov

“One day, I became fascinated with bonsai art, as well as creating florariums—miniature ecosystems under glass. Working with living material led me to master the art of imitation — that’s how I describe my approach to miniatures. I replaced live plants and moss with driftwood and synthetic greenery, using my own recipes, and began creating miniature landscapes in lamps and test tubes. Against the backdrop of long journeys and distance from my homeland, tiny architecture appeared in my worlds. As an image of home and refuge, I tried to “congeal” these memories in the themes of my works.”

– Michael Davydov

Via: DailyDoll, Michael Davydov

The post Floating Away In Michael Davydov’s Miniature Worlds appeared first on Flashbak.

“My photography legitimises my voyeuristic tendencies”

– Rennie Ellis, King’s Cross

Australian photographer Rennie Ellis (11 November 1940 – 19 August 2003) took these images in Sydney’s Kings Cross over a six month period during the summer of 1970-71. We see strippers, clubbers and US servicemen raw from fighting in Vietnam enjoying R&R breaks.

As Ellis put it, Kings Cross “has a pulse rate and a lifestyle unlike anywhere else in Australia”.

“I became very interested in trying to record in words and on film what people were doing, their attitudes and lifestyles.”

– Rennie Ellis

“Much of my pleasure in photography is not in looking at the photographs, which I find boring, but my involvement in the actual situation of taking the shots, of preventing the moment from escaping forever”

– Rennie Ellis

“At her home in Victoria Street, Michele, one of the strippers, talks about her job. She is English, very likeable and in her own style intelligent and articulate. She sits in her bra and pants on the couch under an Uncle Sam Wants You for The US Army poster and plays with her kitten.

‘Well actually I arrived in Australia with only $6 so I caught a cab, told the driver I danced, he told me he knew where I could get a job and took me to the Paradise Club and I started the next day waitressing and stripping. I used to do tables, jump up, get my gear off, then back on the tables. It was quite hard work really. But I liked it in the Cross. Compared with places like Soho and the Reeper-bahn in Hamburg it’s much more friendlier, not so vicious. It’s closer knit. Everyone knows everyone. And the bosses, the big guys, are more approachable here, you know, more like people.

‘Quite a lot of women come in to the shows. Sometimes they’re in long dresses after some fancy ball and they giggle and hide their faces. It’s funny to go up and shake your fanny around and embarrass them. And we have lots of middle-aged married couples up from Melbourne. Then there’s these downright perves who just sit there having wanks. It’s awful. They come in and sit in the front row, they’ve got glassy eyes, and they just pull it out and away they go. It’s so embarrassing. I look at them as I dance past and say “put it away you filthy bastard” and they just look at you blankly. They’re miles away in a sexual fantasy of their own. Mostly they’re young guys. Then there are the old regulars of course, great characters who think it’s great if the girls talk to them.’”

– Rennie Ellis, Kings Cross Sydney: A Personal Look at the Cross

 

“The Whisky a Go Go claims to be the Biggest Night Spot in the Southern Hemisphere.… You walk in under an explosion of neon in William Street, past a couple of tuxedoed and handsome dandies who scrutinise each and everybody. The last thing the Whisky wants is trouble, buddy. You pay your $2 and then, like jumping through the looking glass, you’re plunged into a maelstrom — a total environment that impinges on the senses like an electrical storm. Partly it’s manufactured by the management — light balls whirling in the dark, incredibly sexy go-go girls performing in chained and mirrored cages, forty near-nude waitresses, and the thundering amplified sounds of a rock group— and partly by the people themselves, shaking and shimmying on the dance floor as if they’re caught up in the electronic vibrations that burst out in waves from the huge speakers…

“The waitresses in a kind of bikini-sarong outfit, bend over your table and their boobs just about fall out all over you. The go-go dancers in their cages, reflected all angles several times over, are curvy ladies too, and they know how to make the curves work. In g-strings and bras they writhe away for ten minutes then take a twenty minute break. Six nights a week, six hours a night they work like convulsed marionettes.”

– Rennie Ellis, Kings Cross Sydney: A Personal Look at the Cross

Born in Melbourne in 1940, Rennie Ellis worked in advertising and became a freelance photographer in 1969. Shen he passed away unexpectedly in 2003, his  500,000 unreleased photographs were moved to the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Get: Kings Cross Sydney: A Personal Look at the Cross published by Rennie Ellis and Wesley Stacey in 1971.

Via: Daily Telegraph, Martyn Jolly

The post Sex, Clubs And GIs in Kings Cross, Sydney 1970-71 (NSFW) appeared first on Flashbak.

“Dressed like that, I feel 30 years younger”

– Wan-ji, Want Show Was Young

For decades married couple Hsu Sho-Er, 84, and Chang Wan-Ji, 83, ran the Wansho Laundry in Taichung, Taiwan. Over the years many people left clothes behind. Hundreds of items were left unclaimed for a year or longer. In 2020, their grandson, Reef Chang, went through some of these clothes. He used them to dress the couple and take their pictures.

“They didn’t understand at first,” says Reef. “They also don’t understand fashion trends, but when they were young they were very fashionable. They thought why would people of this generation like clothes from their generation?”

Reef dressed them in a mix of vintage pieces and youthful trends, often layering fun accessories like hats, sunglasses, scarves and bold prints. What began as a family pastime evolved into a project about ageing, love and sustainability, transforming forgotten laundry into living portraits of style and spirit.

“Their business is not always busy,” says Reef. “They would doze off in the shop and their spirits weren’t high. So I thought since our family has these clothes, I can remind my grandparents their life can still be great even in old age.”

“My grandpa and grandma were staring blankly at the streets because business wasn’t good. I wanted to find something new they could enjoy doing….

“They had nothing to do. I saw how bored they were and wanted to brighten up their lives.”

– Reef Chang, Want Show Was Young

“Grandpa said yes without any hesitation, but he didn’t think it would go big. Grandma was not a fan at the beginning — not because of the idea, she just wasn’t confident about her look and thought she would need to do her hair in order to be photogenic.”

– Reef Chang

“Grandpa loves suits; he always has them washed and ironed. To him, being an owner of a laundry shop, he should be clean and neat when meeting people, which shows his professionalism. That’s why he insists on wearing ironed suits whenever he heads out. And to make things easier for work, he loves a pair of shorts with a white plain vest.

“Grandma used to be very stylish; she still has two huge wardrobes of clothes from her younger days; the styles were the same as the ones of celebrities [back then]. But now she’s more after comfort. She likes wearing T-shirts of western brands or just polo shirts with a pair of trousers and trainers, which makes it easy for her to shop.”

– Reef Chang

 

 

“I am old in age but my heart is not ageing. I like to put on pretty clothes and go out to have some fun.”

– Hsu

“In the past, clothes were very expensive. When I got married, it cost an ox-cart loaded with 20 bags of rice to pay for my suit. And back then clothes were so valuable that you could take them to the pawn shop if you needed money.”

– Wan-ji

Hsu Sho-Er passed away in May 2023.

Via: Vogue, @wantshowasyoung

The post Old But Not Forgotten: Old Couple Find Fun Wearing Clothes Left At Their Laundry appeared first on Flashbak.

Between October 1973 and March 1974, the OPEC cartel oil embargo caused problems or residents of Portland, Oregon. The US fuel shortage led to problems for motorists in finding gas that was available and affordable. Theft from cars left unprotected was commonplace. Many added locks to their vehicle’s fuel’s caps and pumps. Other, like the father and son pictured above, told gas thieves they;’ be shot.

Many fuel stations closed. To conserve energy. businesses switched off their neon signs. All Portland high schools had their football games rescheduled for daylight hours. Sales of gas-guzzling mobile homes plummeted. And the kerosene lamp business boomed. David Falconer worked on the Documerica project to document the fuel shortage in Oregon during the 1970s.

“Turn Off the Damn Lights” stickers were used in newspaper ads as well as on television, billboards and car bumpers.

Abandoned gasoline stations abandoned were sometimes used for other purposes. This Station at Potlatch, Washington, west of Olympia was turned into a religious meeting hall. A sign painted on the pump proclaimed “Fill Up with Old Time Salvation.”

 

This neon light company in Portland referred to the Bible passage:  “Let There Be Light.”

Winter wood was in high demand. People were still stocking up on wood in April 1974.

Imported gasoline available at a cost of around double that of domestic fuel.

 

CARPOOL

“Pool It” Sign North of Vancouver, Washington, Was a Reminder That the Gasoline Shortage Was Not over in March, 1974 and Sharing Rides Was a Good Idea 03/1974

Retained a Car Pool Office in May, 1974, Even after the Gas Shortage Was Virtually Over. The Phone Number for the Agency Spells C A R P O O L 05/1974

EVEN

Oregon’s Odd-Even Plan Reduced the Lines at Gas Stations During the Fuel Crisis in the Fall and Winter of 1973-74. This Station Was Servicing Cars with Even-Numbered Last Digits on Their License Plates on an Even-Numbered Calendar Day 02/1974

 

COUIPONS

Printed Gas Coupons for Official City Cars During the Fuel Crisis. A City Commissioner Shows the Coupons That Were Used in February, 1974. Each Coupon Allowed Five Gallons at City Pumps Only 02/1974

DANGER FIRE

Original Caption: Actual Demonstration by the Fire Department Training Station Showing What Would Happen after a Rear End Accident If a Five Gallon Can of Gasoline Was Carried in the Trunk of an Auto (Picture Number Six in a Series of Six.) 01/1974

After a Long Winter without Having a Smiling Service Station Operator Offer to Wash the Windows and Check the Tires a Driver From West of the Cascades Had to Drive East of the Mountains to Find Such Service as at This Station 02/1974

SUNDAY

“Never on Sunday” Was the Theme Song of the Oregon Gasoline Dealers Association During the Gasoline Shortage During the Fall and Winter of 1973-74. This Sign Was Posted in Portland 01/1974

SMALELR

A Buyers’ Market Developed Overnight in the Pacific North-West for Gasoline Guzzling Motor Homes. At the Height of the Fuel Shortage It Was Almost Impossible to Sell Them. This One Was for Sale 12/1973

Oregon Governor Tom Mccall Takes Delivery of a Smaller Car with Better Gas Mileage as His Official Auto and the Press Covers the Event in Portland. The Auto Replaced a Lincoln. Mrs Mccall Is Shown on the Passenger’s Side 01/1974

SORRY

After Hours in a Gasoline Line a Driver Could Arrive at the Pumps and Find Out That the Car Ahead of Him Was the Last to Get Fuel. So Many Stations, Such as This One in Portland, Began Using a “Sorry” Sign on the Last Car to Get Gas 12/1973

HITCH

The Gas Shortage in the Pacific Northwest During December 1973 Had Even Suited Businessmen Hitch-Hiking in Places Like Beaverton 12/1973

SPEED LIMIT

Motorists Were Stopped by the State Police When They Exceeded the 55 Mile an Hour Limit on Highways Which Had a Previous Limit of 70. The Action Was Done to Conserve Fuel During the Crisis in the Pacific Northeast. This Is on 80 N East of Portland 12/1973

BROADWAY

Looking Down Southwest Broadway in Portland, During the Energy Crisis Shows Limited Lighting on a Misty Evening 12/1973

The post The Portland Oregon Gas Shortage of 1973-75 – Photos appeared first on Flashbak.

“It was around 11pm and needless to say, the floor was packed with humanity, much of it comprised of those who had visited other venues earlier who had finally made their way over to the club for the evening. If you were there on that night, look closely, you might see yourself in this photo. Enjoy the memories, folks!”

– Steve Laboe, Halloween Party at Sam’s Minneapolis, 31 October 1977

Steve Laboe was club photographer at Uncle Sam’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Before we see more of his work and hear his memories (and maybe call to some of yours) a word on the club.

The building was constructed in 1937 as the Minneapolis depot of the Greyhound Lines bus system and operated for 31 years. Allan Fingerhut (1944-202), heir to the now defunct Fingerhut mail-order merchandise company, purchased the facility in 1970 and converted it into a nightclub. He opened The Depot on 3 April 1970, with performances from English singer Joe Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014).

As tastes changed and disco rose, The Depot closed in 1971 and in July 1972 became Uncle Sam’s, a national franchise of the American Avents Corporation of Cincinnati, Ohio. This red, white and blue patriotic-themed club played recorded dance music supported by a drummer, a DJ for patrons dancing on a light-up plexiglass dance floor. Club doorman Richard Luka described as “Studio 54 for the discriminating Kmart shopper”.

Circa 1976 – photo by Andy Watson.

The club’s name was shortened to Sam’s in March 1980 and got its third name change on New Year’s Eve 1981 when it became First Avenue. It became the place where Minneapolis-born sensation Prince played nine full shows.

Journalist David Carr wrote in The New York Times that First Avenue’s cultural weight and history is matched by only a few clubs in the United States: CBGB, Maxwell’s (both New York), Metro Chicago and the 9:30 Club (Washington DC).

That was later, of course. On Halloween 1977, 701 N 1st Ave was home to Uncle Sam’s. An article in Billboard magazine of December 21, 1974, sets the scene:

Dancing to records backed by the live drummer is the whole lure. Each Uncle Sam’s has a large dance area averaging about 60 by 12 feet. A computerized chase-rotate-and-flash electric circuit matches the 40-foot wall of lights and multi-colored lighting under the foot-high transparent plexiglass dance floor with the rhythm of the record played. Overhead, six strobe lights are calibrated to match the rhythm. There are stationary black lights and several bubble machines in the dance area.

Halloween at Uncle Sam’s, 31 October 1977

“Pictured here you’re seeing the start of the contest,” says Stephen Loeb. “Folks lined up on the perimeter of the dance floor and one by one walked across the floor. Big Louie (featured in the above photo stood on the left side of the floor in the yellow Uncle Sam’s t-shirt) was responsible for lining up the contestants. A physically big guy was needed to keep things from getting out of hand. The rowdy crowd reaction was one of the factors in determining who would win.”

“I had been over at the St. Paul Civic Center earlier that evening to attend the Crosby Stills and Nash concert, and rushed back to the club to witness the insanity taking place inside. By the time I arrived around 10:45, there was still a line halfway down 7th Street towards Hennepin, with folks just waiting in line to get inside. Many, if not most, of the costumes were homemade creations, and it was one amazing visual after another….

“Enjoy the memories, folks.”

– Steve Loeb

“The momentum of the release of Star Wars just a few months earlier, was STILL a thing back in 1977, by the time Halloween rolled around. The DJ that evening at the club was Larry Davidson, pictured here dressed up as a Jedi Stormtrooper.”

– Steve Laboe

“France…Tell them we’re from France”
The Coneheads

“For those of you too young to understand the quoted reference here, the Coneheads were a fictional family of extraterrestrials with bald conical heads, created for a series of recurring sketches on Saturday Night Live. They first appeared on January 15, 1977. They were portrayed by Dan Aykroyd as father Beldar, Jane Curtin as mother Prymaat, and Laraine Newman as daughter Connie. They were also known for drinking massive quantities of beer.

Everyone KNEW who they were the instant they entered the club that evening.

– Steve Laboe. Uncle Sam’s, Halloween 1977

“I’m assuming this was supposed to be some alien being, all decked out in some crazy @$$ colors. It’s impossible to ignore the presence of the classic pinball and video games in the background in this one. Rife Sport, eat your heart out.

“Notice his nearby partner holding on to the battery pack, which provided the lighting and noise effects all night, wherever they traveled? This was 1970’s high-tech effects at its finest.”

– Steve Laboe

“The story with the guy in the coffin was that his friends actually carried him through the front door like that and once the music started, they positioned him standing up next to the dance floor and yes, even though he was supposedly dead, he had a drink in his hand.

“NOTE: Apparently the prospect of having your wallet pick-pocketed while on the dance floor wasn’t really much of an issue of concern back in 1977. ”

– Steve Laboe

 

“This guy was part of the ‘Fruit of the Loom’ gang. His pick-up line of the night was going up to women and asking ‘Hello, would you like to make some wine tonight?'”

And The Winners of the Uncle Sam’s 1977 Halloween Party Are:

Steve Laboe at the club

All photo via Steve Laboe. You can keep up with him on his Facebook Page.

The post The Halloween Party at Uncle Sam’s – 31 October 1977 appeared first on Flashbak.

No Shadow in Any Nook or Corner (Kuma naki kage), form Clear Shadows, 1867

At a party in late-nineteenth-century Japan, you might be expected to sit behind a paper sliding door (shōji) while an artist captured your backlit silhouette.

Here, we present images from the compilation book Clear Shadows (Kuma naki kage) (aka Shadows Without Shadows; Silhouettes; or No Shadows in Any Nook or Corner), 1867. We see silhouette portraits of members of the kyōga-awase club by artists Ochiai Yoshiiku (1833 – 6 February 1904) and Shibata Zeshin (March 15, 1807 – July 13, 1891).

The book also includes biographies, puzzles and poems in the manner of kyōga-awase (picture-matching for fun) – partygoers were given a subject to illustrate and told to draw anything except for the subject itself.

Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891) – No Shadow in Any Nook or Corner (Kuma naki kage), 1867

Clear Shadows was created in honour of Hagetsutei Kasetsu, a patron of the Edo-based kyōga-awase club who had died three years earlier.

The publication features the silhouettes of 67 individuals (57 are men, ten women and one cat) as they do everyday things. At the top right of each portrait are the club members’ riddle submissions. Each participant was given a theme related to the meaning of one of the kanji characters in Kasetsu’s name (wave, moon, flower or snow), which was combined with one or more of the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal or water).

As Dr Koto Sadamura writes, the same year that Clear Shadows was published, Yoshiiku produced a series of 38 woodblock colour prints, each featuring a silhouette profile image of a kabuki actor. The text included on one of the prints in the group offers a hint as to why silhouettes became a technology for memorializing the dead: “they indeed give the impression as though one is in the presence of these people.”

In the postscript of Clear Shadows, the writer Kanagaki Robun (1829–1894) observed: “Appearance is a deceptive skin. Silhouette shows the real bones [core structure of the person].”

Kuma naki kage, 1867

Kuma naki kage, 1867

Kuma naki kage, 1867

Kuma naki kage, 1867

Via: University of Oregon, PDR, The Met.

The post The Book of Clear Shadows, Silhouette Portraits Of Living For The Dead, 1867 appeared first on Flashbak.

These found photos of silhouettes were not taken in the studio, where images can be painstakingly arranged to be crisp or noirish. Theses are snapshots of scenes taken in natural light. The simple outline of darkness and empty spaces creates powerful images. We wonder what’s real and what isn’t? Which is the positive and which the negative?

It all harks back to the parsimonious mid-18th-century French finance minister Étienne de Silhouette, whose hobby was to cut paper shadow portraits. He kept the cut out shadow and removed the rest. His compatriot, the artist Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968), made his silhouettes by cutting away the subject and leaving behind the surrounding paper. Whichever way you do it, silhouettes make us marvel at how nothing has become something.

Robert E. Jackson, from whose snapshot collection these pictures are taken, invites us to do just that: to imagine the stories in the images and between.

“With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?”

– Bob Dylan, Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

“Actually, I do happen to resemble a hallucination. Kindly note my silhouette in the moonlight.” The cat climbed into the shaft of moonlight and wanted to keep talking but was asked to be quiet. “Very well, I shall be silent,” he replied, “I shall be a silent hallucination.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be
‘Bop-bop-bop-bop
You’re gonna give your love to me
Bop-bop-bop-bop
I want to love you night and day
‘Bop-bop-bop-bop
You know my loving not fade away
Bop-bop-bop-bop
Well you know my loving not fade away

– Buddy Holly, Fade Away

“She was incomparable in her inspired loveliness. Her arms amazed one, as one can be astonished by a lofty way of thinking. Her shadow on the wallpaper of the hotel room seemed the silhouette of her uncorruption.”

— Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
It’s not warm when she’s away
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
And she’s always gone too long
Anytime she’s goes away

– Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers

I’d take my place in the line and wait my turn at the table. The table shaped like a cross, with shadows of a thousand murdered men printed on it, silhouette wrists and ankles running under leather straps sweated green with use, a silhouette neck and head running up to a silver band goes across the forehead. And a technician at the controls beside the table looking up from his dial and down the line and pointing at me with a rubber glove.”

— Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

This is the smallest caliber pistol cartridge made; but it is also one of the most accurate and easy to hit with, since the pistol has no recoil. I have killed many horses with it, cripples and bear baits, with a single shot, and what will kill a horse will kill a man. I have hit six dueling silhouettes in the head with it at regulation distance in five seconds.

— Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway on Hunting

… Well, let me tell you ’bout the way she looked
The way she’d act and the colour of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there

– She’s Not There by The Zombies 

Took a walk and passed your house late last night
All the shades were pulled and drawn way down tight
From within, the dim light cast two silhouettes on the shade
Oh, what a lovely couple they made

– Silhouettes by The Rays 

We’ve lots more from Robert E. Jackson on the site. And you can follow him here for more great stuff.

The post Found Silhouettes: Photographic Beauty and Mystery appeared first on Flashbak.

These illustrations appear in Ehon mizu ya sora (“Picture Book of Water and Sky”). Published in 1780 and illustrated by the Osaka artist known as Nichōsai (c. 1751-1803), the Japanese book caricatures famous kabuki actors (yakusha-e) from Osaka, Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo). The images are in a minimalist and humorous manner exemplary of the ‘toba-e’ style, a forerunner of modern manga.

Follow @artfromjapan to discover more Japanese art.

Images courtesy of the National Diet Library, Tokyo: NDL Image Bank, National Diet Library, Japan (https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/imagebank) | @ndlimagebank

The post Ehon Mizu Ya Sora: A Forerunner of Modern Manga, 1780 appeared first on Flashbak.

“I started looking down from buildings and bridges to see how cars looked. It’s not uncommon to see the carpoolers, but I had never seen them from that perspective”

– Alejandro Cartagena, Carpoolers

In his series Carpoolers, Mexican photographer Alejandro Cartagena shot from an overpass in Monterrey, Cartagena,  recording pickup trucks during the morning rush hour. The workers laying down in the back of pick-up trucks show us lives unnoticed.

“Construction workers were buying houses an hour or more away from where they worked and there is no public transportation for them, so I started documenting how people used their cars,” says Cartagena, “how they drive to work or drive home, how they personalise their cars based on the neighbourhoods in which they lived, and I started looking down from buildings and bridges to see how cars looked. It’s not uncommon to see the carpoolers, but I had never seen them from that perspective.”

“I think there are so many interpretations because the images are so simple. There is no condemnation of what’s happening, no closed interpretations: There are people in the backs of trucks! There is a bit of humour to a social issue, a lightness where you can also wonder what is really happening. It’s also an intimate space: They’re reading papers, sleeping, chatting with friends. It’s kind of a living room on the back of a truck – things are happening in a living room, but it’s also in a public space.”

– Alejandro Cartagena, Carpoolers

The ‘a-ha moment’ came three months after I started photographing the cars. I was commissioned to photographically respond to a series of research papers. The subject was the use of the car in metropolitan Monterrey. I rode with people, I photographed how they parked their cars, how they personalise their cars. One of the topics was traffic. We are generally not able to see traffic because we are in it. We don’t see how the landscape affects or creates traffic. So, I wanted to observe traffic from high vantage points. I was on one of those bridges looking down and began noticing all of these men in the backs of pickup trucks. I took a couple of photos and that was it. But three months later, after the commission was over, I kept thinking about them. I was skeptical if there was enough there, and I realised that I would probably have to shoot digital to make it work, although I always worked in medium and large-format analog. I was so insecure about it, I asked a former student of mine to come along.

– Alejandro Cartagena, Car Poolers (via)

 

….I realised that these guys, these images, connected different aspects of my Suburbia project. They were traveling from the distant working-class neighbourhoods where they lived to work in the affluent suburbs that I had also photographed. The idea of homeownership, as witnessed by these workers going to the wealthy suburbs, was feeding the whole phenomenon. Photographing these men in the back of the trucks added another layer of complexity.

– Alejandro Cartagena, Car Poolers (via)

I began going to the bridge two or three times a week. I played a little game with myself, because when I shoot film I only make one exposure of an image, I would do the same with digital, which is why it took me a year to make 120 pictures! (Laughter). They are zooming by! I try to see them coming from a distance as they approach the overpass, if I see that the front seat of the truck is full, there might be guys in the back so run over the other side of the bridge and align my camera. I took around 4000 images but only 120 are any good.

– Alejandro Cartagena, Carpoolers

Alejandro Cartagena was born in 1977, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. At age 13 he and his family moved to Mexico. After taking a degree in Leisure Management, he worked in the hotel industry, restaurants, and cultural centres. “For a long time, the family photo albums of our life in the DR, were my refuge,” he says. “The photographs grounded me somehow. I think subconsciously photography became a place where I could tell stories. When I decided that I didn’t want to work in hotels and restaurants anymore, I decided I wanted to do photography. So, I began taking workshops. I volunteered at a photography center for a year doing anything they asked me to do, scanning images, sweeping floors, carrying crates. They eventually offered me a job and I worked there for five years. That’s how I learned about photography, and not just how to take pictures, but how to write proposals, how to hang exhibitions.”

Cartagena’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where his mid-career survey, Ground Rules, is presented in 2025; George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York; Patricia Conde Galería, Mexico City; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; and Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. His work is in the collections of museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; George Eastman Museum; and Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California.

Via: Saint Lucy,

The post Carpoolers: Workers On The Morning Commute In Monterrey appeared first on Flashbak.

John Lennon ‘Working Class Hero’ on the cover of Piedra Rodante – 1971

After just eight issues Piedra Rodante, the Mexican version of America’s Rolling Stone magazine, was spiked by government decree. Founded in late 1971, the magazine was a mix of original reporting on Mexican issues and translations of content from the original American Rolling Stone.

Issue 1 kicked off with a cover of ‘Working Class Hero’ John Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980). On Page 2, readers were invited to subscribe to 12 issues a year and thereby receive a free recording of Coming Home by Mexican guitarist Javier Bátiz (3 June 1944 – 14 December 2024). Subsequent issues offered other free albums on the same deal, notably by Jimi Hendrix.

All 14 pages of Piedra Rodante Issue 1 Volume 1 appear below, plus move covers and highlights from later issues, including reporting on The Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro (September 11–12, 1971), an interview with Elton John dressed in his Mr Freedom winged boots, and some adverts that are very much of their time (NSFW).

All but Issue 5 of the magazine’s archive is kept at New York’s Stony Brook University, which has this to say about Piedra Rodante:

Created and edited by Manuel Aceves, Piedra Rodante combined locally produced articles on music, politics, and the counterculture in Mexico with translated material from Rolling Stone magazine. The magazine was shut down by the Mexican government in early 1972 in a general crackdown on counterculture and political activity. Dr. Eric Zolov (Stony Brook University)… has written about Piedra Rodante in his book Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (University of California Press, 1999) and stated that “the magazine provides an essential portal into Mexican countercultural practices/discourse for the early 1970s.”

The period of Piedra Rodante’s relatively brief existence coincided with, and in turn helped to channel, the highpoint of Mexico’s rock counterculture. The roots of this countercultural movement date to the late 1950s and early 1960s when local bands, largely of middle- class origin, recorded direct copies in Spanish of foreign rock’n roll hits by singers such as Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Paul Anka and the Everly Brothers. These Mexicanized cover versions of the imported originals were commonly referred to as refritos (as in, “refried songs”), and often had very inventive Spanish lyrics. By the mid 1960s scores of Mexican bands, largely concentrated in the capital but also cropping up in provincial cities, had laid the foundation for a vibrant, native rock scene to emerge. Mexico was not unique in this regard, although the Mexican scene was arguably one of the most significant. Across Latin America, from Guatemala to Argentina, dynamic rock’n roll movements catering to a burgeoning urban youth sector sprang up everywhere.

Pages 3, Issue 1 Piedra Rodante

Mexican middle-class youth yearned to be recognized participants in the global counterculture. By around 1967, the cultural landscape of these youth reflected those yearnings, as expressed now not only through locally produced music but also through fashion, aesthetic choices, and a new youth argot. Collectively, this incipient countercultural movement was labeled within the media as “La Onda” (The Wave). Although intellectuals and more radical students generally regarded La Onda with a certain degree of disdain—judging it as “mere imitation” of a more authentic youth counterculture found abroad—in truth, the values and aesthetic choices linked to La Onda had seeped into all corners of youth cultural practice more broadly. This became especially apparent during the massive student-led demonstrations in the summer-fall of 1968, which culminated in a violent crackdown by the government on October 2 (“Massacre at Tlatelolco”). In the aftermath of the crackdown, La Onda was transformed by a generation of youth whose optimism had been shattered by the repression of a one-party state, into a vibrant vehicle for national protest.

In late 1970, Manuel Aceves, who was at the time working successfully in advertising, decided to give up his job and put together a magazine similar to Rolling Stone. Imitating Rolling Stone’s own take on the New York Times motto “all the news that’s fit to print,” by using “all the news that fits,” Aceves chose “el periódico de la vida emocional” (the newspaper of emotional life), meant as a pun on “el periódico de la vida nacional” (the newspaper of national life), which was the motto of Excélsior, one of Mexico’s two mayor newspapers at the time.

Aceves liked testing the boundaries of what could be published in Mexico, and Piedra Rodante’s reporting on the counterculture, as well as events and protests related to the regime crackdown after the Tlatelolco episode, soon reached a point the government of President Luis Echeverría (1970-76) was not willing to accept. After only eight issues, La Piedra, as it had become known, was abruptly shut down. Still, the magazine did manage to devote a whole issue to the 1971 Avándaro music festival, Mexico’s equivalent to Woodstock, and by then had become a vibrant forum for young writers interested in the new musical and cultural milieu of La Onda, at home and abroad.

Manuel Aceves secured permission at the time from Jann Wenner and Straight Arrow Publishers to use the material from Rolling Stone. The copyright owner for local materials is listed as Editores Tibales, S.A, which was a company created ad hoc by Aceves. After the magazine was closed down, Aceves did not pursue any other activities in that vein, and became an avid reader of the writings of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Aceves died in 2009.

Stony Brook University Libraries has received a donation from Dr. Luis Gonzalez-Reimann (University of California, Berkeley) of the existing eight issues of the influential, short-lived Mexican periodical Piedra Rodante, for which he served as Associate Editor and Music Critic. The eight issues of this magazine are quite rare. There are only three libraries in the world that have any copies, and the two in the U.S.— Harvard and University of Texas at Austin—only have a couple of issues each. The rarity and the research value of the magazine set it apart from other publications of the period. On the importance of the donation, Dr. Gonzalez-Reimann said, “Considering that Stony Brook would make the issues available for scholarly purposes, I am convinced that, at this point (more than forty years later), Manuel Aceves would have been glad to allow the story and contents of Piedra Rodante to be widely known.”

Piedra Rodante Issues 2-8:

Issue 2

More John Lennon, now with Yoko Ono, on the cover of Issue 2 of Piedra Rodante

Lyrics to Jesus Christ Superstar by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber

Issue 3

Issue 4

ISSUE 6

ISSUE7

ISSUE 8

The post Piedra Rodante, The Mexican Rolling Stone Magazine That Ran For Just 8 Issues, 1971-72 appeared first on Flashbak.

Kyler Zeleny has collected thousands of Polaroids of other people. His Found Polaroids Project pairs his found photos  with short fictional stories based on the pictures subject or situation. For years, we’ve been inviting readers to imagine the stories between our own found photos. Zeleny wants you to  be creative and write them down.

Kyler Zeleny is a Canadian photographer-researcher and author of Out West (2014) and Found Polaroids (2017). He received his masters from Goldsmiths College, University of London, in Photography and Urban Cultures. His work has been exhibited internationally in 12 countries. He is a founding member of the Association of Urban Photographers (AUP), a guest editor for the Imaginations Journal for Cross-Cultural Image Studies and a guest publisher with The Velvet Cell. Kyler currently lives in Toronto, where he is a doctoral candidate in the joint Communication and Culture program at Ryerson and York University.

The post Found Polaroids: Imagine the Stories Between appeared first on Flashbak.

“Everywhere I turned I saw a great picture”

– Lionel Derimais, New York 1980

Canal street, New York, NY

In September 1979, French photographer Lionel Derimais arrived in New York City to study English at Columbia University. “There was a sense that everything was quick and simple,” he says. “I just wanted to be ‘out there’ with film in my pocket, taking pictures.”

Lionel’s love of photography began in 1977 when a friend showed him his camera. “I immediately thought: ‘I’ll do that too’ – even though I had no idea what ‘that’ meant,” he says. That summer, Derimais got a job at a photography shop, bought a camera and built a darkroom.

In late 1979 Derimais went home to his native Paris but was itching to return to New York. In January 1980 he returned and began at course at the city’s  International Center of Photography.

“It was a very happy period of my life: shoot, process, print, repeat. A photographer’s dream,” he says. “Everywhere I turned I saw a great picture, it was ‘cinéma permanent’! The size and the atmosphere of the city was something else: the noise of the New York traffic is so special, the cars were just like in Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, and the height of the buildings on Seventh Avenue was like the Rocky Mountains looming over the streets.”

“In 1980, New York had a reputation for being dangerous, so there was an atmosphere that you had to be careful when walking around,” he says. “One morning near the Madison Square Garden a guy tried to mug me. I managed to walk away but in my naivety, I went back to the guy, asking why he wanted to take my camera because I didn’t have much more than he did. He let me speak, then put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘If I’d wanted to take your camera, I’d have taken it!’”

– Lionel Derimais

“On one occasion, I saw a young kid running through the subway cars, gun in his hand, with the police running after him,” he recalls. “It seemed to me that if you stayed long enough in New York — about a week by my calculation — you would see someone waving a gun.”

– Lionel Derimais (via Huck)

Young men – including one who is sick – at the 1980 St Patrick’s day parade, Manhattan, New-York City, NY, USA.

Kids posing for a photo while another one hides, Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA. 1980

A reflection of the twin towers in downtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA, 1980

Canal street, New York, NY

An American car passes a down and out area of New-York City, Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA. 1980

Man wearing a hat, a raincoat and wearing a tie makes a strange face at the St Patrick’s day parade, Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA, 1980

Winter scene in mid-town Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA. 1980

African-American young women, Manhattan, New York City, NY; USA. 1980

More from Lionel

Lionel has lived in Brussels, Tokyo, Beijing, and on and off in London, where he is currently based. Lionel’s favourite pictures, which he publishes in outlets such as the New York Times, Le Monde and El Pais, are those that tell people’s stories and illustrate social life.

His black & white photos are published by Café Royal Books under the title New York 1980.

The post A French Student’s Photos of New York City in The Winter of 1980 appeared first on Flashbak.