Wikimedia Commons: Lakeview #1 oil gusher, Kern County, California, USA, after the well had partially subsided, the derrick removed, and the well surrounded by a sandbag berm. Photo by W.C. Mendenhall, US Geological Survey, 1910

The Lakeview Gusher Number One was an immense out-of-control pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, resulting in what is regarded as the largest oil spill in history, lasting 18 months and releasing 9 million barrels (1.4×106 m3) of crude oil. In what was one of the largest oil reserves in America, pressure built to an extreme due to the quantity of crude oil in the area. (wikipedia)

Alfred Gescheidt is a professional photographer born in Queens, New York on December 19, 1926. He won a scholarship to the Art Students’ League and studied with Will Barnet and Harry Sternberg. He served briefly in the Navy during World War II, then went to the University of New Mexico and studied with Raymond Johnson. He decided to become a photographer and transferred to the Los Angeles Art Center School and here studied with George Hoyningen-Huene. In the 1950s he documented life on city streets and beaches of America. (Escape Into Life: Alfred Geischeidt)

Previously on Skandalon

Previously on Skandalon

Previously on Skandalon

Andrew B. Myers: Solar Eclipse 2 (crowd watch), 2009 from the Solar Maximum series

Andrew B. Myers is a photographer and digital image maker that resides in Toronto. His colourful and detailed pictures are very carefully crafted, with an approach that always plays both analog as well as digital techniques to achieve a certain look and sensibility. He is currently completing his studies at Ryerson University and has been exhibited in the Toronto area. (About)

James Nachtwey grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Dartmouth College, where he studied Art History and Political Science (1966-70). Images from the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights movement had a powerful effect on him and were instrumental in his decision to become a photographer. He has worked aboard ships in the Merchant Marine, and while teaching himself photography, he was an apprentice news film editor and a truck driver.

In 1976 he started work as a newspaper photographer in New Mexico, and in 1980, he moved to New York to begin a career as a freelance magazine photographer. His first foreign assignment was to cover civil strife in Northern Ireland in 1981 during the IRA hunger strike. Since then, Nachtwey has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and critical social issues. He has worked on extensive photographic essays in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Romania, Brazil and the United States.

Nachtwey has been a contract photographer with Time Magazine since 1984. He was associated with Black Star from 1980 - 1985 and was a member of Magnum from 1986 until 2001. In 2001, he became one of the founding members of the photo agency, VII. (Bio)

To learn more about James Nachtwey, I strongly recommend watching the documentary War Photographer (Christian Frei, 2001).

About the photo:

George Tames covered Washington D.C for four decades (1945-1985) and is best remembered for one, “The Loneliest Job,” a photograph of President John F. Kennedy looking out of the south window of the oval office. Tames took the photograph through the door of the Oval Office, after Kennedy thought he had left. From behind, it looks as if he is carrying the weight of the world. Kennedy – who had a bad back – simply was reading the newspapers standing up, as he often preferred to do.[…]

Although the photo was taken on Feb. 10, 1961 — just a few months into Kennedy administration — the image would later take on a more symbolic meaning as the Kennedy presidency waded into difficult waters. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the New York Times christened the photo, “The loneliest job in the world.” The photo was a favourite of President Clinton, who hang it in the Treaty Room, the presidential private office on the second floor of the White House. The West Wing recreated it for its opening segment (below). (more)

This photo is part of the George Tames Collection hosted by The New York Times Agency. George Tames was a photographer for The New York Times from 1945 to 1985.

From a set of stereoviews made in Makkovik, Labrador by a member of the Moravians around 1900. (converted to anaglyph). View over Makkovik Bay with the Moravian Church and the mission house in the distance. Both were destroyed by fire in 1948.

In case you’re wondering : here’s Makkovik Bay.

About Aaron Romine:

In Aaron Romine’s recent paintings his characters have become stand-ins for something larger. Although obviously recognizable as specific people (they are all actually his friends), the work is contemplative and the scenes are a commentary on current culture. His painstaking paintings have become psychological allegories. He has looked past pure sexuality into how his subjects relate to each other, pushing their relationships to a level of intimacy. While influenced by such artists as Manet, Piazetta, Gaugin, Sargent, and Velazquez, his work has recently veered away from (strictly) historical references. (PragueBiennale.org).

First spotted via This Isn’t Happiness.

Previously on Skandalon

In the 50s and 60s, as the whole ‘Mad Men’ advertising agency era was booming, no one came close to Gescheidt for innovative photography, and he created numerous campaigns, magazine, book, and album covers. His images often both flattered and mocked American sensibilities, and his ’30 Ways To Stop Smoking’ series from 1964 remains a landmark in satirical conceptual photography. (Field Of Vision: Alfred Gescheidt)

Previously on Skandalon

Studio series focusing on disused electronics, as well as flora and fauna.

About Benn Innes:

Born in Knoxville, TN, Ben Innes now works, eats and sleeps in Minneapolis, MN. He gained his BFA in photography from the Minneapolis College Of Art and Design in the spring of 2009. (About)

First spotted via Coudal Partners.

Taken in the spring of 1894, and originally published as part of an article by T.C. Martin called “Tesla’s Oscillator and Other Inventions” that appeared in the Century Magazine (Vol. 49, issue 6, April 1895, p. 930).

You can see the same picture in the online archive of the Century Magazine as well as read the article it illustrated. Here is the original caption from the magazine:

Fig. 13 Similar experiment, the high-tension current being passed through the body before it brings the lamps to incandescence. The loop is held over the resonating coil by Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain). (From a flash-light photograph)

This post is for a friend whom I shall now call Doctor.

Higher Pictures: “Untitled” by Alfred Gescheidt, vintage gelatin silver print, 1961

In an age when Photoshop seems to be a de facto part of nearly every photographer’s creative process, the ways of in-camera and darkroom trickery - montage, collage, double exposure, hand-retouching and re-photographing - are in danger of becoming a lost art. Alfred Gescheidt was a master of all these techniques and more, although his name has, rather unjustly, become largely unknown in recent years.

Once described by former New York Times photo editor John Durniak as “the Charlie Chaplin of the camera”, Geischeidt amassed a rich body of photographic work that was unique, satirical, idiosyncratic and at times even hallucinogenic. (Field of Vision: Alfred Gescheidt)