Mitch Epstein

Bio

Mitchell Epstein (born 1952) is an American photographer. His books include Vietnam: A Book of Changes (1997); Family Business (2003), which won the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award; Recreation: American Photographs 1973–1988 (2005); Mitch Epstein: Work (2006); American Power (2009); Berlin (2011); New York Arbor (2013); Rocks and Clouds (2018); Sunshine Hotel (2019); In India (2021); and Property Rights (2021). By the mid-1970s, Epstein had abandoned his academic studies and begun to travel, embarking on a photographic exploration of the United States. Ten of the photographs he made during this period were in a 1977 group exhibition at Light Gallery in New York. In 1999, Epstein returned to his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts, to record the demise of his father’s two businesses—a retail furniture store and a low-rent real estate empire. The resulting project assembled large-format photographs, video, archival materials, interviews and writing by Epstein, the book, Family Business, combined all of these elements.

His Work

As I can’t go over all of his projects, I will go through my personal favourites:

1. Family Business

In the summer of 1999 a couple of bored teenagers set fire to a disused building in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Epstein’s father was the owner and was ruined in the ensuing law suits. Mitch has recreated his father’s universe before it was destroyed in a series of images, both electronic and book-based.

I will be using this book as my main form of inspiration, Epstein discusses his father’s family business and what he does, using stills from interviews, archival material and more. I would like to involve all of these things but if not all then most as I myself am talking about a family business.

2. The City

Having lived and travelled beyond the United States for over a decade, Epstein began to spend more time in New York City. His 1999 series The City investigated the relationship between public and private life in New York. 

I am not planning to use this project during my personal study but I like how he explores and photographs normal people in their everyday lives.

This is my first photoshoot for the ‘Nostalgia’ project. My plan for this photoshoot was to document my grandparents’ home in Madeira. This was mostly pictures of objects around the house, landscapes inside the house and views from the balcony, as well as a couple portraits of my nana.

SELECTION PROCESS

RATING CODE:

RED – Bad quality images

YELLOW – Average images

GREEN – Good images

BLUE – Best outcomes which I can use for the photobook

EDITING PROCESS

These are some screen grabs of my editing process in Lightroom. It shows the before vs. after of some images from the photoshoot.

PHOTOSHOOT OUTCOMES

1. Research a photo-book –

‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ – Julian Germain

Overview

In a series of photographs made over eight years, Julian Germain captured the quiet, contemplative existence of an old man living alone in a small house in a city on the south coast of England.

‘I met Charles Albert Lucien Snelling on a Saturday in April, 1992. He lived in a typical two up two down terraced house amongst many other two up two down terraced houses… It was yellow and orange. In that respect it was totally different from every other house on the street. Charlie was a simple, gentle, man. He loved flowers and the names of flowers. He loved colour and surrounded himself with colour. He loved his wife. Without ever trying or intending to, he showed me that the most important things in life cost nothing at all. He was my antidote to modern living.’ – Julian Germain

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness was first published in 2005, selling out soon after its release; Germain’s affectionate portrait of Charles is now in its third edition, the success of this photobook is evident, genuine and unique image making may be the cause of this success. Elements of tableaux/documentary photography are seen throughout, along with the use of family archives in the form of a photobook as seen below.

2. Who is the photographer?

Julian Germain was born in London in 1962. He studied at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham and the Royal College of Art, London.

As a photographer, Germain is interested in the documentation of diverse social groups and in the notion of the amateur. He often utilises vernacular photographs, collected from archives, catalogues and family albums, lending his work an anthropological quality and indeed it can be seen to reflect on photography’s place in society as well as record the passage of time.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design –

• Book in hand: how does it feel? Cover has a rough texture, inside pages are smooth/glossy

• Paper and ink: Use of coloured Images throughout along with grainy/vintage style archived images

• Format, size and orientation: Portrait/235 × 280 mm 80 pages 42 colour plates

• Cover: Hard cover/graphic

• Title: Poetic/quote – For Every Minute You Are Angry, You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Narrative: A series of photographs made over eight years, Julian Germain captured the quiet, contemplative existence of an old man living alone in a small house in a city on the south coast of England.

• Design and layout: Pages consist of single image/page layout, minimalistic. Double-spread/archive images

• Editing and sequencing: Effective selection of images/tell us a story

• Images and text: Imagery/ text are linked, text gives us deeper understanding of the narrative –

“I met Charles Albert Lucien Snelling on a Saturday in April, 1992. He lived in a typical two up two down terraced house amongst many other typical two up two down terraced houses, close to Fratton Park, the Portsmouth football ground. I was on my way there to photograph the Portsmouth v Nottingham Forest cup – tie, when I noticed Charlie’s house. It was yellow and orange. In that respect it was totally different from every other house on the street.

Mildly interested and with plenty of time to spare, I crossed the road to have a closer look and discovered that this was actually a kind of shop. In the large front bay window there were a few plants on sale for unusual prices; for example 57p or 34p or 83p. I went inside and there I found some more plants and fiowers sitting in plastic pots on a table covered with newspaper. The bottom half of the walls were wood panelled and painted bright yellow; above that they were decorated, probably in the 1970’s, with a bold paisley / floral style wallpaper.

Charlie appeared; quietly spoken, elderly, polite. He told me what the various flora were and said that yes, he would be happy to put some to one side for me until after the match. We talked for a while and then I asked if he would mind looking after my camera tripod, since I had decided I wouldn’t be using it at the game. He took me through to his living room and showed me where he would put it, ‘just to be safe’

On the walls of this equally brightly decorated room there were numerous photographs of a lady I immediately understood was his wife. I said I thought they were lovely pictures and he told me that Betty had died, ‘a few years ago now.

After the match Charlie gave me tea, a sandwich and some biscuits. He showed me some more photo’s in an album and said he wouldn’t mind when I asked if I could take his picture. A week or so later I sent him the prints and a letter asking if it would be alright to come and visit him again. That is how our friendship started.

Charlie was a simple, gentle, man. He loved flowers and the names of flowers. He loved colour and surrounded himself with colour. He loved his wife. He seemed totally unambitious; all he wanted was for his children to be happy.

Occasionally he would ask if I’d like to listen to some music and then he might play, for example, just three songs from a Nat King Cole LP; but we would really listen to them. Music was never something to have on in the background. He loved words and had the most well thumbed dictionary I have ever seen. He did the Daily Mirror crossword every day. He was not a thinker, but he wondered. I bought him an atlas and he studied it in such detail, amazed by the world. Without ever trying or intending to, he showed me that the most important things in life cost nothing at all. He was my antidote to modern living.”

Sans Limites- Theo Gosselin

 ‘Theo Gosselin presents a glimpse of a life beyond boundaries’

The photobook is am deconstructing is Sans Limites. The book by Theo Gosselin explores the free world of runaway people in mostly landscape forms. 

 The result of the photographer´s most recent road trips across the US, Spain, Scotland and native France, Sans Limites presents a significant evolution of Gosselin´s long term project; photography sur le motif (“of the object(s) or what the eye actually sees”) and his attempt to communicate the actual visual conditions seen at the time of the photographing.

Throughout the book we are exposed to images mostly from midday to dusk; this may signify the freedom to adventure anywhere and everywhere. Deliberately cinematic, Gosselin’s photography reveals friends in the act of escaping from their regular lives into newly enticing and perilous modes of existence, ever in search of the persistent though elusive idea of freedom.

As the viewer you can see this from the mixture of staged and candid photos of people in environments like the woods, lakes forests, in nature in general. Images of people being playful in lakes, running around; also images from inside cars. This implies running away, being on a journey. The Genre is documentary, recording real life events with photos. Freedom is a flowing motive throughout the book, as within the runaways in these images, they seem to have a sense of happiness and excitement in them.

Sans Limites is a portrait shaped book with landscape images in it. Some of the images spread across a whole two pages, others just using the one. I like this as it adds some contrast to the book, not all the pages are the same, its creative and more interesting to look at as the viewer.

I want to focus my project on isolation and the disconnection with my life on jersey as I have a lot of nostalgia for places I lived before. After moving from Scotland where I had lived my entire life, I found it difficult to adjust to the smaller space with sufficiently more people. Nostalgia to me has always been attached to places and people, and the memories I have from them, this project is focused on the loss of home and comfortable space and the small joys from having something familiar. I want to make a photobook that focuses on this theme of isolation and nostalgia by creating landscapes, still life, and self portrait.

Compiling all of my images into a Photobook would allow the viewer to have something physical to hold and look through, it would also allow me to place my images in an intended order to create a loose through narrative. I want to use different photomanipulation techniques such as stitching inspired by the work of Carolle Benitah who uses it to show estrangement and isolation in her family throughout her childhood. I also admire the aesthetic value that Laura Letinski achieves in her work especially the way she photographs still life and colour grades her images it gives them an almost clinical feeling which I think would hand itself well to my project based around isolating experiences. A main inspiration for this project is Francesca Woodman. specifically herself portraits. I wanted to lean into self portraits for this project as I think being photographed typically makes me uncomfortable, self portraiture seems the best way to convey this discomfort I’ve had with changes to the environment around me.

I plan to shoot mostly outside as I want to capture the natural landscape specifically the ocean as with Jersey being an island you can not easily leave without a boat or flying, I plan to take these images early in the morning to get a slightly subdued light on a more overcast day. For objectivity and self-portrait I want to stage the images for the best result, I want to create self portraits from both the way Francesca Woodman would use a slow shutter speed to obscure her images and Carolle Benitah’s addition of stitching and lettering to create a more unconventional image. I want attempt to collage some images and draw over the top of them using both physical paints and photoshop. Within the book intend to have the images with little accompanying text as I think it better shifts attention to the images which I intend to have merged and manipulated with letters from family and other meaningful items.

Girl Pictures-Justine Kurland … describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

Subject matter: The subject/ topic of this book is femininity this is referenced by firstly the colour of the book being a light pink which is usually considered a representation of femininity. All the pictures are of girls outside exploring in quite excluded places, surrounded by flowers connotating femininity.

Genre: The genre/ theme explored in this photobook is to show girls becoming ‘rebellious’ and ‘running away’… the book documents them in different excluded scenes . A repeated theme throughout the images is it gives the sense that they are lonely but together trying to survive as girls. Some pictures show them building shelters with resource’s around them.

Approach to image making: Justine’s images are presented as candid but are obviously staged as they are seen all lying down or in specific positions to create specific affects. However it could be argued that some of her images are candid which id assume some are as there are so many and in order for them to flow throughout the book and link there would need to be candid photos.

How does photography act as an important form of communication of both true and untrue subjects?

‘A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture.’ (Sontag, 1977)

Ever since the dawn of photography, its usefulness, both in cultivating the mindset of the viewer toward the subject and in communicating a message visually, has been its allure. I will be analysing the work of pioneer photo essayist W. Eugene Smith, the widely commented-on war photographer Robert Capa, and important documentary photographer of the Depression era, Dorothea Lange. This is because their work all serves a function to tell a story. Whether or not it is a true story is the key to understanding the photographer’s individualism (and, arguably, integrity) as an artist.

Historically, the truthfulness of an image is always indefinite. Photography was first used by the rich to take family portraits. These were staged and composed entirely by the photographer. The subjects’ serious demeanours and plain body language is demonstrative in itself of just how far photography has evolved since those days of long exposures and big, inconvenient equipment. The equipment used to take pictures was yet another reason for the staging of photography; it was far easier to construct a composition than to allow the world to compose itself before a long exposure. There was an equivalent to ‘Photoshopping’ in the days before digital imagery – photographers would manipulate the darkroom development process to create images that were more appealing to their vision. Airbrushing, dodge and burn, and blurring were all tools used by the photographer to make small (and some less small) changes to their images. Therefore, the credibility of images throughout the history of photography is uncertain. Historian of Russia David King published a photobook in 1997 called The Commissar Vanishes, which discusses the erasure of enemies of the state in official photographs throughout the Stalinist era. It is described by King as ‘a terrifying – and often tragically funny – insight into one of the darkest chapters of modern history.’ (King, 1997)

It is a perfect demonstration of how the manipulation of photographs can alter how we view history and its events; and, hence, how important it is to maintain a discourse on the truthfulness of an image. The erasure of a subject means we have no way of telling exactly who was present at the time it was taken, which only contributes to the thick cloud of uncertainty around what exactly occurred during the terror era. Furthermore, a lack of transparency on what is staged and what is candid can also cause issues in determining history’s true events. The example I will discuss in this essay is Robert Capa’s Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936), which is one of the most famously debated images of all time. In the case of more honest photographs – such as those taken in situ – they make accessible what is inaccessible; they allow those who, in a bygone age where travel is expensive and infrequent, cannot witness alternative lifestyles and cultures to their own to access this in a new medium. This is why the work of W. Eugene Smith was so important at the time; it was both educational and exciting for those who were unable to see it for themselves. Therefore, the importance of photography in relaying the events of history should not be understated – it is imperative that we as artists continue to use the medium to its advantages; to both document and inform.

The photo essays created by W. Eugene Smith between 1945 and his death in 1978 explore a variety of subjects, ranging from Minamata (1974), which explored the horrors of the mercury poisoning disaster in Minamata, Japan, to Nurse Midwife (1951), which told the story of an African American South Carolina nurse and midwife named Maude Callen. Smith’s work is constantly empathetic and he always worked tirelessly in his pursuit of the story – when photographing the invasion of Okinawa in 1945, he was critically wounded, and when he was photographing for his final essay in Japan, he was violently beaten by workers at the chemical factory who didn’t want his photographs to expose the suffering of the poison victims. This is illustrative of Smith’s devotion to his craft. This insatiable need to capture is a trait seen in many photographers, and it truly characterises his work. The structure of his photo essays has been replicated many times since they were published, by other artists who saw how successful the structure was in relaying the tale that Smith wanted to tell. This is perhaps why he has repeatedly been described as ‘perhaps one of the greatest photojournalists America has ever produced.’ (McGuire, 1999), and it is said that ‘the combination of innovation, integrity, and technical mastery in his photography made his work the standard by which photojournalism was measured for many years.’ (The International Center of Photography (ICP), n.d.) By using his photography as a way of communicating stories, Smith, and countless others like him, is an important example of how photography is, first and foremost, a medium through which to craft a narrative.

Robert Capa is widely renowned for his work photographing the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and chiefly for his most famous image, Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936). This image was supposedly taken above a trench after Capa ‘just kind of put [his] camera above [his] head and even [sic] didn’t look and clicked the picture, when they moved over the trench’ (Capa, 1947) but came under suspicion in the 1970s, when other staged images were discovered to have been taken in the same place at the same time. In 2009, José Manuel Susperregui of the University of País Vasco published Sombras de la Fotografía (“Shadows of Photography”), which asserted, by analysing the mountain ranges in the background of the sequence, that the image was taken in Espejo, some 50 kilometres from the alleged location at Cerro Muriano. Whether or not this reflects positively or negatively on Capa as a photographer is up to the viewer; is it wrong to deceive the world if the pictures still serve the intended purpose, or is it dishonest to incorrectly document history?

Another artist whose work could be construed as dishonest is Dorothea Lange, most famous for her documentary photography during the Depression era in America. Travelling through California whilst working for a government agency responsible for providing aid to struggling farmers, Lange took her most famed image, Migrant Mother, in 1936. This image is renowned for its captivating, evocative tone, and it is still viewed worldwide as an important insight into civilian life in Depression era America. However, I am more concerned with two images taken by Lange three years later, in 1939. The first, shown below, was taken after the photographer introduced herself and asked to take their picture. The subjects smile and the father wipes the baby’s face.

The photo that became more famous, after it was used by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to demonstrate the effects of the Depression, was this one.

It is clearly the un-staged version; where the photographer has captured the subjects’ natural states. The general caption for this series of images reads ‘The car is parked outside the Employment Office.  The family have arrived, before opening of the potato season.  They have been on the road for one month–have sick baby…Father washed the baby’s face with edge of blanket dampened from canteen, for the photographs’ (Mason, 2010). This shows that Lange does not intentionally represent the effects of the Depression in this way; it is instead the FSA that widely publicise this particular version of the photograph. This is because the organisation has an agenda to bring awareness to the issues caused by the government mismanagement and hyperinflation of the time, especially in rural California, where the issue of the Dustbowl caused an extreme lack of fertile ground and, hence, a widespread hunger. This therefore has a very palpable effect on how we view the period; we are not able to imagine what life could have been like unless we personally experienced it, and, therefore, photographs are the tool we use to unlock the intricate details (fairly modern) history. This therefore demonstrates once again how important it is to understand and also challenge the source of an image – who took it and why? What could their intentions have been? Were they commissioned to take it? If we neglect to, we could fall into the trap of passing history down incorrectly.

Overall, it is clear that the importance of photography lies very firmly in its power as a window into the past, and into the presently inaccessible. One reason that humans are inherently captivated by the medium is the way in which it allows us to freeze time forever in a single exposure that appears exactly how it appeared to us in the moment. There are of course, as I have explored in this essay, many ways in which a photographer can manipulate the scene, so it is different to how it appeared in the moment, and this is a further reason as to why we feel such attraction to photography; it allows us to become puppeteers, narrators, and storytellers. I think that this holds importance as it reveals that the human race are programmed to tell stories, whether these be true or untrue, and that they enjoy the consumption of such stories. The existence of photographic archives all over the globe demonstrates further that history is only as rich as we make it; we are the creators of ‘history’, and so we are responsible for the maintenance of its truths.

Bibliography

Capa, R., 1947. Bob Capa Tells of Photographic Experiences Abroad [Interview] (20 October 1947).

King, D., 1997. The Commissar Vanishes. 1st ed. London: Tate Publishing.

Mason, J. E., 2010. How Photography Lies, Even When It’s Telling the Truth: FSA Photography & the Great Depression. [Online]
Available at: https://johnedwinmason.typepad.com/john_edwin_mason_photogra/2010/03/how_photography_lies.html
[Accessed 22 January 2024].

McGuire, R., 1999. Unforgettable book combines art, artifact ‘W. Eugene Smith, Photographs, 1934-1975’. [Online]
Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/books/reviews/9901/04/eugene.smith/
[Accessed 19 January 2024].

Sontag, S., 1977. On Photography. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The International Center of Photography (ICP), n.d. Artist: W. Eugene Smith. [Online]
Available at: https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/w-eugene-smith?all/all/all/all/0
[Accessed 19 January 2024].

• Jim Goldberg

• Theo Gosselin

• Mike Brodie

• Essay question:

How do Justine Kurland and Jim Goldberg portray childhood differently through their work?

• Opening quote

‘Photographs really are the experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood.‘ Susan Sontag (1971), On photography.

• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?

For my project I am looking at childhood versus teenage life and how differently our lives look now in comparison to then. For my inspiration I looked at the artists Justine Kurland and Jim Goldberg and their contrasting portrayals of child/teenhood.

• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. 

For my first paragraph i will research the differences between being a child and being a teenager and speak about how life changes between them stages.

• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

Justine Kurland is an American photographer known for her pictures of people in the American wilderness. This includes her work on runaways and her best selling book Girl Pictures which has a running representation of childhood and particularly girlhood and growing up as a female. She presents childhood as wild and exciting through her various images of runaways portraying their freedom and there is an infectious sense of nostalgia that these images provide. Personally i feel a connection to this book as I see myself and my friends represented through her portrayal of girlhood and the adventures/experiences that follow growing up as a girl.

• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

Jim Goldberg’s work follows youths on the streets of California portraying the more dark and disturbing ways in which people have to live. In comparison to Justine Kurland, his images show the rougher side of life and portrays childhood/growing up as more of a day to day struggle for the subjects in his images.

• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Title of my essay

How do Justine Kurland and Julia Margaret Cameron portray the theme of girlhood in their work?

Essay Plan:

Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph

• two artists- Justine Kurland and Julia Margaret Cameron
• compare how they portray girlhood/childhood

• Opening quote

‘Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.’

-Susan Sontag- On Photography

Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?

– using my statement of intent

Our personal study project is based around the theme of nostalgia. For my personal study I want to explore identity, but more specifically femininity and what it means to be feminine. My interpretation of the theme nostalgia is going to be based on Girlhood and parts of my childhood that represent growing up as a girl. There’s a lot of women in my family who I’ve closely grew up around and my strong relationships with my friends and family are a big part of my life, which I appreciate a lot therefore I am creating my personal study around this.

I plan on photographing my friends and my family, my mum, sister, cousins, aunties and my grandma. I’m going to capture images of my friends in everyday situations when we meet up to create candid shots and to show real scenes of girlhood. As well as that, I plan on photographing my family at family events to create the same kind of images but with a different story.

Although I want to capture candid pictures that represent reality, I also want to do staged photoshoots. I am going to do research and study artists such as Justine Kurland, Sian Davey (developing my exam project from May of ‘Identity’) and Theo Gosselin. From then I will set up staged photoshoots in both rural and urban settings of my friends. For the exam project in May, me and my friends did a few photoshoots in rural environments, following the theme of ‘femininity’. These were inspired by Justine Kurland.

For my final images, I plan to present them in a photobook, I don’t plan on putting any text on/ with them at the moment, however this might change during the process of my project. I intend to start my project by taking photos of my friends in every day situations, for example, in the car, on walks, in town, later on in the evening/night when we meet up. This will give me a starting point to then decide if the outcomes are worth it and when, where and how to begin planning my staged photoshoots.

I plan on taking a variety of different images, in terms of composition, framing and lighting. However, I am mainly going to try and take photos in the rural environments with softer lighting to give the dusty, vintage kind of look. So around the time the sun is setting or rising, or on more overcast days so the lighting is dim. As well as that, the images I take in urban settings, town, I want darker lighting or on the other hand, bright lighting to create harsher shadows. Both types of photoshoots I want to use natural lighting, none in the studio. As well as documentary and tableaux for variety, also to represent the reality of girlhood.

I want my final outcome of a photobook to tell a story of girlhood and what it’s like growing up as a teenage girl on this island. I aim for the images to be quite relatable

• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. 

Girlhood is my theme so for my first paragraph I plan on explaining what it is and what it means, explain how girlhood was like years ago. How it was like living as a woman years ago compared to now. Could write about feminism movements.

• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

In this paragraph I will analyse Justine Kurlands work and explain how she presents girlhood in her work. I have done multiple artist references on her so I will use them to help me.

• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.

In this paragraph I will analyse Julia Margaret Cameron’s work, how she presents girlhood ect. Compare her work to Kurland’s work. She was making work in the 1850s, a long time before Justine Kurland; also a big difference in woman’s rights and other things.

1. Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced

I will compare overall differences and similarities of both artists work. Then I will relate this to my own work and the photos I have produced, how I was inspired by the artists.

• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Bengal, R. (2020). ‘The Jeremys’ in Justine Kurland: Girl Pictures. New York: Aperture foundation