NEWSLETTER :: OCTOBER :: 2012
Dear Friends,
There is always something new to tell you about! I am adding a new service to my offerings. It is called ARCHIVE! Creating analog and digital archives for your photo and memorabilia. I came to this by helping friends put together family pictures after the fire of 1991 and realizing over the years how important it is to make this happen for others.
What do people grab when they are saving their stuff in a potential disaster? Their family photographs are always first on the list after children and pets. Since I am a photographer who makes many photographs for families, I know their value at that time: priceless. The images carry precious memories.
But, there is a new kind of disaster waiting in the future for the photographs of families of the digital age. These family images can be lost to the new threat of a technology breakdown in their computer system. Even with back up, we do not know whether the images on a CD or DVD will be readable in another 20 years.
I help families to avoid disaster by putting their analog pictures and memorabilia in order, creating an archive to safely preserve them as a collection. If desired we can make a selection for use in the digital medium. Together we can solve the fact that digital files may not last by producing the images in other ways. Email me or call to find out how to start.
Film: FIRE RUIN RENEWAL
While we are talking about disasters, I want to remind you that I have a blog on my website devoted to the film I made last year on the fire called Fire Ruin Renewal. The blog is called The Phoenix Firestorm Project.
Dance for Life
This summer, I have had a remarkable series of experiences bring back projects from the past and revive them is delightful ways. First, I was called to present work on the Isadora Dance legacy at the Temple of Wings in Berkeley called Dance for Life. This project was the result of 20 years of photography and research. In 1985 my show at the Oakland Museum opened with over 200 of my black and white and color prints on display along with historical works that I curated for the exhibition. For this event I wrote and produced a multi-image show that is transferred to a DVD. The Berkeley Historical Society included some of this work in an exhibition of the history of Bay area dance and on September 6th I gave a talk at the Hillside Club and showed the DVD. The evening concluded with Duncan–style dances by Lois Flood. We were all delighted and surprised that over 200 people came out for this on the night of Obama’s speech.
To A Cabin
Another project from my past has a new life in yet another way. I wrote and produced a book called To a Cabin in 1973, as a family experience of mine and as a tribute to Dorothea Lange, whom I knew during the few years before her death in 1965. Her wonderful husband, Paul Taylor encouraged me to put together a book on the cabin, which she had wanted to complete. Instead she focused her remaining energy on a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
This summer a writer for the San Jose Mercury News, Mike Cassidy, and his family stayed in one of these cabins and read the book he found there. I am happy to report that he eventually found me. Turns out that the book had been placed in that cabin on the Pacific for people to enjoy. It had come full circle and found a perfect audience with those who love that unique spot on the western edge. He interviewed me for the paper. Read it here.
Face to Face Program
After so many wonderful clients who have trusted me with their faces to make close up portraits for the web, I have a few samples for you of websites that have used my pictures and a little web gallery of these portraits that are part of my Face to Face Program of digital portraiture.View the gallery here.
Click here http://www.inspectionservices.net/
to see my 30 portraits and to learn about Inspection Services Incorporated, a Berkeley based company. What they do is fascinating.
And finally, a lovely portrait here http://eileenpardini.com
With all good wishes,