FREEZE FRAME
By Kim Devore/Entertainment Writer
Malibu shutter bugs joined actor Joe Mantegna and a slew of other photography buffs for the opening night preview of Photo L.A. at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The artsy crowd wandered from room to room sipping hearty Coppola wines and savoring tasty bites from Ocean Avenue’s lavish oyster bar.
With more than 80 exhibitors, there was much to admire. The show featured everything from inner-city grit to Hollywood galm, still-life images to early erotica.
Offerings from Alfred Eisenstaedt included a wonderful black-and-white snap of a tuxedo-clad waiter ferrying a tray of cocktails across a frozen lake in St. Moritz.
On the other end of the scale-grapes of wrath realism from Horrace Bristol. In the 1930s, Bristol made numerous trips with famed author John Steinbeck to photograph, document and interview dust bowl farm workers.
As for flower power, there were massive Georgia O’Keefe-style poppies from Robert Turner as well as dramatic scenes of the crashing surf off the coast of Big Sur.
The show, now in its 12th year, has been a labor of love for gallery owner and photo enthusiast Stephen Cohen. Every year, Cohen delights in seeing the show grow and change.
“Cuban photography is very hot right now,” he explains. “Photographers are always looking for something new and a lot of them are going to Cuba for the first time.”
Cohen has also seen a proliferation of computer-enhanced photography, a practice that purists pooh-pooh. “They need to get over it,” he says. “We need to look more at the image and not how it was produced.”
But no matter what style you prefer, chances are you’d have found it here. There were photos for every era-Apache Indians from the Old West, ghostly visions of Ellis Island and contemporary Japanese street punk.
But my favorite was a first-a madcap series of those lads from Liverpool on their very last public photo shoot. A wall in the back was dedicated to these pics of the Fab Four in all their finery-George, outrageous in orange and black striped pants paired with a loud turquoise shirt; Paul, pretty in pink with substantial sideburns; John, sporting a fluffy fur coat and sneakers; and Ringo, an inspiration for Austin Powers in royal blue velvet and a ruffled lemon yellow shirt.
“The most amazing thing is that the photographer just threw the negatives in a drawer and didn’t look at them for 30 years,” explained gallery owner Guy Swanson. “Now, they are worth more than $2 million and are some of the best photos of the group ever taken.”
Whether Beatles or Bristol, even if you’re not a photo buff the show was well worth a peak. So next time, stop by and see what develops.