John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History

"One Love, Ghoema Beat: Inside the Cape Town Carnival": Almost Here

It's starting to feel real. My new book, that is, One Love, Ghoema Beat: Inside the Cape Town Carnival. Random House Struik, my South African publisher, already has copies on hand. Both my North American publisher, the University of Virginia Press, and I are trying to be patient -- our... Read more →

How Viewers Get It Wrong, Even When Photographers Get It Right

A week or so ago, I was talking about how photography lies, even when it's telling the truth. My case in point was the Great Depression. When most Americans think about the Depression, the images that come to mind are black and white photos of the hungry, the unemployed, and... Read more →

University of Virginia Jazz Ensemble, 19 & 20 March 2010

The University of Virginia's Jazz Ensemble played a terrific concert, last Saturday night. The rehearsals weren't half bad, either. I was lucky enough to be there for all of it, documenting the event for the university's music department. University of Virginia Jazz Ensemble, rehearsal, 19 March 2010. (Click directly on... Read more →

Friday Night with Stephanie Nakasian and Hod O'Brien

Imagine this: You spend part of your evening reading a new book about the legendary lower Manhattan jazz jam session scene of the late '50s and early '60s. Later, you stroll down the street to your neighborhood saloon, and there, sitting at the piano, is one of the people you've... Read more →

How Photography Lies, Even When It's Telling the Truth: FSA Photography & the Great Depression

Think about the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and images like the one below will spring into your head -- a photograph of a homeless mother and her children who appear to have nothing to cling to but their clothes, their car, and each other. It seems to sum... Read more →

Grassroots Drag Racing in the 1950s: Life Magazine at Cordova Dragway

Over the last few days, I've been rummaging through Google's Life magazine photo archives. I came across an absolutely stunning series of photographs that Grey Villet made at a small dragstrip in Illinois, sometime in the late 1950s. They're terrific, and, amazingly, they've never published. The series offers a rare... Read more →

Ben Shahn, with Leica and Right-Angle Viewfinder

Ben Shahn loved his Leica. To be more precise, he loved what he could do with it, especially when outfitted with a right-angle viewfinder. In my last post, I talked about Shahn's 1935 encounter with a traveling medicine show in a small town in Tennessee and showed several of the... Read more →