Passages

Helmut Newton died in a car crash in Hollywood on Jan. 23, at the age of 83. Newton was known for his black-and-white nudes and his fashion photography, which appeared in magazines such as Elle and Vogue. Newton’s wife June, who works as Alice Springs, accepted the offer of an official grave of honor in Newton’s hometown, Berlin.

Newton left Germany in 1938, changed his name from Neustaedter, and took Australian citizenship. After World War II, he became a photographer, eventually settling in Monte Carlo. An exhibition of his black-and-white pictures is scheduled to open in Berlin on June 3.

Leni Riefenstahl died on Sept. 8, 2003, in Poecking, Germany, a few weeks after her 101st birthday. Following a knee injury that ended her career as a dancer, Riefenstahl turned to film, gaining fame as an actress, director, producer and reporter. Her documentary Triumph des Willens, named after the 1934 Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg, garnered her gold medals in Venice in 1935 and at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. In subsequent years, however, the film was widely condemned as National Socialist propaganda. Although Riefenstahl vigorously denied supporting Adolf Hitler’s genocidal policies, her early association with Nazism would taint opinions about her work for the rest of her life.

Unable to resume her career in motion pictures after World War II, Riefenstahl took up still photography in the 1960s and traveled to the Sudan, where she recorded the life of the Nuba. Those pictures were published in Stern, the Sunday Times Magazine, Paris Match and Newsweek, and later became the subject of her illustrated books, The Nuba and The Nuba of Kau.

Francesco Scavullo died on Jan. 6, at the age of 82. Scavullo was known for enamel on canvas photo silkscreens, portraits and still lifes. One of the dominant photographic influences on American fashion, he photographed the covers of Cosmopolitan for 30 years. His celebrity photographs also appeared on the covers of Rolling Stone, Life, Time, Town & Country, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Harpers & Queen, L’Officiel, Woman and Max. His work included movie posters and album covers, as well. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, include Scavullo photographs among their permanent collections.

People

Jolynn Brubaker, a student at the Art Institute of Seattle, was awarded a $1,000 scholarship from Glazer’s Camera Supply. Brubaker has maintained a 3.9 GPA throughout six quarters of study.

Michael Grecco, a photographer based in Los Angeles, was chosen to shoot the ad campaign for the new AMC show, “Shoot Out,” with Peter Bart and Peter Guber. The ads are running the New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times and other national publications. Grecco’s work can be seen on his updated website, http://michaelgrecco.com.

Michael G. Halle, a photographer and teacher based in Portland, Ore., is now being represented by View-finders Stock Photography of Portland. Halle’s recent clients include Adidas, Time and The Wall Street Journal. His work can be seen at www.mhalle.com.

Last November, Robert Glenn Ketchum was the keynote speaker at the American Bald Eagle Foundation’s Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival 2003, held in Haines, Alaska. In addition, Ketchum was a speaker at the North American Nature Photography Association’s 10th Anniversary Summit in Portland, Ore., in January.

Seattle photographer Doug Landreth was one of six winners in the Photo District News PIX Digital Imaging Contest’s Personal category for his series of three floral portraits. A few months previously, Landreth’s work placed sixth in the Adobe Digital Imaging Competition, exploring the theme Presentation of Entertainment.

Photographer Janis Miglavs has been selected by the Tigard-Tualatin (Ore.) School District as an annually studied artist in its Art Literacy Program. During Black History Month each year, all grade-schoolers will learn about his photographic and digital artwork, which captures the cultures, myths and dreams of rarely studied African tribes.

Pete Moroz, a portrait photographer based in Spokane, Wash., received the Kodak Gallery award for his entry in the Wedding category. The Professional Photographers of Washington also awarded Moroz first place in the Best Portrait of a Woman category.

Rosanne Olson, who has been working in Seattle as a photographer since 1986, was featured in the January issue of Communication Arts. Her work also appeared on the cover of that issue.

Wendi Rowlands, Todd Schneider, Mary Seaton and Owen Mesdag recently completed projects documenting fundraising events for the American Lung Association of Washington. Rowlands created a 27-minute video on the Climb for Clean Air, while Schneider, Seaton and Mesdag photographed the Trek Tri-Island.

Two Art Institute of Seattle faculty members were recognized for their work late last year. Barry Scharf received the Guru finalist award in the Artistic category at the 2003 National Association of Photoshop Professionals international conference in Miami Beach, Fla. The City of Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs recently selected Tom Harris, a photography instructor at the institute, as a Sustaining Award winner in the Seattle Collects 2003 competition.

Eva Sköld Westerlind, a fine-art photographer based in Kirkland, Wash., recently had a solo exhibition at the Ingrid Hansen Gallery in Washington, D.C. On the West Coast, she is represented by G. Gibson Gallery of Seattle.

WireImage cofounder and photographer Jeff Vespa led a team of photographers and staff in capturing highlights of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, held January 15-25 in Park City, Utah. Images from the festival are available at www.wireimage.com and sundance.wireimage.com.

Randy Wells will be teaching a digital travel photography workshop at the George Lepp Institute on the central California coast this September. He recently completed assignments for Sucre Clothing and Journey magazine.

Special Honors

Magnum photographer Elliot Erwitt was presented with the 2003 Leica Lifetime Achievement Award at a photography exhibition in his honor at the Leica Gallery in New York City late last year.

Kevin Schafer, a photographer based in Seattle, won the Grand Prize in the 2003 Nature’s Best International Photography Awards. His photograph, “Teepee and Aurora Borealis, Northwest Territories, New Year’s Eve 2002/3,” was included in the Nature’s Best exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History last October.

The International Photography Awards recently announced the recipients of the first-ever Lucie Awards, acknowledging photographers’ achievements from around the world in various categories.

Chris Frazer-Smith of the U.K. received honors as IPA’s Photographer of the Year, which includes a $10,000 prize. Phil Borges won the Lucie Humanitarian Award and Robert Evans took home the Visionary Award. Henri Cartier-Bresson also was given an award for Lifetime Achievement in Photography.

Other Lucie Award recipients for outstanding achievement in their respective fields include: Ruth Bernhard, Fine Art Photography; William Claxton, Music Photography; Douglas Kirkland, Entertainment Photography; Annie Leibovitz, Women in Photography; Mary Ellen Mark, Documentary Photography; Steve McCurry: Photojournalism; RJ Muna, Advertising Photography; Melvin Sokolsky, Fashion Photography; Phil Stern, Still Photography for Motion Pictures; Tim Street-Porter, Architecture; and Gene Trindl, Portrait Photography.