May 31, 2010

2007 .A BEGINNING
The Website concept arrived when Monet and Nick
told me the Internet would get my pictures out there.
And I realized, would take me another step beyond
critic - gallery - museum - publisher decisions.

A process I'd started with the photo-postcard mailing in 1969.Yes ! All of the pictures I want you to see will be on the Website,
from 1964 to the present. (I have to 'never-mind' all the 'lost' pictures)Nick Jarvis Powers does computer-form-content-humor-music-spirit
while I sit second chair wondering how he does it, over 'n over again.
We hope you will share the experience.

...Dear Monet and Nick,
...You sure started something !
...Thank you so much.
...Love, BillDad

BILL DANE PHOTOGRAPHS OUTSIDE INSIDE
VOLUME 1 DEDICATION
JOHN SZARKOWSKI
...My VOLUME 1 is dedicated to you John.
These are the pictures you knew and supported.
...You All helped me to understand and made me feel
part of something before I could know what it was:
Edith Thacher Dane, Patrick Siler, Bill Burback,
Bill Mott-Smith, Lea A. Bartneck, Ron Goldstein,
Nora Fanshel, Camille Zulpo, John FitzGibbon,
Joan Rosenbaum, Diana Edkins, Ben Lifson, Henry Wessel,
Tod Papageorge, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander,
and you John.
...Thank you to the above and the following
for validating my explorations: Nancy Dulberg,
Jeffrey Fraenkel, Frish Brandt, Fraenkel Gallery Folks,
Alain Dupuy, Tom Garver, Leo Rubinfien, Ann Swidler,
Elliott Linwood, Carlos Gollonet, Sandra Phillips,
Pamela Bonino, Jack Fischer, Vagn Sparre-Ulrich,
Nick Jarvis Powers, Monet Zulpo-Dane, You,
and so many Others !
...I hope that my sense of this life in the form of
these pictures turns out to be worth sharing.
My Pleasure, Bill
Bill Burback
Coming and going since '67
Drives way faster than I can
And so much more
MoMA '73 Show = B. B.
GAC '08 Show = B. B.
Lucky me = B. D.
Nancy Esther Moses
Being here every day
What a gift
I Love You BillDad
Nancy and I in 1985
Thank You Rabbi Beerman and All.

I hear:How could you be so greedy as to think
that someone will love you the way ...
Ben Lifson sent me the following after he received my Website invite.
Luckily he said I could quote him:
Dear Bill
Thank you very much indeed for having sent me this link to your work.
I've had time this morning to look only at the most recent Volume 9.
This is not only excellent work but also among the most important current photography I've seen ...
I can think of nothing better and very little even in the same league...
I can't think of anything this strong, wide-ranging (what a net you're casting over our culture!), surprising (no sensibility more open)...
Of subject matter so various...
Of style so flexible...
Of literacy (w/ respect to photography, painting and popular imagery) so vast and deep...
Of variations on motifs and themes so strenuous and searching...
Of compositions so original but w/ roots so obviously in the great past...
And so on.
Yours is history at its best, committed, passionate, & the kind of making that makes Gibbon and Clarendon also monuments of English imaginative prose. (See Clarendon's famous account of the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham.)
Documentary? Yes, of course. But in the sense of Ezra Pound's statement, when he called poetry (or, perhaps, literature generally) "News that stays news."
It deserves to be universally known.
What plans for exhibitions (here, abroad), books? Keep me posted.
Thank you again. This is strong, significant work and a good jolt on a Sunday morning.
"Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamaling
To keep a drowsy emperor awake..."
William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium
Good to hear from you.
yrs,
Ben

May 29, 2010

What are you up to. down there
What are you down for. up there
The politics of existence - chaos-order-
loss-grief-anger-anxiety-sadness-
sex-love-pleasure-hope-health-death-
histories-circumstances-perspectives
It's about the timely encounter with pieces:
Brecht-Tebaldi-Chomsky-Van Gogh-Warhol-
Godard-Boll-King-Dylan-the Blues-Frank-
Arbus-Friedlander-Winogrand-Evans-Atget
and so many others and so much more !
It's about Context
Framing
Light
Tension between forces-ingredients-opposers
It's about JS's ''The Photographers's Eye'' and
''Looking At Photographs''
Treasure hunting our 'Mirrors and Windows'
Outside Inside
Focus
Intuition
Diffused vision
Walking and Looking and Finding 'It'
Seeing what 'It' looks like photographed
Editing
Me and the Image and You

From Russell Banks' Introduction to his "The Angel on the Roof".
One of the most difficult things to say to another person is, I hope that you will love me for no good reason. But it is what we all want and rarely dare to say to one another - to our children, to our parents and mates, to our friends, and to strangers. Especially to strangers, who have neither good nor bad reasons to love us. And it's why we tell each other stories that we pray will be transformed in the telling by that angel on the roof, made believable and about us all, no matter who we are to one another and who we are not.
I Street Walk to find pictures = Hunt and Release.
I believe I'd be called a "Straight Still Photographer".
(Perhaps, "Bi ....." or "Still Straight .....")
Using a digital Nikon D80 since '07,
I edit, crop and tweak with 'iPhoto8'.
(Moses told me he could get me Photoshop free -
I thanked him and no thanked him)
Pictures then go to Pictopia for "normalizing",
Volume creation, but apparently not
to print for Shows & Sales !
Buy, .Bill ..Sorry!. Bye, .Bill
(Heart and emotions on soiled sleeves)
PHOTO POSTCARDS
Since 1969
I've mailed my pictures as postcards
to ensure an audience beyond
the decisions of others.
Now, we have the Internet and the Website.
Theoretically, this makes my pictures really
accessible to folks everywhere and forever.
I figure the number of photo postcards mailed
must be close to +- 69,000. ... (recycled?!).
I've usually mailed +- 3 of any one image.
There are 1,000 + pictures here at
BILL DANE PHOTOGRAPHS OUTSIDE INSIDE
There are 1000s of other 'lost-to-me' pictures
'edited-out' over the years - gone - no negatives.
The '07-'08 MoMA Show included several.
It's strange fun this way.
Wish I had 'em back ? - some days - but -
they'll show up here n there - perhaps.
Editing is way harder than I think it is.
Bill

May 28, 2010

PEOPLE!
JOAN ROSENBAUM
DIANE ARBUS
LEE FRIEDLANDER
DIANA EDKINS
JOHN SZARKOWSKI.
HENRY WESSEL
BEN LIFSON
GIANCARLO MORI
TOD PAPAGEORGE
LEO RUBINFIEN
GARRY WINOGRAND
PAUL McDONOUGH
THOMAS ROMA
ARMANDO PRADO
JACK DOLLHAUSEN
OSHA NEUMANN
JANET WINANS
BRETT COOK
JEFFREY KAMARA
ROB ALBRITTON
FREIDA LEE MOCK
BILL MATTICK 

JEFF NORRIS
LINDA KLETNIECE
TATIANA PARNIAKOVA
JIN ZHU .and. "killeryellow.com"
ROSALIE Z FANSHEL
CYNTHIA MANSOURIAN
REV RABIA
MONICA PAINTER
JAY SMOOTH
JAMES DANZIGER PROJECTS
MARK POWELL
NORA, BILL MOTT, PATRICK, OSHA
ESTHER'S 'Final Project' - Oxbow School - Napa, '09
MOSES' Band "A Cure For The Mondays" w Benson and Kyle, '08
ASSOCIATED GALLERIES:FRAENKEL GALLERY
JACK FISCHER GALLERY
VAGN SPARRE-ULRICH GALLERY
BILLDANE.COM GALLERY

NICK POWERS sleepingcobra Design
ERIK AUERBACH InColor - Photo Services
BRYAN BAILEY .Photo Services - Digital Imaging
PICTOPIA. Photo Services
GREEN FOR ALL .. Monet and Phaedra + All
ELLA BAKER CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS .. "J" + All

PEOPLE! AROUND OUR WORLD!
H a i t i
C h i l i
D a r f u r
P a l e s t i n e
I r a qA f g a h a n i s t a n
All Our Neighbors
Oakland To Mumbai
Kehilla Community Synagogue
Tikkun ...Jewish Voice For Peace
Got to KEEP ON TRUCKIN' ...

2004
Esther and Moses ...Bat and Bar Mitzvah
Blessing:
Dear Esther.. Dear Moses
We are very lucky
Many blessings. many gifts
We are here
We are with you
We are here with a wonderful Kehilla
Today you lead us
Thank you very much
Over the centuries millions of people have lived and died to keep culture for us
We live with Pam's light
Your Grandma Edie struggled every day to repair human nature's failures
Racism . Poverty . Intolerance . Injustice
May you find your own Albert Einstein. your own Rosa Parks. Bob Dylan.. Malcolm X
May you find your own Kehilla
May you discover great and ordinary people to inspire your fine instincts feelings thoughts and actions
Dear Moses .. Dear Esther
Keep on becoming your most wonderful selves
I love you ..Dad

May 26, 2010

Childhood-Story:
1940 Like it was yesterdayThey leave me at my childcare place in Arcadia for two nights.

The mother and father take baby Frankie on a weekend to Ojai.
Two strange women take my clothes off to naked and try to give me a bath.
I scream my ass off 'til they give up and turn off the lights.

May 9, 2010

Humans are born cowards.
I not only march in the procession
I carry a banner.
Mark Twain