I like watching the Lakers play at home. On TV, the arena is cast in black, or the stands for the most part are dark, and the floor, the court, glows. The way the game is recorded on video, the focus is on the court and the players. It gives it a movie like feeling appropriately in the land of movies. This makes me think of a photographer who re-enacts scenes and takes pictures of them, making photos like paintings or nearly movies sets. But what I like about this is how the focus is on what’s on display. In the Laker game it’s the court and the players.
Not long before, the artist devoted a full year to ”In front of a nightclub” — a picture of young people standing outside a Vancouver club at night. The shoot took so long because the club Wall found, on a heavily trafficked thoroughfare, could not be photographed as he wished. There was no place for him to stand with his tripod and large-format camera. So he had the club exterior — the columns and grille-work of the facade, the gum-spotted sidewalk, the concrete curb — reconstructed in a studio. One assistant worked for six months dressing the set. Read more at the NY Times…