cites : mudstonephoto

Ibarionex Perello’s The Candid Frame on This Week in Photo
http://thisweekinphoto.com/the-candid-frame-284-matt-sweeney/
Ibarionex Perello July 26, 2015
Hollywood is a town that has been defined more by its myths than its realities. It’s a town built on fiction and endless aspirations.
So, photographs that are free from the influence of publicists and marketing teams can seem jarring and surprising. But that can be a good thing.
That’s what Matt Sweeney’s photographs do. They show an unexpected and beautiful side of Hollywood in the early eighties, where the 1-mile stretch between Hollywood and Vine and Hollywood and Highland was a setting of public theater with every kind of character, both big and small.
Taken during his early twenties using a Nikon SLR with Kodachrome film, his images of Los Angeles capture a unique time in a way that’s rare and wonderful.

It’s Nice That with Liv Siddall
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/matt-sweeney-1
His photographs, predominantly street photography taken in downtown Hollywood, are shot through a wide angle lens on cinematic Kodachrome film between 1979 and 1983 and have the voyeuristic quality and timing of Diane Arbus mixed with the curiosity of Vivian Maier. His other projects, such as this series about a man who’s kind to cats are equally as arresting, and take us on a journey into hot, dusty, unpredictable and somewhat chaotic America – a visual feast perfect for a boring Monday morning.

Alan Taylor’s In Focus, on The Atlantic Website
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/07/hollywood-streets-1979-1983/100783/
Hollywood Streets, 1979-1983
ALAN TAYLOR
In the late 1970s, Matt Sweeney dropped out of high school with dreams of becoming a movie maker. While working in gas stations and restaurants in San Jose, California, he found out about Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope education/training/intern program, and moved to Hollywood to pursue that. Matt wanted to work behind the camera, so he started practicing with a Nikon F2 camera, shooting Kodachrome slides. Inspired by photographers like Garry Winogrand, Minor White, and Elliott Erwitt, he set out to document the world around him on the streets of Hollywood, photographing scenes from 1979 through 1983, while hoping somehow to hit the big time. The internship never happened, and unfortunately, no production jobs materialized. At 21, Matt moved on, selling his equipment and working through college to do lab work. "I went to Hollywood to 'make it', but didn't, and ended up taking pictures of Hollywood, capturing scenes of others 'not making it' as well. It didn't escape me then and it doesn't now." Matt held onto the slides, now more than 30 years old, and has recently begun scanning and posting them on Tumblr. "The web makes it possible to leave some kind of record of my time and share it with people". Many thanks to Matt for sharing these images below, captions by the photographer.
Best comment -> They're sub-Winogrand, but they're good sub-Winogrand, which is harder to do than it looks.

Chris Wild’s Retronaut
http://www.retronaut.com/2013/12/hollywood-kodachrome/ (dead link now that Chris’ book is out and he’s onto other things i.e. Mashable)
It was nice while it lasted, but Chris’ book is awesome and at your local bookstore.

Oregon Live review of Karen’s Blackfish gallery show
http://padaoregon.org/sites/default/files/artwork/We_Are_All_Vain.jpg
http://padaoregon.org/content/karen-ehlers-0

D.K. Row, The Oregonian, June 16, 2009
http://www.bonniemeltzer.com/pdf/review-bob.hicks2009.pdf
Between 1980 and 1983 a young photographer named Matt Sweeney took a lot of pictures in West Hollywood and environs, creating a bright-and-gritty composite portrait of the town's spangly street life. In the past few months Sweeney's friend, artist Karen Ehlers, has revisited his photographic Tinseltown and reimagined it in a series of bright, big oil paintings that drop out some of the grit and amp up the attitude into a kind of winking, dryly funny human comedy. The results of her act of imagination are on view this month at Blackfish Gallery. I like the bold humor, the brightness, the melting-flesh humanity on this boulevard of fleshpot dreams. These are real people, when you get down to it, whatever image they throw out: hot pants, scoop necks, bell bottoms, littlegirl frocks. We see pickpockets, street hawkers selling fingerprints to tourists, crowds outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. Military men (including General Hershey Bar), suits in shades, geezers in white shoes, plump guys twirling Japanese umbrellas. White-haired ladies in gold-loop earrings and ruby-red lipstick. As one title says, "We are all a little bit vain." This is verite, but with a twinkling eye. Ehler's paintings have a sketchy, provisional feel, the sense of moments quickly captured, which makes sense given their photographic underpinnings. They may be modest in their technical ambitions, but at their best they exude the sort of embracing acceptance of human frailty that you get from a Cartier-Bresson photo --and they're warmer, interestingly, than Sweeney's sober-eyed street portraits on which they're based. Just right for the month when the sun comes out.

Karen Ehler’s paintings
Paintings based on my Hollywood work, done by Karen Ehlers in 2009 and shown at BlackFish gallery in Oregon.

KAREN EHLERS@BlackFish, Portland, OR - West Hollywood, 1980-1983
http://blackfish.com/exhibitions/karen-ehlers-west-hollywood-1980-1983
http://padaoregon.org/content/karen-ehlers-0
Former Blackfish member Karen Ehlers renewed an old alliance with friend and artist Matt Sweeney after her recent move to California. His photographs of Hollywood, taken in the early ’80s, were the springboard for her new works in this solo exhibition.
KAREN EHLERS West Hollywood, 1980-1983
During the month of June 2009, Blackfish Gallery is hosting a solo exhibition of large oil paintings by KAREN EHLERS. The exhibit opens Tuesday, June 2nd and continues through Saturday, June 27th. An opening reception will be held on First Thursday, June 4th from 6-9 pm at the gallery. Karen Ehlers’ paintings have moved in a new direction. Ehlers says, “Maybe it’s a good time to change being that I just moved back to California.” Her new series is entitled “West Hollywood, 1980-1983.” Her colorful paintings are copies of photos taken in the early 1980’s by her good friend, Matt Sweeney. While Sweeney was attending film school in Los Angeles, he had to catch a bus on Hollywood and Vine. When waiting for the bus, he took photographs of people and their surroundings. Ehlers says, “I loved these pictures and his keen eye for humor, so I asked him if I could paint them.” Her paintings are about the people, the light and moments in time. The portraits are spirited with a psychological and humorous energy. Her plan is to have fun with them while keeping her style loose. She says, “In the end these paintings are going to be about paint.”

Karen Ehler’s Paintings Reviewed in Oregon LIVE, by Bob Hicks, June 2009
http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2009/06/review_karen_ehlers_bonnie_mel.html
Between 1980 and 1983 a young photographer named Matt Sweeney took a lot of pictures in West Hollywood and environs, creating a bright-and-gritty composite portrait of the town's spangly street life. In the past few months Sweeney's friend, artist Karen Ehlers, has revisited his photographic Tinseltown and reimagined it in a series of bright, big oil paintings that drop out some of the grit and amp up the attitude into a kind of winking, dryly funny human comedy. The results of her act of imagination are on view this month at Blackfish Gallery. I like the bold humor, the brightness, the melting-flesh humanity on this boulevard of fleshpot dreams. These are real people, when you get down to it, whatever image they throw out: hot pants, scoop necks, bell bottoms, little-girl frocks. We see pickpockets, street hawkers selling fingerprints to tourists, crowds outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. Military men (including General Hershey Bar), suits in shades, geezers in white shoes, plump guys twirling Japanese umbrellas. White-haired ladies in gold-loop earrings and ruby-red lipstick. As one title says, "We are all a little bit vain." This is verite, but with a twinkling eye. Ehler's paintings have a sketchy, provisional feel, the sense of moments quickly captured, which makes sense given their photographic underpinnings. They may be modest in their technical ambitions, but at their best they exude the sort of embracing acceptance of human frailty that you get from a Cartier-Bresson photo --and they're warmer, interestingly, than Sweeney's sober-eyed street portraits on which they're based. Just right for the month when the sun comes out.

Vintage Everyday
http://www.vintag.es/2014/02/wonderful-color-photographs-of-street.html
Wonderful Color Photographs Captured Street Scenes of Hollywood from between 1979 and 1983
These interesting colour photographs were taken in Hollywooed by photographer Matt Sweeney from between 1979 to 1983. They are mostly shot on Kodachrome64, and has remained stable. Some fading has occured, and some was not developed until late.

ShootingFilm.net
http://www.shootingfilm.net/2014/06/beautiful-analogue-landscape.html
Beautiful Analogue Landscape Photography by Matt Sweeney
Matt Sweeney is a movie maker and photographer based-in Hollywood. From between 1979 to 1983, he took a lot of amazing colour photos of everyday life in Hollywood by using Kodachrome 64 film when he was on the way home from work. Today Sweeney still shoots film by using both 35mm and 120mm film cameras. Here's a selection of beautiful landscape photos taken by Matt Sweeney.

the wanderlust (blog dead)
http://wandrlust.tumblr.com/post/92441832392/mudstonephoto-03-58-hollywood-1979-1983-matt
http://wandrlust.tumblr.com/post/92159394053/mudstonephoto-11-58-hollywood-1979-1983-matt

thrashard-banshee Lost Highway
http://thrashard-banshee.tumblr.com/post/70833856778/hollywood-in-kodachrome-by-matt-sweeney

Il Post (Italian publication), by Giulia Ticozzi
Gli anni Ottanta sull’Hollywood Boulevard
http://www.ilpost.it/2014/02/06/hollywood-boulevard/
Between 1979 and 1982 the American photographer Matt Sweeney has taken a series of images in one of the most famous streets of the United States, Hollywood Boulevard , Los Angeles. Sweeney, known by the pseudonym of mudstone , used a Kodachrome film loaded on a 35mm camera Nikon F2 with wide-angle lenses, mainly 28 and 35 millimeters. He recently decided to digitize these twenty years of work, the product of analog support, to show the pictures and try to publish them.
Mudstone tells of moving to Hollywood in the late seventies, when he was 17, and have been for some time to live in a wooden hut in the Hollywood Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles. He held various jobs, including the clerk in photo shops and the bus driver. The journey between home and work became the main subject of his images also inspired photographs by Elliot Erwit, Minor White, Wynn Bullock, Eugene Smith, Annie Leibowitz, Mary Ellen Mark and Winnogrand. Mudstone research small unexpected moments and unique characters, photographing involving them in the shot and making them look into the lens, and tells it all with irony even through the use of color and composition of images. Hollywood Boulevard is told through the landscape, intersections, angles less monumental of the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame and the prospects more side: a choice that shows us the daily life and makes it seem that way special a normal road.

Internazionale (Italian publication), by Rosy Santella
http://www.internazionale.it/portfolio/hollywood-in-kodachrome/
Original in Italian (translation by Google) >>Between 1979 and 1983, Matt Sweeney moved to Los Angeles and his house was just below the famous Hollywood sign.
Sweeney was seventeen years old and dreamed of becoming a director. The opportunity presented itself to start with internships offered by Zoetrope, the studio of Francis Ford Coppola. Daily he took the bus to go to work and took advantage of the way to take pictures with a Nikon F2 and Kodachrome. The big break did not come: he was not taken either by Zoetrope or other movie studios.At 21 he decided to go away from Los Angeles, but he found himself with hundreds of shots that told the Hollywood of the time, made up of people who, like him, were trying to become someone and failed. Now Sweeney decided to scan all those Kodachrome slides and publish them on Tumblr .

green ice cream (dead link as of 11/2015)
http://greenicecream.co.uk/2014/01/08/hollywood-in-kodachrome-1979-1983/

Queimando Filme, Andre Correa (in Portuguese)
http://www.queimandofilme.com/2014/02/24/kodachrome-de-1979-a1983/
Although I do not consider myself the most nostalgic and nostalgic analog, always "taste" (?) To think about what I lost (or lose) with the end of Kodachrome. So much so that we talk about it in previous posts about it. And this longing for something you have not used recently returned to see the photos that Matt Sweeney published on its website, made ??between 1979 and 1983 in Hollywood, when he dreamed of being a famous film director (#quemnunca).
The film, he said, were saved until recently when he decided to scan them to put online. According to him, they were all done with Kodachrome 64 135 (35mm).
The photos below, not only do we see how this film had its own color palette, as their particular ways of dealing with light and shadow. In addition, of course, it's fun to see how the '80s were really bizarre ;-P

Photographs on the Brain, Bryan Formhals’ excellent Tumblr blog
http://photographsonthebrain.com/post/76424781279/matt-sweeney-via-hollywood-1979-1983

SZU magazine (polish site - nice team on SZU)
http://szumag.com/fotografia/fotografie-matt-sweeney-hollywood-1979-1983

The King of Comedy, pezhammer
http://kingofcomedy.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/matt-sweeney/

the flemish cap
http://thecap.tumblr.com/post/76927485616/photographsonthebrain-matt-sweeney-via

The Businessinsider, Christian Storm
http://www.businessinsider.com/sunset-strip-hollywood-california-vintage-photos-2014-8

Stupid Dope
http://stupiddope.com/2014/02/18/hollywood-in-the-80s-through-the-lens-of-a-17-year-old-photos/
There is something about seeing areas that have changed over the years. Hollywoodphotographer Matt Sweeney has been walking around with a camera since he was a kid. At just 17 years old, he captured some really cool scene of Hollywood with his Kodachrome64 camera.
The images show areas of the city that have since changed. At the time Sweeney took the photos, he was living in Hollywoodland, which is situated just under the Hollywood sign. He had just moved there to pursue his career as a moviemaker. While that move didn’t work out, he used him camera to shoot the area on his way home from work. The visuals are very interesting and if these areas area familiar, the change are evident via these images.

Analogue Photogrist
https://analogue.photogrist.com/matt-sweeney/
Matt Sweeney is a talented photographer and movie maker based in Hollywood. Matt wanted to work behind the camera, so he started practicing with a Nikon F2 camera, shooting Kodachrome slides. Inspired by photographers like Garry Winogrand, Minor White, and Elliott Erwitt, he set out to document the world around him on the streets of Hollywood, photographing scenes from 1979 through 1983, while hoping somehow to hit the big time. The internship never happened, and unfortunately, no production jobs materialized. Today Sweeney still shoots film by using both 35mm and 120mm film cameras.

CameraGnome.com
http://cameragnome.com/magazine/tcf-ep-284-matt-sweeney/
Hollywood is a town that has been defined more by its myths than its realities. It’s a town built on fiction and endless aspirations.
So, photographs that are free from the influence of publicists and marketing teams can seem jarring and surprising. But that can be a good thing.
That’s what Matt Sweeney’s photographs do. They show an unexpected and beautiful side of Hollywood in the early eighties, where the 1-mile stretch between Hollywood and Vine and Hollywood and Highland was a setting of public theater with every kind of character, both big and small.
Taken during his early twenties using a Nikon SLR with Kodachrome film, his images of Los Angeles capture a unique time in a way that’s rare and wonderful.

Tumblr Re-blogs (i cite some early ones, but of late have not kept up with tracking these. see my tumblr if your interested)
the wanderlust (blog dead)
http://wandrlust.tumblr.com/post/92441832392/mudstonephoto-03-58-hollywood-1979-1983-matt
http://wandrlust.tumblr.com/post/92159394053/mudstonephoto-11-58-hollywood-1979-1983-matt

thrashard-banshee Lost Highway
http://thrashard-banshee.tumblr.com/post/70833856778/hollywood-in-kodachrome-by-matt-sweeney

LMWB
http://lmwb.tumblr.com/post/76428987788/photographsonthebrain-matt-sweeney-via
of no artistic value
http://ofnoartisticvalue.tumblr.com/post/77425352021/photographsonthebrain-matt-sweeney-via