“Octave of Prayer” represents a man, once a respected and vital teacher and philosopher in photography, coming to believe his own legend and making himself into an institution. This auto-deification is a sad and dangerous turn of events. […]
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In other words, boys and girls, that ain’t Aperture you’re holding, it’s a copy of The Watchtower, intended to make converts willing to follow a man who can simultaneously assert his own “natural talent for camera” and lack of egotism, who can claim, in so many words, that he and his followers are God’s gift to photography. […] I believe that Minor White’s group show and catalog “Octave of Prayer” is an insidious insult to all photographers, not only to those whose work is included therein but also to anyone trying to sculpt an idea in silver. […] Among the enduring mysteries of my professional life (e.g., How do you make a decent living at this? and Who’s the good critic?) I have counted what seemed to me the adamant refusal of French scholars to use my chosen nom de plume, substituting instead my first and sometimes second names, one or another of them (or both) possibly misspelled. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Time Capsule 1971: Collier’s Encyclopedia Yearbook
Two small items must be appended to this report. First, a Japanese newspaper announced that the waters near Mount Fuji were so polluted that one could develop photographs therein and get recognizable if fuzzy results. And the Allied Impex Corporation, after its success with this item last Christmas, announced that it was again planning to market its Mick-a-Matic — an Instamatic camera built into a large and colorful Mickey Mouse head — during the holiday season. […]