The Reefing of the USS Radford

With his third solo show, “The Reefing of USS Radford,” opening tomorrow night at The Front Room Gallery, Stephen Mallon once again brings us photographs of something we don’t usually see. This time it’s a decommissioned Navy ship being dismantled and sunk for use as an underwater eco system for underwater life. As part of his ongoing series “American Reclamation” Mallon gives us a look at the incredible breadth of these former battleships, and what it takes to rip apart a ship 563 feet long.

What I love about Mallon's work is it's grandeur. It's little child in the big world sense of wonderment. You just know that he has as much fun shooting as I have looking at the photographs. So go tomorrow night and see these wonderful photographs of water and steel. You can almost hear the splash as the ship goes down.

"Next Stop Atlantic"

There is something about Stephen Mallon's industrial photography that appeals to the child in me, the part of me that loves to learn about things I never come in contact with. I am fascinated by the world that exists beyond my own. With "Next Stop Atlantic" we see what happens to old subway cars after the MTA has retired them. The cars are dropped into the Atlantic from New Jersey to Georgia and become artificial reefs--home to barracuda, grouper and other marine life.

Stephen's photographs are not just fascinating as subject, but beautifully composed and compelling. His show at Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn opens tomorrow, Friday September 10, and is worth checking out.

Brace For Impact: Stephen Mallon's Flight 1549 Show is Up!

On January 15 of this year New Yorker's got a ringside seat to a most unusual event, the safe landing of USAir Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. In March I wrote about the problems photographer Stephen Mallon was having in showing the photos he had been contracted to take of the salvaging of that flight.
After lots of publicity and back and forth, Mallon was able to publish his work with minor alterations. Now "Brace For Impact: The Aftermath of Flight 1549" has opened at the Front Room Gallery at 147 Roebling Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I went there last night to see the 13 large scale photographs and they look fantastic! It's an exhibit worth seeing, so get yourselves over to Brooklyn now. I asked Stephen some questions about his background and his work.

Tell us a bit about your photography background
I got started pretty early with my dad’s AE-1, with my first photo being at age 3. I shot on and off for the next 12 yrs, and after not pursuing a military career I decided to go after photography. I got my BFA from RIT in 1996, assisted HASHI, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Bob Sacha, Mark Seliger, and many others, making just about every imaginable mistake and learning from some of them (the mistakes).
I started shooting as soon as I arrived with my first editorial job in '96 for Black Book magazine. By the year 2000 I had my first cover shoot for a computer trade magazine, CRN along with a contract with Image Bank. Both have lead me into many great places in my almost 10-year shooting career.

What made you settle on industrial photography?
Ive always been a fan of the sandbox. It was what I was shooting when I was 15, got away from it for a while but was always staring at the antennas and bucket loaders when I was on the road. As my commercial and fine art careers were moving along, I realized I was always drifting back to shooting dirt and machines. A push came from a creative director who was looking at my work and told me that the landscapes I was shooting were beautiful, but to make it market-friendly there needed to be a human element involved. Another meeting, and another Sr. art buyer pointed out that I needed to incorporate the workers as well to truly succeed.

How did you get to photograph the salvaging of Flight 1549?
Weeks Marine,(the crane company) began commissioning me after I photographed their ongoing project of retiring 1500 NY subway cars and putting them in the ocean to form artificial reefs. Our working relationship started growing from there.

Can you sum up the situation with the embargo and how it was lifted?
The images had been pulled up and down from the web site a number of times between the NTSB and AIG, and it was a little scary when I wasn’t sure if the images were going to be visible ever. Pressure mounted to release the photos and with the help from two lawyers, Amy Benjamin and Victor Pearlman (ASMP!), journalists, and fans, the images were released again. I was able to get the legal firm representing AIG and USAirways to grant all the self-promotional usage that I had asked for as long as the logo of their client was not clearly visible. The NTSB had a hold on the interiors for a little while after that but once the investigation was over they were also released. The interiors are currently not on my site. Please stop by to see the prints at the show!

Tell us about the show
“Brace for Impact: The Aftermath of Flight 1549” opens at Front Room Gallery Thursday Sept 10th (TODAY!) with a reception on Saturday, September 12th The prints range from 20x30 to 40x60 and were printed by Luscious Ink and I have to say look pretty frackin great! A limited edition catalog is available at the gallery.

What are you itching to shoot?
Ooooh nuclear submarines, I might be heading to 3 Mile Island soon, those airplane graveyards in the West and in Australia, the tunneling under the Hudson River, military recycling, and the military's new hydrogen locomotive, to name a couple.

What’s next?
Hopefully 3 Mile Island. I have to work on a grant proposal for a ship breaking yard in Texas, and there is a sewage treatment plant I am on hold for, and lectures! I am speaking at B&H Photo in New York on October 1st, at Front Room Gallery October 3rd, and a little bit at PhotoPlus Expo on October 23rd.

Update: Flight 1549 Photos have Been Set Free!

Just in from photographer Stephen Mallon, his is free to post the salvage photos of Flight 1549 to his website and anywhere else. "I have to retouch out the logo if its visible but they are back on line!" he said to me in an email.



It seems the people have spoken. If not for the pressure put on AIG and USAirways these amazing photos would still be held in purgatory, away from public eyes for no apparent reason. It's great to see justice take place, and it's great when people rally to an important cause.



"I'm absolutely thrilled," said Mallon. "They realized how powerful the photos are, and I appreciate all the people who requested to see them. They've also granted rights to the crane company which is what I wanted in the first place. I'm thankful that it worked out perfectly fine."

So go and look at all the photos at Mallon's site

Flight 1549 Update

I received this from US Airways Media Relations in response to my email:

US Airways has been fully cooperating with the investigation of Flight 1549 since the event occurred. The aircraft hull which operated as Flight 1549 is under the control of our insurance company and the NTSB. We are aware that a photographer would like to publish or sell photographs of the aircraft hull that may include our trademarks, service marks, etc., and we are currently seeking information from the photographer to determine if the photographs' release or sale would violate the intellectual property rights of US Airways or otherwise interfere with the NTSB investigation of this accident.

I will continue to follow this story and update as I find out new information.

Stephen Mallon and the Salvage of Flight 1549

I was sitting in the airport in January waiting to board my plane back to New York when I saw Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. I figured the odds of it happening again on the same day were nil, but the flight back was a bit unnerving, even as I sat and watched the news reports on the tiny television screen in front of me.

As amazing as the story was, and as OMG as that one photograph of all the people on the plane’s wings was, little did I realize the story wasn’t over.

It wasn’t until I saw these photographs that I realized another amazing story was unfolding. Actually a continuation of the original story had surfaced. Stephen Mallon was allowed to photograph the salvage of the USAirways plane from the water, and amassed an incredible, beautiful document of the recovery.

You could have gone to Stephen’s website to view the photographs until he received a cease and desist letter from the insurance company AIG. Remember them? They’re the company that ran our economy into the ground and have received billions upon billions of our dollars to keep them afloat. What does AIG have to do with all of this? Well, they are USAirway’s insurance company and don’t want anyone to ever see Stephen Mallon’s photographs.

I say fuck them! What right do they have to permanently embargo this work? Stephen was not in their employ, nor in the employ of the airline. He was working with the crane company, and no one objected to his work at all. In fact, the NTSB wanted his photos of the salvage. That is until AIG’s lawyers stepped in.

Stephen is hoping to negotiate with AIG, but no luck so far.

We all have a right to see these photographs as they document an important, very public event. And Stephen Mallon has the right to show his work as he sees fit. This is a free speech issue in my eyes, and it’s another example of AIG showing their total disregard for the people of this country. Stephen Mallon’s photos are a thing of beauty, and show not only the fragility of such large machines, but the truly heroic work done by those who pulled it out of the icy Hudson.

Americans got a chance to honor the wonderful crew, the rescue tugboats and tour boats who were first responders, and the rescues workers of New York City. Why not the recovery workers? Don’t they deserve our recognition of a difficult job well done?

Why is AIG trying to hide this? I invite all of you to ask that question of them as well.

UPDATE:
if you wish to voice your opinion to USAirways or AIG- their contact info is here:

USAirways customer relations: http://www.usairways.com/awa/content/contact/customer_relationsform.aspx

media contact is 480 693 5909 or media.relations@usairways.com

AIG aviation can be reached at aviationinquiries@aig.com or on their home page here