Luc Delahaye (Photographer)

Luc Delahaye

Biography

Luc Delahaye is a French photographer that focuses primarily on social issues, conflicts and world events. He is best renowned for his work beginning in the early 2000s. He is best known for his work having “disturbing and unreal” elements since a lot of his photography is controversial.

Luc Delahaye was born in 1962 in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France. Delahaye initially began as a photojournalist. He began his career in the mid – 1980s at the photo agency Sipa Press, dedicating himself to war reporting. He joined the Magnum Photos and Newsweek Magazine team before leaving Magnum in 2004. He reputed himself in countries such as; Rwanda, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Lebanon during the 1980s and 1990s with his war photography. Speaking on war he said “"In Beirut I discovered the beauty of war, the beauty of something that is deeply disturbing, but also a visual beauty that can't be found anywhere else -- it is totally unique," (http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/sullivan/sullivan4-10-03.asp).

“Delahaye's merging of art and documentary takes the viewer a world away from the often graphic horrors of war reportage, with its commonplace, usually tightly cropped, images of conflict situations”. (The Guardian)

He has won a number of awards including the Robert Capa Gold Medal and the Oskar Barnack Award back in 2000 for his work on the Winterreise photographs.

Delahaye’s photography was best known for its candid, direct recording of events and often times combined a touchy connectivity to news which includes a mental division in questioning his own being in his photographs. His notable photo books; Potrait/1 and L’autre highlight these thoughts that were later portrayed in these books. For instance Portrait/1 depicts portraits of homeless people and L’autre (The Other) are a string of stolen portraits taken in the Paris Subway.  In his book Winterreise published in 2000, the economic depression in Russia was explored.

Delahaye adopted a new focus in his photography in 2001 using large and medium format cameras and focused mainly on war scenes and global events. Some of his photographs are computer edited and produced in large sizes before being shown in museums.

In an interview with Artnet magazine in 2003, Delahaye is quoted saying: "Photojournalism is neither photography nor journalism. It has its function but it's not where I see myself: the press is for me just a means for photographing, for material – not for telling the truth."

Delahaye later announced that he was an artist and no longer a photojournalist the following year.

His photgraphs explore the boundaries between reality and the imaginary. They document immediate history,and impulse thought, "upon the relationships among art, history and information". (http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/delahaye/).

Dunk it like Jordan

The first basketball game was played in early December of 1891 and was created by Canadian Doctor, James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. "Dribbling" was not a part of the first game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. 

Dr Naismith nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, and balls had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored; this  didn't work,  therefore the bottom of the basket was taken away, allowing the balls to fall out with a long dowel each time.

Originally the balls that were made specifically for basketball were brown, it was only in the late 1950s that the orange ball was introduced, so that the ball could be visible to spectators, players and commentators alike.

Dribbling was later introduced but was limited because of  the asymmetric shape of original balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, since the improved ball shape.

The peach baskets were used up until 1906 before they were replaced by metal hoops that included backboards. 

A change was further made, so the ball could pass through. Whenever a player would throw the ball in the basket, his team would win a point. The team which got the most points would win the game. Originally the baskets were nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the basketball court, but this was impractical because spectators sitting on the balcony would interfere with their shots. The backboard was created to prevent this interference. It also included the further effect of allowing rebound shots.

The first official basketball game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany, New York on January 20, 1892 and consisted of nine players. By 1897–1898 teams consisting of five players became the standard.