Review: Master Photographers: Ansel Adams, BBC, 1983

Master Photographers is a 1983 series from the BBC profiling six photographers:  Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Brandt, Andreas Feininger, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Andre Kertesz, Ansel Adams.   The series format has the subject in his studio or office with a stack of preselected printed images.  Interviewer Peter Adam (not identified in the films or the credits) asks questions while the subject discusses the photos he has prepared.

I began this series more than a year ago (in February 2013) and thought, with only six 30-minute episodes, I would finish it rather quickly.  It seems there were other things to do along the way.

Review: Master Photographers: André Kertész , BBC, 1983

Andre Kertesz Martinique 1972

I never heard of Kertesz before opening this episode of Master Photographers.  He doesn't seem to be covered in the surveys I have read.  And what a shame.  Such delightful photos.

Like other photographers in this series, Kertesz was a European Jew who took refuge from the mid-century German pogroms in the United States.   Unlike the others, though, he found himself isolated from the professional photographic community.  According to the film, his work was believed to be too sentimental.  It appears also Kertesz had a streak of stubbornness.  He says of himself and his work that anything he does, he does first for himself.  This kind of attitude got him in trouble with Life magazine, which refused to publish photos he thought were interesting but which the magazine had not requested.  In addition, he had difficulty with English, which is evident in the film and have may exacerbated feelings of isolation.  During WWII he was designated by the government as an enemy alien because of his Hungarian background.  He longed to return to France, where he had been a part of the city’s art scene, but travel was impossible. It seems he did not like his life in the US, even though he later became a naturalized citizen and remained in New York.

Review: Master Photographers: Jacques-Henri Lartigue, BBC, 1983

In episode four we meet our first non-German photographer, a citizen of France who for most of his life was not known as a photographer at all, but as a painter.  He had the good fortune of being born into a wealthy family and took his first photo in 1901, when he was only seven and when cameras were rare and expensive equipment.  During the interview he shows off some of his cameras and discusses his love for racing cars and aeroplanes, toys of the privileged in an age when the majority still worked on farms or in factories.  Lartigue even had his own darkroom, perhaps the only child in France to have had one.   Many of his most well-known photographs are those taken during his childhood and young adult years capturing the lives of the Parisian rich at the turn of the 20th century.  

Review: Master Photographers: Andreas Feininger, BBC, 1983

Feininger was by training an architect who was unable to support himself in his profession and so began doing architectural photography.  By the end of the 30 minute interview and a visual sampling of his work one can see the obvious connections with engineering.  Feininger seems like a person who was very precise in his thinking and his work.  He is able to speak quite clearly and directly about his intention and motivation. He knew the science of photography and worked with his equipment to achieve specific results.  He even built his own cameras.

This series has so far been a review of German- American photographers:  Eisenstaedt, Brandt, and now Andreas Feininger.  We may note the series producer, Andreas Landshoff, was himself a German emigre and thereby draw a rather obvious conclusion.   I assume it is Landshoff (who passed away in 1988) that is doing the interviewing.  I have been unable to otherwise identify who this person might be as he is not noted in the series credits.

Review: Master Photographers: Bill Brandt, BBC, 1983

Bill Brandt, Nude London 1952

For the second episode of this series we are introduced to another German immigrant,  Hermann Wilhelm Brandt, who in his adopted country of the UK went by Bill Brandt.  The film is copyright 1983;  Brandt died in December of the same year, age 79.  His frailty is evident.  It is often difficult to hear his thin whispering voice.  He seems reluctant to speak, and says as much in a direct question from the interviewer. 

Review: Master Photographers: Alfred Eisenstaedt, BBC, 1983

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Premiere at La Scala, Milan, 1933

People often don’t take me seriously because I have so little equipment.  

Master Photographers is a 1983 series from the BBC profiling six photographers:  Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Brandt, Andreas Feininger, Jacques Henri Lartique, Andre Kertesz, Ansel Adams.   The series format has the subject in his studio or office with a stack of preselected printed images.  The interviewer (not identified in the credits) asks questions from time to time, but otherwise the subject discusses the photos he has prepared.