P&P: Assignment Five: On Assignment: Following the Buddha Around Bombay

Original Submission

Review: Winogrand, Gary. Figments From The Real World. NY: MoMA, 1983.

Winogrand is something of an oddity in that his epigrams on the craft – or the art, if he would allow – are often more impressive than his images.  Statements such as

“I photograph to find out what things look like photographed.”

“Good photographs get made despite, not because.”

resonate more deeply than pedestrian images redolent of contemporary vernacular shots reproduced over and over again on blogs and photo sites across the internet:  a head in a car window, a baby on the beach, two pairs of walking feet.  There are, of course, the iconic shots that show up in surveys of photographic history and which retain a special power: the couple in the zoo holding chimpanzees, the laughing girl with ice cream cone, girls on a park bench at the World’s Fair.  But seen as a collection, the overall impression left by much of his work is uninspiring.

Szarkowski provides an informative essay summarizing Winogrand’s career, portraying the New York native as something of a “city hick” suspicious and even contemptuous of the institutions that supported his work after the decline of the photo magazines – the galleries and the academy.   He produced only four photobooks during his lifetime, none of which enjoyed any commercial success, but experienced greater recognition and some middling fortune in the galleries and as a university lecturer.  The end of his career was a slow fade into obscurity, in which he shot, but left unedited, a third of a million images.

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Review: Curtis, Edward and Christopher Cardozo, ed. Hidden Faces (Native Nations Series). NY: Christopher Cardozo, 1997.

Actual book cover (does not include text)

I found Hidden Faces in the university database and put in a request without examining the book description.  I was a bit disappointed when a couple of days later the librarian handed me a volume I could carry in my hip pocket.  The book features approximately 50 images of mostly Navaho and Kwakiutl, the two tribes that produced and used ceremonial masks.  As the title makes clear, this is a collection of concealed faces, mostly by masks, though a few painted visages are also included. Bits of text lifted from The North American Indian describing the actor or the ceremony provide bite-sized bits of context.  In a volume this size, there is little more that can be offered.  Paper stock is weighty enough that printing on reverse doesn’t bleed through and the quality of image reproduction is quite high.  Still, this is not really something one might buy for a collection so much as an inexpensive gift.

Unfortunately this is the only volume on Curtis in the country’s university library system.  Having a poke around the internet I found a torrent of what appears to be scans of images from all 20 volumes of The North American Indian, Curtis’s monumental document of late 19th and early 20th century remnants of Native American tribes of the western United States.  What is most striking is the number of images of objects such as pottery, clothing, paintings, bags and satchels, dwellings, and flora.   Most reviews or collections – like Hidden Faces -   feature portraits, men on horseback, or dramatic landscapes.  For examples, click through for the rest of the post.

Review: Egan, Tim. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. Boston: Mariner Books, 2011..

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher is one of those rare nonfiction works that capture a time, a place, and a person so well it is a bit like reading fiction.  It helps that I am drawn to characters such as Edward Curtis, men given to wanderlust and noble – often lost –causes.  Author Tim Egan paints a rather romantic portrait of a self-taught photographer and anthropologist whose life work was to roam western North America photographing, filming, audio recording, data collecting, and writing on the remaining tribes of Native Americans.  Any hint of liaisons with Indian women, for example, is left to near the end of the story, and Curtis’ only fault seems to be his obsession with his project, leading to the ruin of his finances and marriage.

There is no question that Curtis’ three decades of intense labor is a monumental and genuine gift to humanity, a 20 volume document of the last days of the western Native Americans, The North America Indian.  Egan provides a few examples in Shadow Catcher’s final chapter of how modern descendants of several tribes have used Curtis’ data to reconstruct languages and practices entirely or partially forgotten.  Scholars have used Curtis’ oral accounts to reconstruct and rewrite important events in US history, such as the Battle of Little Big Horn, the last great pitched battle between Indians and Anglos.  Apart from more utilitarian applications, though, is the sheer aesthetic effect, the poignancy of haunted images of a land and a people forgotten by time.   Curtis clearly had great affinity for his subjects and devoted his life that we might see them as they might like to be remembered.

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How Much Do YOU Need to Earn to Do Photography Full Time?

Here's an article of mine published by PetaPixel, a profile of one of the tourist photogs at the Gateway of India. 

http://petapixel.com/2015/08/22/how-much-do-you-need-to-earn-to-do-photography-full-time/

Suggested Reading/Viewing: Conceptual Approaches to Space: Sternfeld and Alys

The tutor suggested having a look at these two projects for ideas on how one might develop a conceptual approach to photographing space.  

Joel Sternfeld – High Line Series

The tutor pointed to this as an example of an investigation into the allocation of public space. I don’t have a copy of the book associated with this project, nor access to an exhibit.  I have seen a few online reviews and videos and what I found immediately remarkable is that Sternfeld does not speak of representing his work as conceptual.  In the video referenced here, he speaks of the wonder and awe experienced shooting this bit of nature-in-the-city, but nothing to suggest that he sees his work as anything more than what it appears, images of urban landscapes.  Perhaps he has spoken of concept elsewhere.

New York Voices:  Joel Sternfeld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNzr7g8FQgk

A Walk on the High Line

http://alliance.columbia.edu/files/newalliance/content/A%20Walk%20on%20the%20High%20Line_Adam%20Gopnik.pdf

Shoot like no one is ever going to look at the picture

Why not?  Of course, I'm not a commercial photographer, in which case I would have to worry very much about what the client thinks.  

To often we are bogged down by the need to conform to what is expected, or how a location has been shot before but my message to you is simple; create what makes you happy, don't worry about how many "Likes" you get or whether the judge at your local club will examine it, missing the point and give you a low score. 

Shoot from your heart, stay true to what you want to capture and enjoy making the images that bring a smile to your face. 

I always remember a phrase "Dance like no one is watching" I apply this to my photography; "Shoot like no one is going to see it" and then you can fully express yourself without fear or doubt. 

If you shoot like that you'll find your work gets noticed for the right reasons.

http://www.paulsanders.biz/blog/2014/5/seeing-things-differently 

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I don't wish to deconstruct your vision

The postmodern in photography didn't much resonate until recent reading in The Education of a Photographer.  What struck me were repeated expressions, in regard to questions of intention, of a desire to trick the viewer, to make the audience question what was being viewed and how it constructed meaning from the viewing.

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section Four: Guides for the Uneducated: Higher Education and Photography

Section Four:  Guides for the Uneducated: Higher Education and Photography

John Szarkowski - Commitment (1962)

Photo director of the MoMA calls on educators to commit themselves to exploring the unknown through photography, thereby inspiring a new generation with equal commitment.

“If we commit our work, then our students may commit theirs, to the business of probing and exploring life, including all those intuitively sensed realities for which we have not yet found formal expression.”

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section Three: The Legends

Section Three:  The Legends

Alexey Brodovitch - Brodovitch on Photography

Unfortunately, the extract is not referenced.  Shame as it is quite good:  clearly written and obviously based on years of experience as an editor and teacher.

On what makes good photograph:

“A photograph is tied to its time—what is good today may be a cliché tomorrow.”

“...the problem of the photographer is to discover his own language, a visual ABC’s to explain this event. The photograph is not only a pictorial report; it is also a psychological report. It represents the feelings and point of view of the intelligence behind the camera.”

“It is every photographer’s responsibility to discover new images and a new personal way of looking at things. If he can do this his pictures will command attention and have surprise quality.”

He notes the insipidness of most images and feels that much of this comes from too much attention to staging images, rather than letting them happen.

“...things should be used which could happen, not things which are obviously posed, obviously artificial only to meet the needs of that ad.”

He believes cropping is an important tool, even though some purists insist on perfecting framing within the camera at the time of the event.  He argues that photographers should make three to four prints from each negative cropped differently.

On the act of seeing/looking:

“There are two phases of seeing in the making of a picture. The first takes place when the photograph is actually shot. This is when the instinctive decision is made which results in the picture being recorded on the film. The second seeing comes in examining the contact prints of the pictures. It is important to be able to recognize the pictures which express your viewpoint and also how these pictures can be printed and cropped to bring out that view point. It is also important to be able to recognize the lucky accidents which can often result in good pictures.”

On developing style, he notes the tendency of new photographers to shoot everything and anything.

“He must learn that shooting just for the sake of shooting is dull and unprofitable and he must develop a general tendency in his work. With this maturity the photographer will begin to develop his own photographic vocabulary to express new discoveries of vision and understanding.”

On education, he notes that in his job as editor he could always tell from which school students had arrived as they delivered images of similar style and presentation.  He fears too much cliche is the product of formal education. 

“Rather than a teacher in the accepted sense, what is required is someone to tease or irritate the student and to help him discover himself.”

Finally, on the career prospects of photographers, he notes:

“The creative life of a commercial photographer is like the life of a butterfly. Very seldom do we see a photographer who continues to be really productive for more than eight or ten years.”

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section Two: How Others See Them: Considering the Photographer

Section Two:  How Others See Them: Considering the Photographer

William Klein - Brian Palmer, from Klein Symposium Statement

Written by a student-assistant who arranged NYC shoot for Klein describing an evening at CBGBs with attention to Klein's demeanour and working method.

“One gets the impression from watching him work (and talking to him) that he’s damn near self-sufficient, almost self-contained. He moves through space and among people with authority, as if he’s moving through his own living room among guests. Klein assumes he has the right to be there, wherever there may be; and moreover, that he’s got the right to photograph. He’s relaxed when approaching people, thoroughly un-self-conscious and self-assured. Klein gets close to people, literally steps into their space; he comes close enough to intrude—and close enough to be turned away.”

“Klein works like an irritant and a catalyst. He’s bold, often intrusive, not surreptitious in the least. He’s not after candids. Klein imposes himself on situations. And people perform for Klein; they primp, posture, clown, menace. People go off for Klein.... Though Klein is not in the picture, it’s apparent that he has caused or provoked a particular situation into being; his presence is unmistakable in the photograph.”

Interesting to note the professional arrived at the gig with uncharged flashes.  The assistant lent his.