Leo Howard Lubow' Environmental Portrait essay

[Krug]

Thank you for this enjoyable reminder of a genre which sometimes gets less of the limelight than it deserves perhaps ... and although it is only 'landscape' in the most tortuously extended understanding of the term it adds piquant variety and given Michael's broad and eclectic tastes I am sure he would have welcomed it enthusiastically.

The genre offers so much challenge and invitation to the viewer. For example I do not share exactly the detailed interpretation of the Milhaud portrait given by Lubow but that is precisely the strength of the genre as it can accommodate differing interpretations by offering a range of information which can strike viewers in slightly - or sometimes significantly - different ways and thus give rise to a wider variety of reactions, emotions and directions of thought.

Excellent article - thank you author and publisher.

[Rob C]

Very plausible writing, but couldn't it simply be that Newman, in particular, simply had a well-developed sense of style and visual balance that he simply employed automatically as he saw fit? I sure did in my own past work, just as I still do today in play.

Writing about an extant image is an endeavour of unlimited possibilities which can be as long as the writer's patience permits. In my opinion, as well as experience, previsualizing, procrastinating and sweating before any job, jobs/shoots being the entirety of all that those photographic commissions were, is one sure way to freeze. Those guys never appear to have frozen. I believe they simply winged it, as we all tended to do pre-digital, unless trying to create an iconic self-myth.

Just a thought.

Rob C

[Telecaster]

I believe they simply winged it…

Indeed. Not long ago I was playing, for a friend, a tune I'd come up with on guitar. After listening she said, "Oh, you've used a Beatles chord progression."

"I have?"

"Yeah, the fourth chord in your verses is a minor fourth. Classic Beatles. Didn't you notice?"

"No, I just went for something that sounded right."

Not to toot my own horn as a songwriter—my ability is limited in that realm—but I think this is usually how it works with any creative process. You absorb your influences without necessarily parsing out the details, and then those influences emerge subconsciously in your own stuff along with your own innate tastes & tendencies. What might appear to be analytical is mostly instinctual. This isn't always true, though. John Coltrane is an example of a musician with an almost militantly intellectual approach to both writing and playing. But I think he's an exception. (And exceptional at being so.)

-Dave-

[pearlstreet]

Whatever the photographer's actual thought process was, I appreciate this essay's thoughtful look at what works with these photographs. Today, we see a lot of photos with people barely in the frame (or, horrors, just their feet) as if the oddity of the composition makes it interesting. These photographs have unusual compositions that work to make a powerful image. The photograph of Stravinsky is wonderful!

Sharon

[Rob C]

And then when the instinct becomes subsumed into the (self)conscious, the same guys end up doing repeated "jumping" pictures, or, alternatively, hiding/cramming their subjects into the corners of two white flats. Thus the aware kills the instinctual and they end up with the self-parody.

Newness isn't always best, but then neither is a too-studied style that mocks itself the fourth or fifth time it's used. Better just to go with an open mind and trust your heart; it knows what you really are and helps you to do it and reveal yourself honestly. Which is why people want to use you in the first place. Or they do not.

Rob

[GrahamBy]

"Yeah, the fourth chord in your verses is a minor fourth. Classic Beatles. Didn't you notice?"

Which reminds me:

[Rob C]

Which reminds me:

That's far too modern a concept; this is closer to reality and also good for the horses:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJX5NeyQWHI

Rob