Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: Rob C on February 25, 2016, 03:53:32 pm
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Probably the best of his genre - ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bIudVlWo4U
Rob C
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Thank you!
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Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
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Probably the best of his genre - ever.
Rob C
With no doubt...the MAN
Peter
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Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
+1.
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I agree, Rob. Thanks for that link!
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Yes, quite a guy.The determination is amazing, as is the skill with Farmer's reducer. I can't say which came first, but his use of bleaching highlights into faces and into parts of machinery etc. was certainly a big deal during the 50s and 60s fashion eras. When one considers that it was all done without the help of PS clouds...
It also strikes me as illustrating how insanely preposterous the heartbreak in other sections of this site, where people agonize over charts of lenses... even in the relatively bad old days of yesteryear it was all about ideas and images; nobody split a gut about chromatic aberrations or coma or anything else of that nature: they just got on and produced miracles each and every day.
But that's photography: you have photographers and you have technical theorists.
Rob C
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I'm intrigued by the story of 11,000 images from the Pittsburgh project: are there really 11,000 distinct selected images, or that he shot 11,000 frames? In the latter case, allowing for usual repeats, different angles, technical not-quite-rights and so on, that might come down to 500 or so printable images.
Which is still huge, but it could be shown...
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I'm intrigued by the story of 11,000 images from the Pittsburgh project: are there really 11,000 distinct selected images, or that he shot 11,000 frames? In the latter case, allowing for usual repeats, different angles, technical not-quite-rights and so on, that might come down to 500 or so printable images.
Which is still huge, but it could be shown...
Take a look at this link http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDDWMV75
Peter
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Probably the best of his genre - ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bIudVlWo4U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bIudVlWo4U)
Rob C
Certainly a great photographer, a pleasure to be reminded of his work. I find myself wondering about the whole idea of ranking, though, at that level. Does he get the gold, the silver or just the bronze? Such questions don't strike me as adding much. And how could agreement possibly be reached?
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Thanks Peter
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Certainly a great photographer, a pleasure to be reminded of his work. I find myself wondering about the whole idea of ranking, though, at that level. Does he get the gold, the silver or just the bronze? Such questions don't strike me as adding much. And how could agreement possibly be reached?
Ah Ken, that's the trouble with writing: it's often not quite explicit enough, and just when you think it might be, you realise that it's been too explicit to the point of suggesting exclusions and/or second-tiers...
In 'best of the bunch' I'm not suggesting a grading of 'almost equals' as per an Olympics, within the same event; I'm thinking of a level that's beyond comparison for the simple belief that there are no others that quite fit the category. Photojournalism was a genre that spawned many players, some good, some great and some just famous. Gene was something else: he lived it as an obsessive. He wasn't a rich kid playing at slumming it on an Amex card (not that there used to be Amex cards) and neither was he a full-time war-junkie living/dying on the edge, whatever that really is - suicidal? He did many different things. He was out there on his own, following a star that couldn't be reached, not because of him, but because the rocket to propel him there hadn't yet been invented.
Today, I believe the rocket, as in the means to showing his oeuvre, does exist: not as magazine - they hardly exist for that genre at all - and not within art gallery; I think it exists as an Internet publication.
I recently cast my doubts on the validity of much art gallery-related activity; this would be something really valuable that some such loaded body could take upon itself to do for the general weal: employ a fresh young graduate/intern and entrust him/her with digitizing the essay on Pittsburgh, once and for all, and putting it up on a dedicated website. Maybe the great city of P might foot a part of the bill? I only saw a tiny fraction of said essay within the pages of Popular Photography Annual many decades ago, but suffice to say that it was powerful enough to engage with, and hold place in my memory ever since.
Rob C
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Gene was one of the very best, even though it appeared he didn't have both oars in the water. Perhaps that was why the guy was so incredibly creative. From what I've read, the folks at Magnum were less than enchanted when he almost brought the organization to financial ruin over the Minamata project, but the result was one of the finest works of art in all of photography. My favorite, though is "Country Doctor." There have been few, if any others who could have carried that one off the way Gene did. I'll raise one tonight in his honor. Even with all his warts he was top of the line.
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Gene was one of the very best, even though it appeared he didn't have both oars in the water. Perhaps that was why the guy was so incredibly creative. From what I've read, the folks at Magnum were less than enchanted when he almost brought the organization to financial ruin over the Minamata project, but the result was one of the finest works of art in all of photography. My favorite, though is "Country Doctor." There have been few, if any others who could have carried that one off the way Gene did. I'll raise one tonight in his honor. Even with all his warts he was top of the line.
Neither has a running duck (both feet) on the water, but it don't sink!
;-)
Rob
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I recently cast my doubts on the validity of much art gallery-related activity; this would be something really valuable that some such loaded body could take upon itself to do for the general weal: employ a fresh young graduate/intern and entrust him/her with digitizing the essay on Pittsburgh, once and for all, and putting it up on a dedicated website. Maybe the great city of P might foot a part of the bill? I only saw a tiny fraction of said essay within the pages of Popular Photography Annual many decades ago, but suffice to say that it was powerful enough to engage with, and hold place in my memory ever since.
Rob C
Great idea, with broader application, and sounds doable in this case, unless there is some non-negotiable copyright problem. My impression is that when museums digitise photographs they concentrate on their own holdings of prints. That is certainly MOMA's approach, and maybe needs reconsidering for a digital world. I wonder if Google could be encouraged to take an interest.
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Great idea, with broader application, and sounds doable in this case, unless there is some non-negotiable copyright problem. My impression is that when museums digitise photographs they concentrate on their own holdings of prints. That is certainly MOMA's approach, and maybe needs reconsidering for a digital world. I wonder if Google could be encouraged to take an interest.
[/b]
Ah, but aren't they the folks who tried to do a thing with everybody's books in a very non-©-respecting way?
I could be being naîve, but I think I'd still rather trust an art body than a bloodthirsty one with world domination in mind, and almost in fact.
Rob
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Ah, but aren't they the folks who tried to do a thing with everybody's books in a very non-©-respecting way?
I could be being naîve, but I think I'd still rather trust an art body than a bloodthirsty one with world domination in mind, and almost in fact.
Rob
What Google has actually done, by way of making books and art more accessible, is a Good Thing, IMO. Google Books and Google Art Project are both significant cultural assets. But I would have to agree about trust. I was tempted to say you could trust Google to actually get the job done, but then remembered that they do have a bit of a track record for dropping projects.
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But that's photography: you have photographers and you have technical theorists.
Rob C
Damn! I hate having to say this but I totally agree. When cameras just had aperture rings and shutter speed dials I can't remember ever discussing edge sharpness, CA or whether the camera could internally process HDR images. The discussion of photgraphic aesthetics has been drowned out by reviews of the latest megapixel sensor.
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Rob,
I just came across your post with the link to the W. Eugene Smith video. Thanks for doing this! It really took me back to my days as a teenager when I was falling in love with photography. I can remember coveting and then eventually possessing various books of his work. The Spanish death scene, the Pittsburgh steel worker, the country doctor, the mother bathing her daughter in Minamata... these and other iconic images still send shivers down my spine when I see them. And after all these years, somehow I failed to realize (or maybe I just forgot) that the closing image in the Family of Man collection was his photograph of his own children! I'll need to dig out these old books and spend some time with them some rainy weekend afternoon.
John
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jng
Glad you enjoyed the link.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/frocks-and-fantasy-the-photographs-of-sarah-moon-966704.html
This one, above, is on a totally different tack, but if you read it, I think it shows the common theme of self-belief and personal input that many top people in the field share. And the message (even in this old report), basically, is be yourself.
Rob C
http://www.graphicine.com/sarah-moon-i-see-you/
And for GrahamBy:
http://www.lexpress.fr/styles/mode/la-photographie-selon-sarah-moon_890247.html
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Damn! I hate having to say this but I totally agree. When cameras just had aperture rings and shutter speed dials I can't remember ever discussing edge sharpness, CA or whether the camera could internally process HDR images. The discussion of photgraphic aesthetics has been drowned out by reviews of the latest megapixel sensor.
You see? In the end, I have neither horns nor funny tail!
;-)
Rob C
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Rob,
Thanks for these links describing Sarah Moon's work and experience. I suppose one perk of success is that people will listen more than they question.
John
EDIT: Or rather, once one has made it to a certain station in life, one has then earned the privilege of living it on one's own terms!
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Hi Rob,
Thanks for the link about Eugene Smith. I don't have much in the way of knowledge on photographic history so had never heard of him but will make a point in reading what I can about him as that video certainly has me intrigued about the man and his work.
Cheers, John
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jng and JMCP,
Gad to have been of help; it's often quite difficult to find particular things on the web, and especially when you don't have a lot of previous knowledge of them - classic Catch 22!
I also remember how difficult it used to be back in the pre-Internet days; it was usually a matter of luck at a bookshop or, for me, a newspaper/magazine kiosk in a big railway station - Glasgow's Central. And that used to be expensive - you had to buy!
;-)
Rob
P.S.
https://www.google.es/search?rls=en-us&q=Sarah+Moon&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title&tbm=isch&gws_rd=cr&ei=5g3bVtLRCMu_aI2Nl6gE
This gives a lot of images, most by her, but there are also some stowaways, which unfortunately often happens with similar groups of pictures.
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The recent Sarah Moon photography exhibition in Hamburg (Germany) was a fabulous experience.
For anyone in the Cologne and Bonn (also Germany) vecinity, there is an interesting combined exhibition in both cities showing contemporary portrait photography, named With Different Eyes.
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Not quote at the top, perhaps, in some ways, but a good demonstration nonetheless of the fact that to fly with eagles you have got to be made of different material to the norm.
http://www.orkinphoto.com/biography/
Rob
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But definitely up there:
http://www.photohistories.com/Photo-Histories/70/a-pocket-full-of-kodachromes
;-)
Rob
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More interesting reading! Thanks for the links, Rob.
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And just in case anyone didn't think women were shooting - very well - some years ago:
https://www.google.es/search?q=karen+radkai&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1EqfU4DjDsey0QXtv4HoCQ&ved=0CCIQsAQ&biw=1249&bih=886#facrc=_&imgrc=jMTdZ7JbSCSq3M%3A
Rob
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http://onlinebrowsing.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/mario-de-biasi.html
More Italy...
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Two more interesting links, Rob. Thanks! I especially like Karen Radkai's photographs. Wow! I still see a great number of interesting situations when visiting my sister in Italy (between Rome and Naples) which I enjoy photographing. What a beautiful country!
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Fom an intrview with Peter Lindbergh in Frost magazine:
"What was it like switching to digital photography?"
"It was a real drama (laughs). Time and time again I’ve battled with technology and have had to ask my assistant how something works. The main difference, though, is that photography in the past was a more intimate process between the model and the photographer. Today the camera is hooked up to the computer, and there are a thousand guys on the set. If you are really unlucky, you’ve even got an editor standing at the laptop commenting on every move the model makes, or suggesting how it could be done better. That, unfortunately, doesn’t have much to do with the photography."
...
I feel fortunate to have sidestepped most of that in my life. Maybe I wasn't born too soon after all.
Rob C
P.S. In fact, maybe you'd like to see the entire interview:
http://www.frostmagazine.com/2013/09/peter-lindbergh-interview-exclusive/
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P.S. In fact, maybe you'd like to see the entire interview:
http://www.frostmagazine.com/2013/09/peter-lindbergh-interview-exclusive/
An interesting interview! Thanks for the link, Rob.
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... an editor standing at the laptop commenting on every move the model makes, or suggesting how it could be done better.
Pity the poor Cinematographers and Camera Operators who used to hold the keys to the kingdom, but are now not much more than one of the gang of experts clustered around the monitors.
Great link to the W. Eugene Smith doc, Rob. That's an excellent production. Thanks!
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Mike, Peter; glad you got some enjoyment out of them!
Rob C
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More dreams of impossible reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRWgNL9p62s
Rob
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More dreams of impossible reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRWgNL9p62s
Rob
Rob,
Great video...once again many thanks for your posting.
Peter
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Rob,
Great video...once again many thanks for your posting.
Peter
My pleasure, Peter.
Looking at several of his vids, I have begun to wonder ¡f he really can work with those longer lenses hand-held, or whether it's a PR ploy to discourage the rest of us. I have sometimes put my 2.8/180mm (an af lens) onto a body and tried doing that with stationary objects: I can't get 'em sharp even at a 1/1000th sec! I sway about like a poppy watching the approaching Taliban. However, with up to 50mm I am surprisingly capable of having slow shutter stuff working. I often have suspected I don't have the optimal physical shape.
Rob
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My pleasure, Peter.
Looking at several of his vids, I have begun to wonder ¡f he really can work with those longer lenses hand-held, or whether it's a PR ploy to discourage the rest of us. I have sometimes put my 2.8/180mm (an af lens) onto a body and tried doing that with stationary objects: I can't get 'em sharp even at a 1/1000th sec! I sway about like a poppy watching the approaching Taliban. However, with up to 50mm I am surprisingly capable of having slow shutter stuff working. I often have suspected I don't have the optimal physical shape.
Rob
I wondered that myself...the last shot I posted (The Stranger) was made using iso 1250 1/1,600 @ f8 . I was at least 40 feet away which made it somewhat easier to attain sharpness. I used a 45mm(90mm) on a m/43.
Peter
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Still the Man.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/david-bailey-jack-nicholson-turned-me-on-to-viagra-very-young/
Rob
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I wondered that myself...the last shot I posted (The Stranger) was made using iso 1250 1/1,600 @ f8 . I was at least 40 feet away which made it somewhat easier to attain sharpness. I used a 45mm(90mm) on a m/43.
Peter
Dear oh dear. You wasn't using a wide angle prime lens. This means that you aren't a real Street Photographer? ;) :)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztviA4W3C40
Why does this sequence with a couple books and a camera leave me with a bad taste in my mouth?
Rob
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Maybe because it's so choppy it's like a bumpy ride in a jeep over rutted and rocky roads, Rob.
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Maybe because it's so choppy it's like a bumpy ride in a jeep over rutted and rocky roads, Rob.
And it doesn't improve one iota; in fact, I think it gets more upsetting as it progresses. There's so much confusion of sound, colour and movement that nothing gels at all - for me. Oh, for simplicity and strength.
Truth to tell, I initially abandoned the trip after the first few shots where he's looking at other people's work 'for inspiration...' and felt that was uninspiring enough right there; but I did eventually finish and certainly doubt I'll be taking another ride on the magic carpet. My poor head. Of course, where responsibilty actually lies is possibly another matter that perhaps shouldn't be laid at his (Mario's) feet.
Rob
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1. It's different today, vs. the nostalgia of the 60's, 70's and 80's.
The clothes were more formal but simple, even elegant for the average street person. There wasn't a logo every 20 ft. and black and white really works well with simplicity, tones and humanity.
I hate to say it but I find the photography from the past, way before I started to be so much more daring and trend setting, (for a better use of the phrase).
2. I had a brief period a few years ago where I wanted to try street photography. I bought a bunch of little 4/3 cameras and took my Leica M8 everywhere my wife who is my partner and producer went.
I shot a few things ok, but nothing spectacular, actually rarely turned them on.
3. Fine art alludes me and I applaud anyone that can do it, but I have to either give myself or have a client allow me to shoot with purpose.
4 My wife finally said, put those bloody cameras up cause you look like a tourist.
It's funny the only image I've ever placed in the fine art world was this one.
(http://www.russellrutherford.com/paris_hallway_sm.jpg)
It was shot for an editorial an our printer in France wanted to enter it into an auction.
It sold for an surprisingly high amount which really shocked me.
Funnier still, since I shot it at the last second I just grabbed a 5d2 and had an assistant hand hold a 575 hmi.
Simple photograph, not worthy of these other examples, but it sold.
IMO
BC
Excuse chopping up your post like above, but makes it easier for me to respond.
1. Be happy you didn't have to shoot in the early 50s: most girls dressed like their mothers, complete with girdles! (I state the bit about girdles based on what I was told.) It worries me thinking of the 60s as nostalgia: feels like yesterday, much closer to me than the 80s do! The 80s feel like a general mistake, a minor diversion off the main drag.
I think your appreciation of the vitality of earlier photography stems from the absence of Photoshop. I feel it very strongly too, and the problem is two-fold: almost nothing looks real now, and so it lacks the "wow, that's fantastic!" factor one could get about something that's basically real. Looking at Bailey/Shrimpton or Rubartelli/Verushka the stun came from knowing it was what they were doing together to make it happen as it looks, not what somebody was effing about with in another office somewhere. Not the same. As bad, I get the feeling everybody is now trying to be the same as everybody else, but just a further step into fantasy where possible.
(I realised just now that the two guys I mentioned are both pretty much around my own age. Says something personal about attitudes, I guess.)
2. " but I have to either give myself or have a client allow me to shoot with purpose."
I'm glad you wrote that; it mirrors something I have often expressed here too: the sense of need of assignment to make the whole thing feel both legitimate and worth the bother doing. Terence Donovan wrote the same in different words, to the effect that the most difficult thing for the amateur is to find a reason to take a photograph. Without assignment, even pros are faced with the very same difficulty uness it's something still work-related but slightly different, such as shooting for their own book.
I eventually got around it by realising that if I didn't get over that hurdle, I simply wouoldn't have anything else worth doing in life. I'm glad I did get beyond it, but it took years. It might be thought that for anyone as desperate to become a pro photographer as I was, there would always be motivation enough; not so: the original drive was clearly focussed, and once the possibilities of continuing along in that direction had vanished, there wasn't anything left but vacuum. If that's not a contradiction in terms.
4. Looking like a tourist.
Feeling like one is worse! I live in two (odd, but true) tiny towns: one, inland, is the original one where folks lived, safely enough away from the beach to have time to flee pirates (Barbary ones... nothing new there, then) and the other part of it, about eight klicks away, was where they kept the fishing boats, and is now the tourist resort: crowded in summer dead as a stone in winter, thought the current invasions of Lycrawheelies are upsetting that balance ìn recent times. So I live in one but spend most time in the other.
I suspect that for the first couple of decades spent here I was, to all practical purposes, invisible to the local folk except those from whom we bought the basic necessities of life, or whose restaurants we visited regularly. Then, when I started to shoot out in the streets just a few years ago, I suddenly became generally visible - an oddity. After a while it became obvious I was no loger a tourist and so I became pretty much invisible again - just another in the legion of foreign eccentrics such as painters etc. who live around here. Oddly, I never take my camera to the beaches in summer. I want to avoid people in, or partly in swimwear.
Not many tourists around here look like your model; the shot, dragging what looks like fur, reminds me of those old ETA animal rights campaigns... One that struck me was to the effect that it took several hundred minks to make one fur coat and just one silly bitch to wear it. My wife used to have one - don't know which breed of animal 'donated' pelt - but as the coat was a discard from my mother who had lost interest in it, I felt she couldn't be held accountable. She looked beautiful in it, and felt so delightfully cuddly out on a cold Scottish winter's day as we walked the pooch in the snow in the park. No wonder shooting personal photographs for 'fun' wasn't a priority in those years: work provided that photo-buzz.
Nice to see you crossing the tracks from the MF side of LuLa... please come visit more often!
Rob C
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(Peter confesses to using a 90mm equivalent lens)
Dear oh dear. You wasn't using a wide angle prime lens. This means that you aren't a real Street Photographer? ;) :)
In one of his interviews (I'm willing to believe he contradicted himself elsewhere) Henri C-B said he finally preferred the 50mm, but he tried both 90 and 35. The 90 he liked but the dof wasn't enough for him to get a sufficient proportion of shots in focus; the 35 was great for dof but the perspective made him feel as though the photos were shouting.
So it's ok, Peter is a legit after all ;)
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(Peter confesses to using a 90mm equivalent lens)
In one of his interviews (I'm willing to believe he contradicted himself elsewhere) Henri C-B said he finally preferred the 50mm, but he tried both 90 and 35. The 90 he liked but the dof wasn't enough for him to get a sufficient proportion of shots in focus; the 35 was great for dof but the perspective made him feel as though the photos were shouting.
So it's ok, Peter is a legit after all ;)
I'm well aware...besides Robert chastising me is tongue in cheek.
Peter
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Looking at several of his vids, I have begun to wonder ¡f he really can work with those longer lenses hand-held, or whether it's a PR ploy to discourage the rest of us. I have sometimes put my 2.8/180mm (an af lens) onto a body and tried doing that with stationary objects: I can't get 'em sharp even at a 1/1000th sec! I sway about like a poppy watching the approaching Taliban. However, with up to 50mm I am surprisingly capable of having slow shutter stuff working. I often have suspected I don't have the optimal physical shape.
Image stabilisation is remarkable stuff. This was shot at 1/125 at f11 with a 200mm on an apc, so 300mm equivalent (sorry, don't have the image on this machine...)
https://500px.com/photo/143712057/gallery-district-by-graham-byrnes?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=10643117
This one was shot at a concert under dodgy lighting: same 70-200 zoom at 200mm, f/4 and 1/30 ! But I was cheating, had a monopod :D
https://500px.com/photo/140378311/cynthia-au-piano-by-graham-byrnes?ctx_page=2&from=user&user_id=10643117
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Graham,
Yes, I'd wondered if that (im.stab.) was partly his secret, but was a bit doubtful he'd risk it for glossy magazines... but then, he has artistic leeway at his level of standing...
I looked at your link, and clicking the arrows, found you have a real treasure chest of stuff hidden away there! Congratulations, and don't keep your lamp hidden behind bushes! A very keen eye indeed.
Rob
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Thanks for the kind words Rob :-)
I wonder about these discussions of sharpness, when I think that the photos that have had the biggest impact on me were short on 35mm tri-X, or maybe on a good day 6x6 tri-X. I can actually get similar effects shooting digital at 1600 or 3200 iso on the Pentax, but usually chicken out and use 400 because it feels wrong to waste all that light :)
So the degree of sharpness is a personal judgement, and for a pro... "artistic leeway" is I guess what allows him to exercise that judgement. There must be an element of "no one ever got fired for photos too sharp" in the editorial chain, and in a world where risk-taking seems to be beaten out of people from an early age, it would be tempting to use IS, from a tripod, with rapid discharge flash and then shoot video anyway.
I'm glad that I get paid to do other stuff: trying to be a scientist is also complicated by risk-averse bureaucrats, but at least I got in early enough to have the luxury of keeping some principles.... it's also a form of artistic leeway, I guess ;D
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I have a feeling I linked this before, but can't trace it:
http://www.jnevins.com/garywinograndreading.htm
Rob
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Terence Donovan wrote... to the effect that the most difficult thing for the amateur is to find a reason to take a photograph.
An odd thing to write, given that each day millions of amateurs effortlessly find a reason to take a photograph.
Without assignment, even pros are faced with the very same difficulty uness it's something still work-related but slightly different, such as shooting for their own book.
This seems to indicate that some professional photographers love photography not for photography's sake, but for their own.
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This seems to indicate that some professional photographers love photography not for photography's sake, but for their own.
For an artist it's one and the same...
Peter
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Peter,
For an artist it's one and the same...
Evidently it's not to Rob C. Make of that what you will.
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Evidently it's not to Rob C. Make of that what you will.
Not true...In my opinion, Rob C Is very much an Artist. In the commercial field, which I was apart, limitations offer creativity. Only a true Artist will find them. I think that's closer to the truth.
Peter
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Peter,
...In my opinion Rob C Is very much an Artist.
How do you distinguish artist from Artist?
In the commercial field, which I was apart, limitations offer creativity. Only a true Artist will find them. I think that's closer to the truth.
In the world in which we all live, necessity is the mother of invention. I think that's closer to the truth.
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Not true...In my opinion, Rob C Is very much an Artist. In the commercial field, which I was apart, limitations offer creativity. Only a true Artist will find them. I think that's closer to the truth.
Peter
Thanks for the definition; somewhat reassuring...
I'm reminded of 1973, sitting inside (obviously enough, but can't be too careful) an aircraft belonging to Cyprus Airways, on the return leg to London from a Vogue/IWS shoot, and the two models had me playing a game with them that consisted of rapid words/responses. "Photographer" came up, and one replied, quick as a flash, artist! I questioned it, and they both looked at me like I was nuts: of course photographers are artists, one said, what else did you think you were?
But the point, I think, that I was trying to illustrate a way back, about snappers and down-time, is this: without the challenge(?) of the concept of the commission aspect, where is the buzz? As a pro you know - or damned well should - that you can pretty much do anything that you want to do with a camera. That innocence of surprise is long gone; in it's place is the pleasure, the thrill of success when you delight somebody who rated you highly enough to hire you.
For instance, I recently shot a local girl (for the second time) for our mutual entertainment, and the end result, after about a week, was not of extreme joy: it involved a bit of a wrangle about some shots she liked and some she did not. I'd tried to explain, back in January when we first met, that a model's rôle is not to be pleased: her rôle is to be the vehicle through which a snapper expresses his ideas. If she wants to be happy and look like she sees in the mirror, then she needs to go play with a wedding, communions, passport photographer, not somebody like me on a totally different wavelength, not a better frequency, but a different one. She still doesn't get it, and I don't think I'm going to pursue further attempts at interplay. The point being, without a paying client - the focus for the satisfaction - why bother to enter into a situation that promises only further hassle? It shouldn't be rocket science to suss this.
Let's face it: anyone who willingly, and with great effort, manages to get himself into a full-time photographic career, with all the headwinds, fights and sonsofbitches he knows he's going to run into in the years ahead, must have some deep feeling for the medium per se. Anyone who believes otherwise is either beyond redemption, or just needs to take off his blinkers for a moment.
Rob
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Let's face it: anyone who willingly, and with great effort, manages to get himself into a full-time photographic career, with all the headwinds, fights and sonsofbitches he knows he's going to run into in the years ahead, must have some deep feeling for the medium per se. Anyone who believes otherwise is either beyond redemption, or just needs to take off his blinkers for a moment.
Rob
And I'd add that I think he does it not because he loves the equipment and the action, but because there's something he wants to say during this life and this is the medium he's chosen in which to say it. There's a pretty important difference between reportage and art -- both in writing and in photography. Scene and events are the focus of reportage. The artist's heart is the focus of art.
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...the point, I think, that I was trying to illustrate a way back, about snappers and down-time, is this: without the challenge(?) of the concept of the commission aspect, where is the buzz?
For no other reason than: love of photography for its own sake. Selflessness, rather than ego.
As a pro you know - or damned well should - that you can pretty much do anything that you want to do with a camera. That innocence of surprise is long gone; in it's place is the pleasure, the thrill of success when you delight somebody who rated you highly enough to hire you.
If you tendered for a commission, perhaps you were simply the cheapest.
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For no other reason than: love of photography for its own sake. Selflessness, rather than ego.
If you tendered for a commission, perhaps you were simply the cheapest.
In later years from, say, mid-70s, I created projects for clients; I was the prime motivator: there was no tendering, but thanks for the vote of confidence.
Rob C
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Rob,
So much for being off your radar.
...thanks for the vote of confidence.
My confidence in your ability is irrelevant - people talk the talk all the time, but when the chips are down...money talks, and the tenderer with the cheapest price is awarded the contract. Not every time, but more often than not.
-
Where the fuck is Rob A when you need him?
Rob A, aka Mk 1, is currently relaxing in his retirement in the sunshine. He was upset that Mk 2 turned out to be defective, and so gave authorization for the creation of Rob C, aka Mk 3. (It was never intended for Mk 2 to be released into the public domain - it was just an experiment.)
The Mk 2 battery still has a few units of charge left, but it's running fairly flat and low, which is an encouraging sign...
It won't be missed when it's gone.
Do you think it's possible that Mk 2 and Son of Hal are one and the same? The signals are very similar.
;-)
Rob C (MK 3)
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Rob,
Rob A, aka Mk 1, is currently relaxing in his retirement in the sunshine. He was upset that Mk 2 turned out to be defective, and so gave authorization for the creation of Rob C, aka Mk 3. (It was never intended for Mk 2 to be released into the public domain - it was just an experiment.)
The Mk 2 battery still has a few units of charge left, but it's running fairly flat and low, which is an encouraging sign...
It won't be missed when it's gone.
Do you think it's possible that Mk 2 and Son of Hal are one and the same? The signals are very similar.
;-)
Rob C (MK 3)
(sigh). There you go again.
You and your puerile name-calling. First it was "Son of Hal" with Isaac, and now "Mk 2" with me -- the former added by post-edit through sheer spite.
Grow up. After all, you're only a 70+ year old man acting like a spoiled brat throwing its toys out of the pram.
Your name-calling and other, like-minded antics scattered across LuLa forums, is water off a duck's back to me. Each and every time you engage in them you serve only to demean yourself still further. Don't believe me? Then consider the words of the only person whose opinion matters to you -- you (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=107938.msg890008#msg890008):
If you don't like an expressed view, say why and offer a good reason to support your alternative opinion. But don't get personal because in the end, the only person you discedit is yourself. (http://lula.brainwebhosting.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=c32e9266587a3ebb5b0b4c9521893117&topic=73590.msg585980#msg585980)
How sad.
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Wow! And you're telling someone else to grow up???
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Wow! And you're telling someone else to grow up???
Isn't he cute?
;-)
Rob C
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https://oscarenfotos.com/2013/05/09/galeria-william-klein/
Scroll to the bottom for two videos.
Rob
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Scroll to the bottom for two videos.
Rats, the second (longer) film isn't available for viewing in Germany. I'll have to wait until I travel to Italy, France, Poland or the UK to watch it.
I really enjoyed the first film. Thanks for the link, Rob!
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https://oscarenfotos.com/2013/05/09/galeria-william-klein/
Scroll to the bottom for two videos.
Rob
Rob,
Once again thanks a bunch...It made my day,as always.
Peter
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My pleasure, guys; its always nice to be able to highlight some of the giants upon whose shoulders etc.etc.!
Looking back on when I first got into the Internet - a laptop came out of nowhere as a gift from my daughter - I have become so aware of how difficult it used to be to source any of the work of people whose name I knew but whose work was only occasionally visible in magazines I'd stumble across. God, there's so much out there...
Rob
P.S.
Maybe this link might work instead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnN9LMvjM7Y
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh-zGgRMOXk
The sound's better off (IMO!); the last portrait, of Sarah, is by David Bailey.
Some others are so far beyond the rest of us that they just can't stay for very long...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZin0SPr-Y
Rob C
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh-zGgRMOXk
The sound's better off (IMO!); the last portrait, of Sarah, is by David Bailey.
Some others are so far beyond the rest of us that they just can't stay for very long...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZin0SPr-Y
Rob C
Wonderful!!! And I enjoyed the music too.
Sadly, that second link (in your previous post) didn't work either - THEY have total control.
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Hi Mike,
Yeah, Big Bro' sure has a long reach!
Looking at the Francesca Woodman videos again last night made me think: she took herself out, but I womder what came first, the obsessive photography of self in such tight, limited situations leading to frustration and eventual self-cancellation from the question: where in hell to take this theme next - or whether it was a pre-existing state that, in fact, led to those photographs in the first place, rather than the other way around. I gather she wanted to get into fashion photography in NY but couldn't get very far, so might that situation have been the pressure that led to its own photographic depiction of isolation? I can't seem to discover any actual fashion work from her, or at least, I can't remember any - if she didn't actually shoot any for her book, then how in blazes could she expect to get such work?
Tortured minds... art is so full of them.
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh-zGgRMOXk
The sound's better off (IMO!); the last portrait, of Sarah, is by David Bailey.
Some others are so far beyond the rest of us that they just can't stay for very long...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZin0SPr-Y
Rob C
Thanks, Rob. Weird and beautiful stuff.
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Thanks, Rob. Weird and beautiful stuff.
Indeed; it's even more so when one has read a little bit - discovered a bit, is possibly closer to it; it's not unlike drawing teeth! - about her genesis.
I had noticed quite a few years ago that photographers are sometimes given to ending it all on their own terms. It's hard to know if this stems from frustration, from a sense of isolation or even of being totally misunderstood. Can it be broken dreams? It happens even to stars of many years - is going cold the unacceptable cause? Why would Arbus do it? I think she'd already achieved 'fame' well before she did that; could it even be the fame that spurs the decision to get the hell away from it all? Do some believe that they have lost control and no longer have the rght to choose what they do? I may well be mistaken, but I don't think this is often drug-related, as it seems to be for models and musicians.
Whatever the reality, I can't help wishing they had looked for help outwith themselves. It's so damned easy to think everything begins and ends within one's own head. Perhaps it does, in one sense, but the ripples are far wider and deserve consideration.
We shall probably never know.
Rob
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An OCD genius was W. Eugene Smith. A great legacy and inspiration. Thanks for sharing!
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An OCD genius was W. Eugene Smith. A great legacy and inspiration. Thanks for sharing!
Oldie Goldies!
;-)
Rob C
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CleRW-xXsJI
Rob
P.S.
The second Lewis Hine shot - little girl - has the genesis of the "Afghan" one writ large...
Look into her little face.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek4nM56-aHI
Great if you speak Italian, interesting war images even if you don't.
Rob
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Nice little film.
http://c41.net/video/marty-knapp-portrait-of-a-photographer/
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Truly was a delightful film. Thanks for the link, Rob.
-
+1
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Did I ever offer this link before?
Anyhow, it feels sort of topìcal, what with chatting about 'street' and all that jazz.
https://www.google.es/search?q=louis+faurer+imagines&biw=1249&bih=886&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=zeNEVOnrHraLsQSe0YBI&ved=0CCAQsAQ
Rob
P.S.
Touching:
http://www.leitercatalog.com/moments-with-saul.html
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From French Vogue and for Grahamby:
http://ciaovogue.blogspot.com.es/2011/09/october-1970-paris-vogue.html
Some Jeanloup with Ingrid Boulting.
From UK Vogue
http://ciaovogue.blogspot.com.es/2010/09/may-1969-uk-vogue.html
Arnaud de Rosnay (since lost at sea on a too ambitious solo windsurfing trip that went wrong...) in the Bahamas with a mirror optic, possibly the best such shot I've yet see. Double-page spread, symphony in blue. Without girls (and clothes) like that, there's hardly any point in pointing a camera at one, as I know only too well.
For those who know him only from the Emmanuelle movie, Just Jaeckin was big in fashion photography long before that...
Looking back makes me wonder how digital gurus can claim to have brought much to that particular table.
Rob C
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Thanks Rob, enjoyed the (text) vignettes of Saul Leiter. And the photo of the extremely ordered piles of disordered stuff in his appartment :)
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Thanks Rob, enjoyed the (text) vignettes of Saul Leiter. And the photo of the extremely ordered piles of disordered stuff in his appartment :)
My 'office' also boasts piles of stuff, but they are neither ordered (though I still know where everything is) and I'm afraid they don't really amount to very much at the moment. However, one day after I'm gone, I might be worth quite a lot! Which thought makes me feel so much better. Is that a demonstration of the power of positive thinking?
Rob
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My 'office' also boasts piles of stuff, but they are neither ordered (though I still know where everything is) and I'm afraid they don't really amount to very much at the moment. However, one day after I'm gone, I might be worth quite a lot! Which thought makes me feel so much better. Is that a demonstration of the power of positive thinking?
Rob
Every artist's justification for keeping it all...
Peter
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Every artist's justification for keeping it all...
Peter
But it's also borne out by life: every time I dump something, I can guarantee you that within a fortnight I realise it is exactly the very thing I need to make/adapt something else. I can't convince myself that old envelopes are any different; come to think of it, I often use them as notes that I stick to the back of the door so that I remember whatever on the way out. And I do remember. Trouble is, when finally I'm out, I often forget all over again.
;-(
Rob
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You guys should live in the Colorado high country. In your back yard you could keep every defunct vehicle you've ever owned, all the refrigerators that finally gave up the ghost, all the plumbing that's rusted through and become useless, and everything else that's stopped working and been replaced. I'll have to hunt for my picture of a sign in front of a farmhouse that looked almost like the junk in its yard: "Stuff for sale."
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More for the Italians:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5nhP-dg3QU
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You guys should live in the Colorado high country. In your back yard you could keep every defunct vehicle you've ever owned, all the refrigerators that finally gave up the ghost, all the plumbing that's rusted through and become useless, and everything else that's stopped working and been replaced. I'll have to hunt for my picture of a sign in front of a farmhouse that looked almost like the junk in its yard: "Stuff for sale."
Ha ha, yes there's a bit of that up here but I have found New Mexico has even more. And often including an old school bus, possibly with someone living in it!
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That would make it even more valuable, Matt.
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Every artist's justification for keeping it all...
... and mechanic, welder, machinist, electronics constructor. And when you do all of the above... ;D
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You guys should live in the Colorado high country. In your back yard you could keep every defunct vehicle you've ever owned, all the refrigerators that finally gave up the ghost, all the plumbing that's rusted through and become useless, and everything else that's stopped working and been replaced. I'll have to hunt for my picture of a sign in front of a farmhouse that looked almost like the junk in its yard: "Stuff for sale."
Pretty much any farm house in the Australian "bush" will be competitive as far as historic vehicles (see attached) and defunct white goods are concerned. Also mysterious (to me) pieces of farm machinery, totally covered in rust. I don't think I have ever seen anyone with the chutzpah to advertise their junk for sale.
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Pretty much any farm house in the Australian "bush" will be competitive as far as historic vehicles
I was thinking the same :-)
One of my friends did advertise two enormous balls of old rusty barbed wire as a contemporary art piece available for delivery to Fitzroy, Brunswick or St Kilda... ;)
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I was thinking the same :-)
One of my friends did advertise two enormous balls of old rusty barbed wire as a contemporary art piece available for delivery to Fitzroy, Brunswick or St Kilda... ;)
That's clever; did he sell? Does Saatchi know?
Rob
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That's clever; did he sell? Does Saatchi know?
Rob
The Whitney would bite at the rust ball...
Peter
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The Whitney would bite at the rust ball...
Peter
Let's not forget the Tate: they used to be into piles of bricks. I can't remember which establishment was into elephant turds, but as per the old British saying: where's there muck there's brass...
Rob
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I think they are still maturing in his home paddock. He may be waiting for the market to come up a bit.
That reminds me though : in his day job, he's a contractor who ploughs fields, harvests wheat etc. It turns out the machines are now driven by pre-programmed GPS units, so they move along perfectly parallel paths over several kms. The accuracy is such that the furrows all align.
In principle program any path you wish into the GPS... so if you'd like to realise a very large drawing in the Western Districts of Victoria...
-
It is either David Sedaris or Garrison Keillor who has a story about an antique shop/gallery selling used farm machinery for home decoration that kept getting one item returned - a "muck spreader" that despite frequent steam cleaning still gave off a faint but unmistakable aroma of its former life when summer temperatures rose.
-
Found this - some interesting stuff...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrTLG73pE_c
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A number of nice images in that film, Rob. Fitting music too!
I guess the photos were taken with some sort of TLR (Rolleiflex?) - at least the last image seems to show the photographers's reflection holding one.
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A number of nice images in that film, Rob. Fitting music too!
I guess the photos were taken with some sort of TLR (Rolleiflex?) - at least the last image seems to show the photographers's reflection holding one.
I'm not sure how much to believe about anything - here's a video, part of which 'message' appears on another one too, so it could all depend on date of shooting, advertising value etc. etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYajgLwOF0k
Rob
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You sure about that link, Rob? I'm not planning on switching to Olympus. ;)
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Another guy with loads of talent - and a hard worker!
http://deadmetaphors.tumblr.com/
Rob
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Found this - some interesting stuff...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrTLG73pE_c
Yes, nice work there. I'm supposing he travels for some other kind of work and takes the photos on the side: my sad suspicion is that if HC-B himself was re-incarnated, no one would pay him to travel and photograph like this today (let alone go off and live a couple of months in the country of interest).
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6CVyWCVgFg
Nice old man; wisdom and pain of the ages.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCJJHTmLZno
Nothing about photography, but a lot about evolution of taste, getting "from what you know to what you like", education, cultural specifity, confidence about going your own way... :)
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http://cxainc.com/artist/sarah-moon/portfolio/3844/3702/
Rob
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i thought my glasses were smudged a bit when i first looked at these, but a
powerful use of defocussing or maybe movement to get my eye to pay attention to the form rather than the details.
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S678bcdXsag
;-)
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S678bcdXsag
So despite my best intentions, I stayed up and watched that to the end last night... :-)
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So despite my best intentions, I stayed up and watched that to the end last night... :-)
Yeah, it's all magical stuff that improves over time...
It was surprising to hear the 'pundit' say that during the 70s it was quite unusual for photographers to be going off around the world on shoots; I was doing that, to one degree or another, pretty much from the mid/late-sixties until the mid/late-eighties or thereabouts. It seems to me that either I was a damned sight more fortunate than I'd imagined, or that the experience was very much tied up with, and possibly almost exclusive to fashion/calendar shoots, of which there were many during that period. I know that a lot of people who did that stuff got out, but like myself, it was probably more a matter of the changing times and mores than of choice.
Many lifestyle photographers also floated shoots here, there and everywhere just for stock; imagine that faith in investment today! Yeah, a lot has been screwed, and I sometimes feel saddened by those who gloat and feel happy about that; how much better had they had the balls to join the game and not just screw it out of ego and 'me too!'. In the end, they didn't get to bite the golden apple either, just rotted it for everybody.
Rob
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Maybe you know this girl's work - maybe not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_WExUlOHY
Just watching her tells you why she makes it all work so well.
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKIUOX426Dw
Makes you look at it differently, when you ask the right questions. He asks them of you right away.
Rob
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Excellent. Funny though to listen to Sarah Silver talking about crit class after John Free's other video, where he attacks teachers who tear down students. She seemed to see it more as a necessary toughening up process... in fact she didn't say she learnt anything from the criticism, it was just so bad that nothing else could ever be worse!
Which in fact makes me think of an article I read based on interviews with Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, where it listed their 3 rules for life.
1. Don't be scared of anyone;
2. Carry a good bullshit detector;
3. Be tender.
Probably the essential guide to photography as well :-)
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Excellent. Funny though to listen to Sarah Silver talking about crit class after John Free's other video, where he attacks teachers who tear down students. She seemed to see it more as a necessary toughening up process... in fact she didn't say she learnt anything from the criticism, it was just so bad that nothing else could ever be worse!
Which in fact makes me think of an article I read based on interviews with Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, where it listed their 3 rules for life.
1. Don't be scared of anyone;
2. Carry a good bullshit detector;
3. Be tender.
Probably the essential guide to photography as well :-)
They should add a fourth: stay out of the sunshine!
I thought you'd swanned off to another conference somewhere - no photographs of late?
Rob C
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Went to hang out with my complicated family in the Alpes, took bad landscapes and family snaps :)
Next week I'll be teaching in Barcelona for a few days, should come back with something, provided world politics doesn't send me off to sulk in the corner.
Not to mention LuLa politics.
Anyway, I couldn't help but think that Free's line to Robert Franck would be a great deflector for wary subjects: "I teach photography at UCLA." Delivered with that big enthusiastic and slightly manic smile, that could get him out of a lot of trouble: moves him out of the potential "pervert with a camera" into "slightly loopy but harmless" category. Especially useful at the beach :)
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Beaches are the last place I'd shoot random people shots. Apart from the spritual politics, that's the place where the vast majority looks its worst. I'd rather catch beauty than its opposite.
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS1Kl7gTeko
Guess you just can't do it alone anymore...
-
Do they actually believe all that shite they're spouting?
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS1Kl7gTeko
Guess you just can't do it alone anymore...
It's all a show, and has been for quite some time...
Peter
-
Yes, it's certainly a show, but the trouble is, the end results take a lot more than one guy working alone with his model can give anymore. And like 'em or not, some are quite spectacular.
I suppose that what's happened is that the magazines have realised that putting 'making-ofs' onto the Internet increases the coverage that both magazine and product get.
In the process, stars have been confirmed and reputations enshrined in golden armour. If you're not to be seen taking part in the game, then you don't exist. I get the feeling there is a lot more fear stalking these studio gatherings nowadays.
Rob
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Higher stakes, greater rewards for those inside, nothing for those outside. The way of globalisation.
But yes, impressive results: the word "sculptural" popped out, and there really is that dramatic greater-than-real-life graphical impact. Something about photographing scenes that are almost monochrome in colour, too, the black girls with blacker make-up with platinum hair.
Not much humanity though, more about sublimation of sex into shopping: the women didn't look so much sexy as alluring products. I doubt any of them shared a cup of tea with Mario.
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Higher stakes, greater rewards for those inside, nothing for those outside. The way of globalisation.
But yes, impressive results: the word "sculptural" popped out, and there really is that dramatic greater-than-real-life graphical impact. Something about photographing scenes that are almost monochrome in colour, too, the black girls with blacker make-up with platinum hair.
Not much humanity though, more about sublimation of sex into shopping: the women didn't look so much sexy as alluring products. I doubt any of them shared a cup of tea with Mario.
Only wondering, but how about a line of snow?
It's a bit worrying, that notion of women as alluring products: do women who buy these magazines and/or cosmetics really feel they want to give up their identities? Perhaps some do - but I wonder just how many. My wife always used to say that she was never influenced by advertising, yet she did often buy some of the things that we'd photograph for knitwear companies; maybe seeing 'in the flesh' as it were, and ahead of the pack, might have held a selling point for her. Whatever, one of the ladies working at Reception of one such client used to laugh when Ann and I turned up to buy something... she used to remark that we were bringing all the fees back home. And nobody felt that was a bit presumptuous nor even slightly OTT; some reationships worked so well. Except that they closed the doors. For a last season or two they attempted to save money by manufacturing some lines in Hong Kong. It wasn't enough. So in one fell swoop, bang went two seasonal shoots a year for them on some Med island.
Of course, they were independent until the end, but others were simply bought up by larger English clothing groups and manufacturing and publicity went south - a very old story that irks, but one can understand the reasons why: survival and/or money from selling out before the bailiffs come acalling. But there you go - get into one of these imagined glamour industries and you fly on gossamer wings, dreading impact even with flies. But whilst you're airborne...
;-)
Rob
P.S.
Cups of tea: you must despair of me: too early in the morning for my head to function, but I'm sure Jeanloup would understand and forgive!
;-)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt6Ecqsyk78
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Great stuff Rob. Best advice by Elliott: "Do photography as a hobby and get a day job."
He's always been one of my favorites. A great sense of humor.
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"Do photography as a hobby and get a day job."
And
"I find the art world particularly boring"
I was just reading a story in The Guardian about William Eggleston, and it occurs to me that artist biographies tend to be standard narratives, like moral tales:
"Young aimless rebel has revelatory moment, but his work is initially reviled. However talent wll out, and his works now sell for $XXX."
-
And
"I find the art world particularly boring"
I was just reading a story in The Guardian about William Eggleston, and it occurs to me that artist biographies tend to be standard narratives, like moral tales:
"Young aimless rebel has revelatory moment, but his work is initially reviled. However talent wll out, and his works now sell for $XXX."
I've tried, watched several videos, but find our William too far beyond my appetites.
I think some things look dull because they are dull; no amount of photographing makes them less dull. But he's cool, in a sort of non-communicative manner. Looking at him, he just has to be American. There's a bearing. I'm not very good at reading these things, but my wife always was. My mother-in-law was uncanny in her ability to nail a person's age. Women have superior powers of observation and deduction. I suppose it comes from being female: they need better, faster abilities to read situations. Oh well, seems we'll soon have another one steering our politics; thus, two at the helm: one heading the political side and another the national identity. I'd really have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the Queen heard the Brexit result.
Rob
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For completeness, here is the link:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/08/made-in-memphis-william-eggleston
"...blew apart American photography."
Yes. Right.
Some of his images I find enjoyably gothic, although not the blood-coloured ceiling. More the less saturated Fading South portraits.
-
Not photographic, but pretty wonderful nonetheless, and new to me, Make a great sondtrack to shooting some nudes in a darkened room, curtains floating gently against the outer light. Once the girl has dropped off to sleep, I would have a cup of tea ( ;-) ):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svQEi5n8GRA&list=RDsvQEi5n8GRA#t=41
Rob C
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Quick quiz: who can identify the photographer and the model. Both are famous, but not in this context :-)
-
Quick quiz: who can identify the photographer and the model. Both are famous, but not in this context :-)
Google can...
Right-click on an image, select "Search Google for image", and -- voila. This time, the answer is right at the top, since, yeah, both were famous.
But I won't spoil your quick quiz, I did not know the answer!
-
Cartier-Bresson. That's his wife (second wife) Martine Franck. And I didn't need to look it up.
-
Google can...
Right-click on an image, select "Search Google for image", and -- voila. This time, the answer is right at the top, since, yeah, both were famous.
But I won't spoil your quick quiz, I did not know the answer!
That seems to be limited to the Chrome browser. Doesn't work on IE or Firefox.
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That seems to be limited to the Chrome browser. Doesn't work on IE or Firefox.
As to context menu -- right, that is Chrome-specific.
However, in any browser you can do this:
1. Go to google.com.
2. Search for anything... just anything at all.
3. On the result page, switch to the Images tab (second one, after All); now camera silhouette appears next to the magnifying glass icon in the right corner of the search box (step #2, above, is necessary because if you just go to Google and switch to Image search, camera silhouette/icon does not appear for whatever reason).
4. Click on it; a pop-up box appears with options to enter an image by its URL, or by uploading it.
What Chrome does through "Search for an Image" context menu item is just a shortcut for the search by URL. Its algorithm of searching for "similar images" is pretty good; yes, sometimes returns garbage, but sometimes is just uncanny... It's the same thing found in Google Goggles Android app.
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And I didn't need to look it up.
Bravo :-)
"Martine, I'd like to come look at your contact sheets"
Yes, the right-click-> search google images is very useful :-)
I took it from this article, whose text didn't impress me much... but there is a series of 14 photos by Franck of H C-B and vice versa.
http://time.com/3449917/henri-cartier-bresson-and-martine-franck-love-through-a-lens/
-
An interesting take on "Artists' Statements":
http://photographyinterviews.blogspot.com.es/2009/04/saul-leiter-quiet-iconoclast-saul.html
Many could profit from the lessons within this little piece!
Rob
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http://photographyinterviews.blogspot.com.es/2009/04/saul-leiter-quiet-iconoclast-saul.html
Wonderful.
What was the biggest challenge in developing a personal style?
I wasn’t challenged. The style, if there is any, was just the result of working in photography. I wasn’t immersed in challenges.
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Ummm, for me... well, nope. You lost me here Peter:
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Ummm, for me... well, nope. You most me here Peter:
Reminds me of Mr Lindbergh...
;-)
Rob
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I thought he was usually kinder to his models. Maybe that's what Stern wanted...
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So was it Bert Stern, then?
If so, then Stern was working quite a while before Lindy - even I was!
It also shows that the theme is a long-running one - multi-model 'portrait huddle' shots were known to Herb Ritts, Patrick Demarchelier, Lindbergh and, I think, Sante D'Orazio amongst others that come to mind. I think Mark Selger also did that kind of thing. Lovely to have that access!
Rob
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No, it was Lindbergh, this year, for Stern.de :)
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No, it was Lindbergh, this year, for Stern.de :)
Talk about wanderng off on spiritual tangents! I never even thought about the publication.
(¡We are talking abut the publication this time, right?!)
Rob
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Yes, the publication. Although I saw the photo on PL's facebook page...
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Yes, the publication. Although I saw the photo on PL's facebook page...
Happy to declare I have nothing to do with any of those social media things - LuLa is as close as it gets, and that takes up a heap of time...
;-)
Rob
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Can't remember if I linked this one before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dzRa-kZcxA
Rob
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For anyone able to appreciate a bio/interview with, and about Franco Rubartelli, of Veruschka fame, in Spanish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJXKgTUCzlc
Rob
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For anyone not familiar with the lady:
http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Helen-Levitt.html
Rob
P.S. The site links to many remarkable practioners of this - light art...
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Helmut Newton re Sumo
This is to part 2, there seem to be at least 4 parts but this is the only one I've watched so far:
https://youtu.be/BQHrFdjV13c
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Helmut Newton re Sumo
This is to part 2, there seem to be at least 4 parts but this is the only one I've watched so far:
https://youtu.be/BQHrFdjV13c
Dammit Graham; and I was going to do so many urgent things this morning - now postponed!
Thanks for the link - appreciated.
Rob
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Here's the full set. Part 1 has no subtitles, but seems to be a series of vignettes that are expanded on in the later parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6mQ8LEi9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQHrFdjV13c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPSRRk2pUtE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMH5optQjJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mxwEW2GJpk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88W6FX39FQ0
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Here's the full set. Part 1 has no subtitles, but seems to be a series of vignettes that are expanded on in the later parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6mQ8LEi9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQHrFdjV13c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPSRRk2pUtE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMH5optQjJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mxwEW2GJpk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88W6FX39FQ0
Thank you; I tried to source the parts earlier, but at least two had the dreaded closed sign instead of the show! I'll try again using your links.
Ta,
Rob
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And for those seeking longer term distraction: "Frames from the edge", 99mins
Haven't watched much yet, but did enjoy the opening seuence with Nicole Kidman (who I hadn't recognised in the shot in Sumo... June is right, the women in Newton's photos often don't resemble the real-life version... or the public version thereof. Or to quote one of his subjects: "He brings out the inner psychopath," while sounding calm and friendly. Fascinating).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdRWITfYSRM
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And for those seeking longer term distraction: "Frames from the edge", 99mins
Haven't watched much yet, but did enjoy the opening seuence with Nicole Kidman (who I hadn't recognised in the shot in Sumo... June is right, the women in Newton's photos often don't resemble the real-life version... or the public version thereof. Or to quote one of his subjects: "He brings out the inner psychopath,"while sounding calm and friendly. Fascinating).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdRWITfYSRM
But whose psychopath is brought out? His or the sitter's or even, dare I say it, the viewer's? All three? In some ways, if certainly not in photographic technique, he reminds me of the late Guy Bourdin, who also liked to push one's nose deeper into it than one might have desired. Perhaps the secret lies in holding up mirrors to the viewer's soul.
Rob
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Interesting case Bourdin, at least for me. I've read claims that he has been the most influential of all fashion photographers, and I guess it's true, judged by the amount he's been copied. On the other hand, he's been copied so successfully that he seems to be lost in the over-saturated super-glossy forest.
And then... he represents most of the worst of fashion photography for me. At least today. I might change my mind and in any case, even if he weren't thoroughly dead, I don't think he'd care ;)
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Interesting case Bourdin, at least for me. I've read claims that he has been the most influential of all fashion photographers, and I guess it's true, judged by the amount he's been copied. On the other hand, he's been copied so successfully that he seems to be lost in the over-saturated super-glossy forest.
And then... he represents most of the worst of fashion photography for me. At least today. I might change my mind and in any case, even if he weren't thoroughly dead, I don't think he'd care ;)
I could never make my mind up about him. He did some very simple, very colourful pictures that I thought worked extremely well, then turned around and did what looked like semi-porn the very next moment. But I guess that's the mark of brilliance and lack of concern about external opinions.
Rob
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=guy+bourdin+imagenes&qpvt=guy+bourdin+imagenes&qpvt=guy+bourdin+imagenes&qpvt=guy+bourdin+imagenes&FORM=IGRE
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Classics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3rBp-5cXBc
Rob
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A photo by June of Helmut's super-special tripod and lighting set-up ;)
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A photo by June of Helmut's super-special tripod and lighting set-up ;)
Terribly complex set of universal joints in that set of support arrangements! A veritable engineering nightmare, one could say.
On the other hand, of the other things one might say - look where it's getting Trump today. But hey, I love Curves!
;-)
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyhMqDfmG9o
Rob
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A photo by June of Helmut's super-special tripod and lighting set-up ;)
Way too *cool* - is that Profoto or Bron ?
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Ha ha... personal joke for me, I live in a suburb of Lyon called Bron :)
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Still hackin' it in his 80s!
https://models.com/people/harri-peccinotti
Rob
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I'm copying this across from Rob's post in another thread, to allow me to go off on a tangent:
Watching the Richard Avedon documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIZ_S38A_0
There were two fascinating insights for me (and a number of irritating ones, but never mind):
- The aura of a "great photographer" lets you get away with a lot, but less with people who don't buy into the culture of art etc. Avedon made very unflattering portraits. Subjects from New York, the world of art etc, accepted that this was a gift from the Great Artist who allowed them to see their soul. Those from the "In the West" series were less convinced. One of them says, in a nutshell "I was Homecoming Queen, you made me look like shit." He tries to weasel out of it by suggesting that as a photographer he had distorted what he saw, whereas what he saw under the shell of superficial appearance was probably accurate... and that's what made it cruel.
- He became his father. He starts off saying how his father reduced everything to its ability to make money. That is maybe not so different to focusing 110% on his work, never letting up: the image of him directing a shoot from a bed after his heart attack (I'm not sure it's in the film or i saw it out there), his statement at the end about his determination to launch himself again at 100% at the end of his life... that he was never able to back away and do anything else, or at least with a different perspective on personal success.
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I'm copying this across from Rob's post in another thread, to allow me to go off on a tangent:
There were two fascinating insights for me (and a number of irritating ones, but never mind):
- The aura of a "great photographer" lets you get away with a lot, but less with people who don't buy into the culture of art etc. Avedon made very unflattering portraits. Subjects from New York, the world of art etc, accepted that this was a gift from the Great Artist who allowed them to see their soul. Those from the "In the West" series were less convinced. One of them says, in a nutshell "I was Homecoming Queen, you made me look like shit." He tries to weasel out of it by suggesting that as a photographer he had distorted what he saw, whereas what he saw under the shell of superficial appearance was probably accurate... and that's what made it cruel.
- He became his father. He starts off saying how his father reduced everything to its ability to make money. That is maybe not so different to focusing 110% on his work, never letting up: the image of him directing a shoot from a bed after his heart attack (I'm not sure it's in the film or i saw it out there), his statement at the end about his determination to launch himself again at 100% at the end of his life... that he was never able to back away and do anything else, or at least with a different perspective on personal success.
There's the moment where he speaks about the Duke and Duchess, and the trick with the run-over dog; I'm still wondering what to make of that, still trying to work it out. Yes, the war, alleged sympathies with the Nazi ideals of the time, but still... wasn't getting the shot enough, was it necessary to render public the personal motivation above and behind the image?
The other session with the Rollei (of a guy in a room with lot's of people attending), almost two feet from the subject's face, was never going to be kind. But I think this isn't just about being harsh with people. I think he knew better than most shooters about the effect of distance from subject; I tend to think that it's the problem of being seen to be a maestro: you have to deliver the unexpected, the opposite of the simply flattering, the anodyne and/or mundane. So, it maybe comes down to shock value being the only tool left you.
Our very own Cooter quotes (in LuLa) a chance meeting with Avedon in Industria Studios in NY: on the suggestion of moving over and giving the rest a chance at the top, he remarks that if you're good, you never quit. He's right. He also had the advantage that the rest of the commercial world, as well as the arts one, also recognized, magnified his talent, and let him continue.
Long out to pasture, I can't quit either, regardless of how good I was or otherwise; the basic thing is even more simple than the having or not having of success: it's something inside you that becomes your life, however or wherever you manage to channel that reality and drive. Photographers aside, the same applies to painters and perhaps all forms of artist. It runs you, which is why you do it in spite of the cost to everything else.
Rob
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Long out to pasture, I can't quit either, regardless of how good I was or otherwise; the basic thing is even more simple than the having or not having of success: it's something inside you that becomes your life, however or wherever you manage to channel that reality and drive. Photographers aside, the same applies to painters and perhaps all forms of artist. It runs you, which is why you do it in spite of the cost to everything else.
Yes, but that's why I was trying to separate the photography from success.
I'll always be a mathematician/physicist/statistician: it's how I think about things, if I see a piece of machinery I immediately start wondering how it works, how does this compensate that so it stays in control, is that shape really more efficient than some other one, can you really draw that conclusion from that data, what were the hidden hypotheses...
...but that's not the same as the continued need to fight to get published in the right journals and to be admired. Or to force my colleagues to admit that my analyses were correct... at a certain point I just started to say "nah, fuck 'em, if they don't want to know, their problem."
Then again, I see David Cox has just won some new award in statistics. i'm sure he didn't chase after it... he's 91 years old and still working away in an office the size of a broom closet at Nuffeld College Oxford. He happens to be master of the college and I'm sure he has a very grand office somewhere for shaking hands of important people... I feel far more honoured to have been sent up the back stairs to where he actually works. Brilliant ideas just keep falling out of him, and he keeps writing them down and they get published... but not in Nature, or Science. Publishing in them is like being in the big office, it's impressive, but it's not for working with the people who understand what you're really doing and share the struggle.
So I have the feeling Avedon liked the big office :)
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Yes, but that's why I was trying to separate the photography from success.
I'll always be a mathematician/physicist/statistician: it's how I think about things, if I see a piece of machinery I immediately start wondering how it works, how does this compensate that so it stays in control, is that shape really more efficient than some other one, can you really draw that conclusion from that data, what were the hidden hypotheses...
...but that's not the same as the continued need to fight to get published in the right journals and to be admired. Or to force my colleagues to admit that my analyses were correct... at a certain point I just started to say "nah, fuck 'em, if they don't want to know, their problem."
Then again, I see David Cox has just won some new award in statistics. i'm sure he didn't chase after it... he's 91 years old and still working away in an office the size of a broom closet at Nuffeld College Oxford. He happens to be master of the college and I'm sure he has a very grand office somewhere for shaking hands of important people... I feel far more honoured to have been sent up the back stairs to where he actually works. Brilliant ideas just keep falling out of him, and he keeps writing them down and they get published... but not in Nature, or Science. Publishing in them is like being in the big office, it's impressive, but it's not for working with the people who understand what you're really doing and share the struggle.
So I have the feeling Avedon liked the big office :)
No doubt, and he seems to have had the ability to handle it and make it work for him.
I think people are split into broad types, whatever work they do. Some like lots of commotion and company, and in their way of working, maybe it's essential in order to reach the desired conclusion of what they're doing. I always felt the opposite: the fewer folks about, the better. But working almost alone brings limitations as well as serenity, which in pro photography is a level of difference easily reached.
Rob
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http://theredlist.com/wiki-2-16-601-793-view-fashion-1-profile-bourdin.html#photo
Good source material.
Rob
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Some like lots of commotion and company, and in their way of working, maybe it's essential in order to reach the desired conclusion of what they're doing.
This I found interesting... about 3/4 of the way through Cleese talks about what facilitates creativity (whatever that is). It seems that for most people, it requires calm and security: once you are under pressure you feel anxious, so you naturally opt for a solution that reduces your anxiety, ie something you've already done or seen others do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-p44-9S4O0
Of course there do seem to be people who thrive on pressure. Personally I find I can do that for short bursts... I can stock up on interesting ideas, then bring them out under pressure (I have this image of someone putting their foot on a tube of toothpaste :) ). However if there is no let-up, there is no refilling of the tube: currently I'm just getting back to being able to produce good ideas again after a very damaging period of working for a psychopath, and the lag period in which I couldn't do much original work was noticeable (fortunately there is always the option in my job of being useful helping other people with relatively elementary stuff).
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You mustn't give these links anymore: I was going to go out and play with the camera, and instead, I watched. Very depressing: the guy's memory is better than mine. I can't remember anyone's name these days; not that I ever could, but it counts more now - it gets greeted with a knowing smile. As if I couldn't see through that friendliness! However, he manages to make good points using his humour. Didn't the audience members who spoke look young!
;-)
Rob
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Very depressing: the guy's memory is better than mine.
There is an art to that though, he says a couple of things that are wrong with such confidence you're sure he's right :)
Kekulé's dream was about benzene, not carbon... but then buggered if I could have remembered Kekulé's name without looking it up ;D
https://web.chemdoodle.com/kekules-dream/
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I find this chap's site ever nore interesting.
http://leicaphilia.com/tag/robert-frank/
Rob
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Thanks, Rob. Robert Frank introduced a new branch of photography. It's roots were in Cartier-Bresson and street photographers contemporary with Henri, but Frank's work was a new departure.
I remember when The Americans came out, and I remember when Popular Photography got on Frank's case about what they felt was his insult to the United States. I never could understand that. I'm old enough to have experienced a large part of what's in The Americans. The book felt like the America I knew. History has shown that Pop Photo was wrong. Although he never actually admitted it, I think Garry Winogrand was heavily influenced by Frank, and Garry continued in the direction Frank had pointed.
These were the people who made photography an art. Ansel Adams made some great pictures for bank walls and waiting rooms, but Robert Frank, his predecessors and successors captured essences of human behavior that reveal truths about all of us. That's genuine art.
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Thanks, Rob. Robert Frank introduced a new branch of photography. It's roots were in Cartier-Bresson and street photographers contemporary with Henri, but Frank's work was a new departure.
I remember when The Americans came out, and I remember when Popular Photography got on Frank's case about what they felt was his insult to the United States. I never could understand that. I'm old enough to have experienced a large part of what's in The Americans. The book felt like the America I knew. History has shown that Pop Photo was wrong. Although he never actually admitted it, I think Garry Winogrand was heavily influenced by Frank, and Garry continued in the direction Frank had pointed.
These were the people who made photography an art. Ansel Adams made some great pictures for bank walls and waiting rooms, but Robert Frank, his predecessors and successors captured essences of human behavior that reveal truths about all of us. That's genuine art.
I agree, and I would add that part of the reason is that we are drawn to the human condition more than to the natural one (as in Mama Nature's bounty).
It will not be good news to many, but the photography of humans beats that of ARAT for the simple reason that we can identify, deeply, with human images but only go wow! ooh! or my! to the other sorts. As bad (or controversially), ARAT depends mostly on factors well beyond our control but human interaction can be both ways: directed as well as stolen. A little harmless petty crime goes a long way to inspiring excited delight!
I've just spent a while prior to clocking in here looking for the umpteenth time at a collection somebody made of Jean Shrimpton pictures. Those shots tell the history of an era, its fashions and the looks that made hearts pound in dozens of studios across the world. I don't think Moonrise ever did much of that... Folks love folks. One can see the mess Americans made of her: they just didn't get the entire thing. They piled her up with massive false hair extensions etc. etc. and it wan't even good enough to be parody. Twiggy didn't fare much better. (Ironically, the very best portrait of her I've yet seen came from Saul Leiter! Bailey has a sort of similar one too...) Another example of nations divided by common language and magazines.
Incidentally, Popular Photography Annual got Saul Leiter absolutely right when they titled their paean to him A Painter's View of New York all those years ago.
So, why do we consider paintings of ARAT to be art, but very seldom, with exceptions, of course, photography of ARAT? I think because, in the end, photography comes out of facility with a mechanical device, whereas painting needs far much more than good mechanical aids. And in the opposite direction, I don't think painting does the best job of presenting people. Yes, of course, some artists can make highly evocative pictures of humans, and Freud and Bacon can both concentrate the mind wonderfully, but when paint tries to make people look good, it becomes saccharine or obsequious.
Somebody whose name unfortunately now escapes me remarked that he'd trade every painting of Christ for a single photograph.
Rob
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http://www.dominiqueissermann.com/clips--videos
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnEYplvebAE
Rob
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À propos of nothing much: standing here looking again through Sieff's last book up on the prespex table-top lectern from Sumo, Fay Simmons singing from way back, I realise again that wondrous as digital may be, it hasn't got what creaky old, romantic old film has got: soul. Page 62, Maria Solar for Jardin des Modes, Paris, 1959. Dirty, gritty, harsh but beautiful.
Rob C
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http://www.all-about-photo.com/photographer.php?name=sabine-weiss&id=162
The vids at the bottom.
Rob
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À propos of nothing much: standing here looking again through Sieff's last book up on the prespex table-top lectern from Sumo, Fay Simmons singing from way back, I realise again that wondrous as digital may be, it hasn't got what creaky old, romantic old film has got: soul. Page 62, Maria Solar for Jardin des Modes, Paris, 1959. Dirty, gritty, harsh but beautiful.
Rob C
Ah yes, although I'm a little disturbed by the model's apparent lack of eyebrows. Page 88 is the one that knocks my socks off, but it wasn't really professional work...
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Ah yes, although I'm a little disturbed by the model's apparent lack of eyebrows. Page 88 is the one that knocks my socks off, but it wasn't really professional work...
Lille-Mor...
Yes, and that's where film comes into its apparently new beauty: close up detail of a face, but with none of the cruelty of digital which has either to turn it into plastic or landscapes of Mars.
How delightful for him that, in order to forget her, he just went off to NY... I'd like to see how they'd react to my doing the same today! Probably jail me as an illegal immigrant. I remember when I had to go to the States: needed to get a visa from London; unlike all the other lands to which I'd travelled professionally, they wouldn't oblige me with an official stamp on my written request that as a working professional, my film be subject to a hand-search and not risk ruin in an X-Ray machine (I had proof of damage when my stuff was scanned in Mallorca - tan turns to khaki). Before we landed in Miami we had to declare how much money we had available etc. etc.
Whether this came from national ego and/or possibly misplaced self-belief I don't know; all I'd say is that I had no intention of remaining there and it offered nothing by way of visible lifestyle that wasn't available in a far more peaceful Spain! As bad and inconvenient: for a later trip I was told that a visa was not renewable, and that I would have to retain the old, obsolete passport in which the original visa resided! So there you have it: "Passenger arrested in suspicious circumstances carrying two passports!" I can see the strapline as I write. Who said I have no sense of the dramatic?
;-)
Rob
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Tell me about it... I used to fly quite often for work meetings from Australia. Since no one was paying me there, I simply wrote "vacation". Except the time I was travelling with a colleague who decided to feel important and write something about "professional interactions" an then we were spotted together at the baggage carousel. Or the other colleague who was nearly banned because the airline neglected to rip the little green voucher out of his passport to show he'd left the country.
He was told he wouldn't be let back in as he couldn't prove he'd left...
Haven't been for years... not missing it.
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Tell me about it... I used to fly quite often for work meetings from Australia. Since no one was paying me there, I simply wrote "vacation". Except the time I was travelling with a colleague who decided to feel important and write something about "professional interactions" an then we were spotted together at the baggage carousel. Or the other colleague who was nearly banned because the airline neglected to rip the little green voucher out of his passport to show he'd left the country.
He was told he wouldn't be let back in as he couldn't prove he'd left...
Haven't been for years... not missing it.
It's a great shame; all the Americans I have actually met seem to be very pleasant, straightforward people of a natural generosity of spirit. Perhaps the government knows this and, seeing it as a weakness, tries to compensate.
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_0sQI90kYI
Rob
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Another guy from that earlier Golden Age:
http://www.larrydalegordon.com/index.html
Rob
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And now, heartbreak!
http://2bmanagement.com/vogue-italia-walking-with-lindbergh/
Rob
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For Leiter likers: some additional images have been put onto this site since my last visit there.
http://www.gallery51.com/index.php?navigatieid=9&fotograafid=15
Rob
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Another guy from that earlier Golden Age:
http://www.larrydalegordon.com/index.html
Rob
I never knew of Larry Dale Gordon, even though I'm from and worked in California. Thanks for bringing him to my attention.
Brian
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I never knew of Larry Dale Gordon, even though I'm from and worked in California. Thanks for bringing him to my attention.
Brian
No problem, Brian.
Did you know of Peter Gowland, also from California, who was huge in the 50s? There's also Stan Malinowski who may or may not have been from there, but certainly did some very 'modern' stuff for the period. Here's a link to his work:
http://www.modelpix.com/index2.html
He makes some funny comments about Leica etc. when he was trying to find out what Francis Giacobetti was using; crazy days.
Rob
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https://onlinebrowsing.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Carl%20Mydans
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http://www.msn.com/es-es/motor/noticias/el-calendario-pirelli-2017-entre-bambalinas/ss-AAkniIn?ocid=UE07DHP
So, Lindberg got the new Pirelli.
I wonder what the thing will look like this time.
Rob
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Interesting black/white.
And colour, too.
http://www.oliviergarros.com/newsite/?page_id=1764
Rob
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...portraits, couleurs~ Thanks Rob
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...portraits, couleurs~ Thanks Rob
Hi Patricia,
Glad you found something to enjoy. I'm starting to feel that my tastes don't really chime too well with the LuLa readership's and I will probably stop adding stuff to this section. Pointless exercise, pretty much.
Ciao -
Rob
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Hi Patricia,
Glad you found something to enjoy. I'm starting to feel that my tastes don't really chime too well with the LuLa readership's and I will probably stop adding stuff to this section. Pointless exercise, pretty much.
Ciao -
Rob
No,No,No !
Rob, it is precisely your varied interests and difference that make this forum.
And your ability to give perspective - on many experiences - those are invaluable and sorely lacking from those concentrated on making a living day to day.
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No,No,No !
Rob, it is precisely your varied interests and difference that make this forum.
And your ability to give perspective - on many experiences - those are invaluable and sorely lacking from those concentrated on making a living day to day.
You have a PM.
Rob
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I can't help myself: my spirit of generosity towards my fellow beings is overwhelming. ( ;-) )
For anyone interested in Robert Weaver and Saul Leiter:
http://meltonpriorinstitut.org/pages/textarchive.php5?view=print&ID=126&language=English
Some style similarities may interest...
I've also found, at long last, proof of where I first met the work of Leiter; it was indeed in '60 though I'd imagined it to be '59. However, as his work in colour preceded that year by quite a stretch, it does sweep the concept of Eggleston as some sort of pioneeer right off the carpet and into the bin. Helen Levitt was already there, too, in the world of colour street...
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Photography-Annual-1960/dp/B0018OSQVM
Rob
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I haven't been commenting but I have been looking. Been a huge Saul Leiter fan in particular ever since his "rediscovery." Helen Levitt too. To my everlasting regret I had the chance to meet her ~12 years ago, and had to pass due to other commitments. :-[
-Dave-
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmrxJ6e9T1U&feature=youtu.be
Rob
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Fior anybody whom imagined that the 60s of Bailey, Donvan and Duffy started anything:
https://www.google.es/search?q=lillian+bassman&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7_tlU6mdJe2b0wW54IDABQ&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQsAQ&biw=1249&bih=886#tbm=isch&q=frank+horvat&imgrc=qmK7O6YzZN7StM%3A
It was already boiling busily away in the 50s... shades of Klein, and also of the next generation's Sieff.
The Horvat site:
www.horvatland.com
Rob
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That was very interesting. It was suggested that HCB (blessed be his name) was a bit rude to him in the 50's and this opened his eyes to his own full potential which seems to be quite extensive. What a guy.
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That was very interesting. It was suggested that HCB (blessed be his name) was a bit rude to him in the 50's and this opened his eyes to his own full potential which seems to be quite extensive. What a guy.
I read somewhere else that the situation was relatively simple: HC-B wanted Magnum to stay strictly reportage and frowned down on commerce; Horvat wasn't interested in just that, and chased commerce too, which considering Magnum needed money just as much as any other body, seemed a bit odd an attitude on Henri's part, to say the least!
Glad you found the links interesting; it's an amazing world out there in photoland - logic ain't always king!
Rob
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http://www.loustettner.com/photos/earlynewyork/index.htm
There sure was such a thing as New York style of photographer!
Rob C
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"“Photographers are becoming a button….It’s disastrous,” he said. “Digital for me stays exactly like film was before. The quality of the image is different, but this you can go anywhere you want with Photoshop. We do Photoshop only to make pictures not look like digital because it’s cold and awful and technical. But the biggest change is that you’re not intimate anymore with the model. That’s what is going to destroy photography and that’s what’s going to destroy photographers because they’re not going to want to be photographers anymore in 10 years, I’m sure. It has become a democratic process and that’s going nowhere, everybody talks into the picture, that’s awful. That’s the most embarrassing thing.”
From Peter Lindbergh's website. Who can argue?
Rob
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One never stops learning!
Having sung the praises of Leiter and Levitt, I realise that I didn't know that back in '53 Life published a 24-page issue in colour on New York City(!) by Ernst Haas. And there I was, well aware of Haas, but not of his equal rôle as one of the pioneers of colour street, which much of the stuff apparently was. Yes, he was certainly one of the first greats that I became aware of and admire to this day, yet I hadn't placed him in the same category as the others in that genre of picture; I'd thought of him more as into reportage and features such as movie-making coverage and epic books.
True, he had become 'tainted' in professional art-world eyes because of his great success in the commercial world, which only goes to show how blinkered the world of art could really be (maybe it enjoys fostering the starving artist romanticism; keeps their percentage high, and the artist's cut low, and the person to heel?), but I don't remember seeing him listed anywhere as a great 50's street photographer, which his images show him to be, even if he was obviously not limited to that field. But then, neither was Leiter, being a fashion snapper for twenty or so years, with top magazines. These great guys were apparently far from one-dimensional.
http://gmpphoto.blogspot.com.es/2014/08/leica-photographer-extraordinaire-ernst.html
https://www.google.es/search?q=ernst+haas&biw=1249&bih=886&tbm=isch&imgil=oykfWd1TlZH1sM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcThDQfMV2MqxSiZ4TfOZNXvDodioRmaVnCxxOUgMfQD5eb43uXTVQ%253B640%253B420%253BF7DccNyNMvgktM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.ernst-haas.com%25252F&source=iu&usg=__DeLrCs2RGYYAYFuedbhv6fcU6D4%3D&sa=X&ei=LriFU9_QGYSK0AWUOw&sqi=2&ved=0CKMBEP4dMA4#facrc=_&imgrc=k-y4-A9pTnBrDM%3A
http://shooterfiles.com/2016/10/master-profiles-ernst-haas/
(On the one above, check the video by scrolling down a little bit.)
Rob
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"But the biggest change is that you’re not intimate anymore with the model."
So a couple of weeks back I went to Amsterdam on a Sunday night for two days of meetings: my original thought was to go a day early to see Lindbergh's exhibition in Rotterdam. Part of the reason I didn't was because I was a bit jaded by reading Lindbergh about how Lindbergh is different and doesn't hide his models under heavy make-up and post-processing... which seemed less and less true as he looked at his work. But he has to survive in the industry, so let me not cast a stone at his greenhouse.
What gets me though is the implicit suggestion that the heavy industry approach to photography is somehow inter-related with digital: I'm not sure it is. I think it's part of the general trend towards paying ever fewer people ever more, while letting everyone else starve. That's great for those at the top of the pole of course, and it probably encourages them to make their shoots more expensive: it's easier to take 10% from a $500k shoot than 50% from a $100k shoot (numbers for illustrative purposes and quite possibly pure fantasy). In fact he could probably market himself as a film traditionalist if he wanted: it wouldn't add so much to the budget having assistants running about re-loading cameras and he could pop a film developing line into the back of one of those semi-trailers. With enough money for bracketing etc, he'd be no more at risk of technical failures than with digital, hence complying with the industrial ethos of error-free production.
I suspect that digital and the concentration of budgets arrived at about the same time by coincidence...
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Further thoughts: Lindbergh's site quotes the curator of his exhibition in Moscow (I'll scratch yours if...):
"Lindbergh’s work is far from trivial advertising : he presents not objects but images, not products but the atmosphere, state of mind, and emotions."
This is of course is exactly the heart of advertising: selling the lie that if you buy the product, you get something else.
Once upon it was done with a certain amount of naivete, and a lot of class, and it was more of an invitation to participate in a pleasant daydream. Or maybe that's me being nostalgic, but in any case it has become such an efficient machine for selling an increasingly impoverished middle class shit they don't need to pump money to the top 0.1% of the population, that it feels rather dirty. Very dirty when it's about furs ripped from live animals.
Or terrifyingly filthy, as it starts to make its way in politics and facts no longer have any weight over fantasy. There are people setting fire to the the Reichstag and we're worrying about whether black is the new black and if my current pocket computer has sufficiently round corners...
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Graham, you misunderstand: I'm the one allowed mild dyspepsia! ;-)
Lindbergh is indeed a top-bracket name, and I'm sure he could and probably does shoot film when it suits him, but as you say, he too is in the industry, and nobody seems to be that high up the pole they can disregard reality when it's called Client. I suppose some jobs have to be done via monitor surveillance (which is basically what it comes to) but there are also videos where he works untethered, though who knows if there's actually a wireless link to some computer regardless of what's visible. For a while, I even doubted if some of the videos were real or just mugging for the cameras, as he used long lenses hand-held, but I was forgetting IS which I have never had, and recently I did some hand-held shots with my 180mm on a cut-frame, making it equivalent to 270mm... working with auto ISO and set to anything between a 500th and 2000th of a sec, wide open, and to my happy surprise there was no reason to worry, and that's without IS, as I say. With film, I never used even my 135mm off a tripod. So who knows...
Advertising: of course, it's all about selling dreams! Have a look at yacht brochures! That's all of commercial photography: dream-peddling. And there the huge difference between editorial and advertising fashion photography: editorial blatantly sells dreams, and advertising not so much; it has to show how something actually looks, especially nowadays in Internet selling, where somebody has to foot the transport and restocking bill if something gets sent back because it isn't what someone thought it said on the box!
I used to do a regular half-page newspaper advertising gig for one or two of the House of Fraser stores; it was during the peak of the boutique craze, and up in Glasgow we sometimes got the stuff that Harrods hadn't sold - same owner at the time, before the Egyptian became the way to walk - and my brief wasn't necessarily to sell the items we photographed, but to illustrate the idea of excitement just to get young women into the store, where they could then see a broad range of stuff in the boutique, and probably - hopefully - move further through the store and even patronise the restaurants... it was about holding the arms wide open to the world that was young and alive, perhaps nervous about large upper-level stores, and trying to make them friends for life. The "ladies who lunch" already had their place within the system, and populated an entirely different world within the same stores. With matching prices, I may add, which was great, because I could look at the price of a blouse or a hat, and feel absolutely not nervous at charging as I did, and in guineas! Spendid idea, the guinea. Neat little earner in time.
But the impoverished are always amongst us, and they are never going to be customers of the glittering bazaar. But neither must they be allowed to close the funhouse doors for everyone else. If that happens, then those same folks ain't gonna get no benefits nowhere: killing the goose wot lays dem golden nuggets has never solved a thing.
As I say, I don't personally know how photography fares regarding money these days; I read that photographers are usually obliged to do video too, and all of the stuff at prices lower than they were a few years ago. I'd find it difficult to imagine that the top guns don't feel the wind of change too; even the magazines are selling less and less space, have to set up and go online... maybe the electronic dream is actually turning out to be a nightmare. Ask Yahoo.
;-)
Rob
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Prompted by a mention at The Online Photographer (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/12/four-photobooks.html) I've just bought a copy of Michael Kenna's new expanded version of Rouge, containing photos taken at the famous Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant. Which is located in my "backyard" and which I've toured multiple times. If you'd last seen it in operation in the 1960s, or even in the early/mid '90s when Kenna was photographing it, making a return visit today might leave you wondering if you were in the same place even though it looks much the same on the outside.
The folks railing against the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries are trying to restart a battle that's already over. The winner wasn't any country but rather the ongoing process of automation (and the businesses employing it). Those jobs in China or Mexico or wherever not only won't come back to the US, they'll soon disappear completely. I think other folks, the ones heading for the Reichstag, realize this and have chosen a kind of manic nihilism as their response. Even the investor class is indulging in a bit of mania: take a look at current US stock market activity.
Ironic, don't you think, that the gizmos we've created to make our lives easier and better now have the potential to obsolete most of us? Obsolete us, that is, in as much as we define ourselves in terms of our work. Assuming we don't burn everything to the ground, when only artisans and creatives have genuine jobs what will everyone else do? How long will even those jobs last? I wish I could live long enough to see how this all plays out over the coming centuries.
-Dave-
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Prompted by a mention at The Online Photographer (http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/12/four-photobooks.html) I've just bought a copy of Michael Kenna's new expanded version of Rouge, containing photos taken at the famous Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant. Which is located in my "backyard" and which I've toured multiple times. If you'd last seen it in operation in the 1960s, or even in the early/mid '90s when Kenna was photographing it, making a return visit today might leave you wondering if you were in the same place even though it looks much the same on the outside.
The folks railing against the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries are trying to restart a battle that's already over. The winner wasn't any country but rather the ongoing process of automation (and the businesses employing it). Those jobs in China or Mexico or wherever not only won't come back to the US, they'll soon disappear completely. I think other folks, the ones heading for the Reichstag, realize this and have chosen a kind of manic nihilism as their response. Even the investor class is indulging in a bit of mania: take a look at current US stock market activity.
Ironic, don't you think, that the gizmos we've created to make our lives easier and better now have the potential to obsolete most of us? Obsolete us, that is, in as much as we define ourselves in terms of our work. Assuming we don't burn everything to the ground, when only artisans and creatives have genuine jobs what will everyone else do? How long will even those jobs last? I wish I could live long enough to see how this all plays out over the coming centuries.
-Dave-
It's a sobering thought, and I think you are absolutely on the money. Those shipbuiilding jobs lost on the Tyne and Clyde went mainly to Japan and then Korea and maybe a few cheaper-labour parts of Europe, too. But, as with everything, as you pointed out, as soon as a low-cost economy changes gear upwards, the next lower one takes over. Until the point is reached where nobody can afford to buy anything anymore because they are all unemployed, and the ball stops rolling.
The only solution I can see is one by consent, but one most unlikely to be achieved because it requires everybody to stand still, accept their reorganized relative place in world society, and start anew with the producing of things in specific areas of this world...
The current industrial nations could consolidate and do all world manufacturing; the Mediterranean and Caribbean could become the holiday areas, South America could become the meat production area, the forests protected by international agreement and the death penalty for anyone as much as owning a forest razor without a permit. A total ban on Polar exploration and travel; private cars fuelled by gasoline/diesel banned, and a public transport sytem that works made compulsory in every country. The mountainous areas could all be zoned to produce hydro electricity to an international grid, all skiing Mary Poppinses relegated to the children's books... It could work, if the alternative disaster is accepted as inevitable. Of course, it won't be.
There's the occasional discussion about everybody getting a basic 'wage' even if they are unemployed, and used in place of myriad social handouts; it might work - perhaps. The huge elephant is making the folks doing the newly de-robotised factory work feel comfortable with the concept of their 'holiday' industry co-workers getting similar wages for their kind of labour.
Artists? No, there I think I disagree: I think they will become irrelevant in a brave new philistinian (?) Utopìa.
Rob
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So a couple of weeks back I went to Amsterdam on a Sunday night for two days of meetings: my original thought was to go a day early to see Lindbergh's exhibition in Rotterdam. Part of the reason I didn't was because I was a bit jaded by reading Lindbergh about how Lindbergh is different and doesn't hide his models under heavy make-up and post-processing... which seemed less and less true as he looked at his work. But he has to survive in the industry, so let me not cast a stone at his greenhouse.
What gets me though is the implicit suggestion that the heavy industry approach to photography is somehow inter-related with digital: I'm not sure it is. I think it's part of the general trend towards paying ever fewer people ever more, while letting everyone else starve. That's great for those at the top of the pole of course, and it probably encourages them to make their shoots more expensive: it's easier to take 10% from a $500k shoot than 50% from a $100k shoot (numbers for illustrative purposes and quite possibly pure fantasy). In fact he could probably market himself as a film traditionalist if he wanted: it wouldn't add so much to the budget having assistants running about re-loading cameras and he could pop a film developing line into the back of one of those semi-trailers. With enough money for bracketing etc, he'd be no more at risk of technical failures than with digital, hence complying with the industrial ethos of error-free production.
I suspect that digital and the concentration of budgets arrived at about the same time by coincidence...
Never mind big numbers for doing a shoot: I'd willingly pay one month's pension for the chance to shoot this lady for an hour or two. I have no idea who would pay her to let me do it. ;-(
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=peter+lindbergh+on+italian+vogue+for+vimeo&&view=detail&mid=E3579BCAE39679F9C5FFE3579BCAE39679F9C5FF&FORM=VRDGAR
Rob
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There's the occasional discussion about everybody getting a basic 'wage' even if they are unemployed, and used in place of myriad social handouts; it might work - perhaps. The huge elephant is making the folks doing the newly de-robotised factory work feel comfortable with the concept of their 'holiday' industry co-workers getting similar wages for their kind of labour.
Artists? No, there I think I disagree: I think they will become irrelevant in a brave new philistinian (?) Utopìa.
Well, I did say artisans. Skilled craftspeople who may be but aren't necessarily artists. (I was thinking in particular of luthiers, some of whom IMO are indeed artists.) But I'm quibbling: creatives certainly includes artists.
When I was in Hawai'i last month I thought some about Ballard's novel Cocaine Nights and its utopian/dystopian "billion balconies facing the sun" populated by people mostly bored out of their skulls, in a world where they're mostly irrelevant, and thus prone to ever more extreme thrill seeking. Having, for a time, a balcony of your own facing the sun puts you in a certain frame of mind. But I think Ballard's scenario is no more than a fantasy. As much as some folks might desire that we all conform to this or that notion of an ideal static existence, humans are far too drawn to novelty to tolerate this for any length of time. Living in harmony, whether by choice or by force, isn't our thing. Sometimes destructive, sometimes creative instability: that's our jam.
-Dave-
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A nice Xmas pressy for somebody:
http://theartofphotography.tv/episodes/dave-heath/
Rob
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https://www.google.es/search?q=Sarah+Moon&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:CanfZBDEvvamIjjS8_19riOpqG6xpCXx8zPT0LraEPuvqVZHWjaciaYqKt_1m9L-joLLQshHu3Bam4Fu3V18sIdFXncioSCdLz_12uI6mobEdg39K5sz-goKhIJrGkJfHzM9PQRWYqDQwyzEzMqEgkutoQ-6-pVkRE9YMYFl5hfFSoSCdaNpyJpioq3EeRkoHWUi3ZpKhIJ-b0v6OgstCwRS5XOCyReufMqEgmEe7cFqbgW7RGeIZe7-b1ftSoSCdXXywh0VedyEUvshG7YTNo5&tbo=u&gws_rd=ssl#gws_rd=ssl&imgrc=qd9kEMS-9qb-1M%3A
I think, on consideration, that the first image in this series, the three faces, must represent the single picture which, of thousands I have seen and made, must stand as the one I would most have loved to have been able to claim as mine. I have never seen anything in fashion get near to this. It distils and says everything there is to say about grace, serenity and beauty.
What a woman.
Rob C
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Never mind big numbers for doing a shoot: I'd willingly pay one month's pension for the chance to shoot this lady for an hour or two.
Lindbergh's book is in my local Art Books for 60€, so you can keep most of the pension and get the images, if not the flesh :) But then that's a bit like a photo of a Ferrari, si ?
I wonder if part of the issue is the model being strong enough to resist pressure of mediocre photographers/art directors/editors to conform?
Lately I've seen a couple of women I photographed start calling themselves artists, wearing more make-up and ceasing to be people I'd want to photograph. One is now involved romantically with a photog and appears in his photos wearing incredibly thick theatrical make-up. The other is doing etherial fairies in the forest stuff: both want to play roles instead of being themselves... I guess it feels more creative.
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Oh, best of another bunch. There is a big exhibition of Matisse here in Lyon, from his early art-school drawings to the end. I was fascinated to see that unlike Picasso who could draw like God and then simplified... Matisse was actually never great at drawing. He finally seemed to master a minimalist representation of a human face when he was 67 and he started working with a rather angular Russian model... but he still couldn't master the female breast.
Here he is in a self-portrait with Lydia in 1936
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Oh, best of another bunch. There is a big exhibition of Matisse here in Lyon, from his early art-school drawings to the end. I was fascinated to see that unlike Picasso who could draw like God and then simplified... Matisse was actually never great at drawing. He finally seemed to master a minimalist representation of a human face when he was 67 and he started working with a rather angular Russian model... but he still couldn't master the female breast.
Here he is in a self-portrait with Lydia in 1936
Amazing! She gained a nipple by crossing through Alice's looking glass. (Did Matisse do Beta-testing for Adobe?) In my numerous, and usually unavoidable selfies in shop windows, at most I gain a stronger sense of disillusion. Maybe I need to know a chick called Alice. Inspecting the window selfies will explain the unlikeliness of this event in any helpful way... the right Alice wouldn't get out of her Porsche. (Even Saul often depended on having Soames or perhaps Barbara accompany him in windows and walks...) It would be a cool theme for an experienced writer to pursue: life as lived by your reflection, and your love-life in reflection.
In his (Matisse's not Saul's) defence, if his Lydia was angular, then maybe the coconuts were an expression of kindness?
As anyone who sees my recent work knows, I always look at the brighter side of life first. Okay, I usually ditch it later on when face to face with reality, but that's the difference between pro and am: the pro lives the deception, he has to so do. It's the secret of why those old pros, those who still can, continue to work in the hope of dying in the saddle. That way, they can win by dying, not with the most toys, but with the best dream! Was Avedon's better than Norman Parkinson's; did Hemut laugh all the way to the top of the heap?
One day, I hope to ask them.
"Lindbergh's book is in my local Art Books for 60€, so you can keep most of the pension and get the images, if not the flesh :) But then that's a bit like a photo of a Ferrari, si ?"
Si, but which Lindbergh book - there have been so many of 'em? How can I still admire this guy when I'm also mad with envy? Not of him, really, but of the possibilities in his work. I guess I just can't help giving him credit when its more than worth the giving. He does so much that still looks real and beautiful, warts and all. I don't think he does many selfies.
;-)
Rob C
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Just realised: the "negative space" is the model...
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Just realised: the "negative space" is the model...
Don't fret: I just realised she's an Amazon warrior; nothing to do with Russia.
I must be getting old quicker than I'd realised. Or it's the meds.
;-)
Rob
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Pretty cool video
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http://www.horvatland.com/WEB/en/THE80s/PP/ENTRE%20VUES/Sieff/entrevues.htm
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=jeanloup+sieff+imagenes&view=detailv2&qpvt=jeanloup+sieff+imagenes&id=3662B4483E5319C8D3AB2C2BF9A685E1AC9BBE3B&selectedindex=42&ccid=lstL7vyu&simid=608039792728474790&thid=OIP.M96cb4beefcae2d5804108cfa0ddfaa74o0&mode=overlay&first=1
Enjoy; nothing much that matters in the photographer's head has changed since that interview happened.
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Adore the portrait of Lartigue (among others).
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Martine Franck, Métro Tuileries 1977
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Can't remember if I posted this before:
http://www.martynmoore.com/donovan.html
Rob
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Think you did, but that's ok :-)
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Martine Franck, Métro Tuileries 1977
Was she being surreal too? The cat wot eat the head?
Rob
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Anybody else remember Christa? AFAIK she hailed from Germany. This was for Nova.
http://www.barefoot-vintage.co.uk/blog/category/christa-peters/
There's one shot that's so Saul Leiter - the one through the 'phone booth (?) window. He's got one of the Shrimp which I think is the best shot of that beautiful girl ever made, Bailey notwithstanding.
Rob C
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mItrjVj1SGA
For anyone who thought it couldn't be done well before digital came along.
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https://www.google.es/search?q=deborah+turbeville+imagenes&biw=1257&bih=889&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=n5w-VfqqAuOp7AbU6oGwBQ&ved=0CCAQsAQ#imgrc=h0BrlpRva-ESWM:
http://www.theaesthete.com/art/deborah-turbeville
https://vimeo.com/tag:deborah+turbeville
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Thanks!
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Thanks, Rob. More interesting links.
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My pleasure, guys.
Rob
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I've added some short films to the Deborah T. links above.
Here they are again:
https://vimeo.com/tag:deborah+turbeville
Rob
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Another talented lady of the era:
http://www.sheilametznerphotography.com/
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sheila+metzner+imagenes&qpvt=sheila+metzner+imagenes&qpvt=sheila+metzner+imagenes&qpvt=sheila+metzner+imagenes&FORM=IGRE
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCxI_eSb0jE
How good some of the printing looks. Film was good. Repeat a dozen times:
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Erwitt's images are a joy to view, and his narration is great, brief and precise. Thanks for that link, Rob.
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Glad you enjoyed the flick!
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yELmPbQNx9M
Some may enjoy - I hope.
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Only in recent years have I become more open-minded towards such art. That also has to do with the understanding gleaned from guided tours of an art historian whom I thank greatly for her patience and knowledge. Today I try to visit as many exhibitions and museums as possible.
Not far from here, there's a former NATO missle site (http://www.langenfoundation.de/en/architecture/raketenstation/) which today exhibits artwork in the most impressive surroundings. I'm also planning to visit the nearby exhibition of work from Peter Lindbergh and Garry Winogrand this month. In three years I'll retire and hopefully have more time for such exploration.
Thanks for that link, Rob. Another enjoyable film.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yELmPbQNx9M
Some may enjoy - I hope.
I have just been to an exhibition of his work at Tate Modern. It was ten quid well spent. I didn't expect to get much from it but was I wrong. It was truly inspiring and he seems to have been quite a guy and collaborated a lot which seems to suggest he wasn't all ego.
I was blown away by what he could do with some cardboard boxes, in particular the three blue ones and how much attention he paid to the backgrounds of the 3D works which had bits attached to them and coils of rope or wire snaking out of the frame.
He never seemed to fall into 'just churning it out'. I was strangely struck by his photos of the man walking down some steps. So simple but very clever and it worked. It's one of those 'any mutt could do that' shots - well yes maybe but that mutt did do it and he did it right.
Worth a visit if you're in London (and I got in cheap due to the deal every last Friday of the month).
Mike
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https://www.google.es/search?q=ernst+haas&biw=1249&bih=886&tbm=isch&imgil=oykfWd1TlZH1sM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcThDQfMV2MqxSiZ4TfOZNXvDodioRmaVnCxxOUgMfQD5eb43uXTVQ%253B640%253B420%253BF7DccNyNMvgktM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.ernst-haas.com%25252F&source=iu&usg=__DeLrCs2RGYYAYFuedbhv6fcU6D4%3D&sa=X&ei=LriFU9_QGYSK0AWUOw&sqi=2&ved=0CKMBEP4dMA4#tbm=isch&q=ernst+haas+color+correction&*&imgrc=lbMkgT2Wz9VCcM:
Color Correction is his lates book from Steidle... he's a very missed photographer.
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Rob, there are so many wonderful books I'd like to buy, read, thumb through. Over the Christmas holidays I began painting my living room. The greatest chore was to empty the book shelves, pull forward the shelving and then return everything to its former spot. I got sidetracked, thumbing through my art books and at the end of the holidays, I still wasn't finished. All those books! I plan to move to the Baltic coast of Poland when I retire in some 38 months. I already dread transporting all those books! But how can one toss out books?!!
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Rob, there are so many wonderful books I'd like to buy, read, thumb through. Over the Christmas holidays I began painting my living room. The greatest chore was to empty the book shelves, pull forward the shelving and then return everything to its former spot. I got sidetracked, thumbing through my art books and at the end of the holidays, I still wasn't finished. All those books! I plan to move to the Baltic coast of Poland when I retire in some 38 months. I already dread transporting all those books! But how can one toss out books?!!
Don't speak about it!
Today I decided to start to do some early spring cleaning, not because it may soon be that time of year, but because as often happens, I think about the task facing me if this apartment finds a buyer. I want to leave with the least possible baggage! The stuff you find: I discovered a couple of wedding pictures and had the shock of my life seeing how young we both looked: kids! That was depressing enough, and then I found some shots I'd made during a recce in France, with my wife standing in as model for some locations, just to show the client what the place looked like. I'd forgotten all about those pics... lumps in the throat, then. I discovered a tiny book about Van Gogh - in Italian - so my mother must have bought it on a trip long, long ago.
If anybody wants some double, unused scart plug cables... I have loads of Hi-Fi stuff that duplicated stuff the system already had; I also discovered two small loop aerials. I found a couple of rolls of Ektachrome with flash exposure tests, my poor put-upon daughter standing there holding aparture numbers. I really thought all of that material had been dumped before we came out here! I also found myself surprised seeing just how small 6x6 Hassy frames look, and how tiny the little indents!
I have a bag full of books for the charity shop; one I have to keep because my wife had written her name inside it. Reminds me of those days when the neoghbours were all great folks, and we used to swap books all the time...
There's not a lot of pleasure sifting through one's life and wondering where to cut emotional connections and where to keep things.
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This guy I first encountered on the Pages of Playboy during the 60s/70s. Great painter - interesting "About". I didn't know he was the creator of the little Femlin.
http://www.leroyneiman.com/shop/
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Has he been mentioned yet?
https://www.google.com/search?q=paul+huf
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Personal friend and photographer/Videographer for U2, Depeche Mode, etc..., also director of "The American", a wonderfully thrilling and evocative movie.
https://www.google.com/search?q=anton+corbijn
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One of the most beautiful of them all - even in later years.
I saw her on a Fashion TV (from Toronto) show with Jeanne Beker; she was holding up a bag and I remember her saying: "this is a new bag" and then, pointing to herself: "this is an old bag!" Now that's confidence!
https://www.google.es/search?q=paulina+porizkova+photos&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=19WMU_P9L82iqAbvloHoAg&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1249&bih=886#facrc=_&imgrc=Kmovxrz82t1ijM:
Here she is, working for the boyfriend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZA6qiJVfU
Rob
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https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/robert-franks-america.html?_r=1
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https://www.google.es/search?q=bill+king+photography&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=G3uHU7X2A4qzyASv5oD4Dw&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1249&bih=886#imgrc=Fc9GSkuk7gr3KM:
Bill King: possibly the best studio action photographer there was. Remember his work well...
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Scroll down a tad, and there's some video to click on this link:
http://www.enquire.it/2016/08/01/a-portrait-of-peggy-guggenheim/
Rob
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZcX99s4xjo
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Thanks for those link Rob! Great viewing.
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Some good advice etc. from Albert Watson, in
two four parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og7WSqOwKaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xNkwEPDg4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9EJ7RTYWXQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK16Gak4ISY
Rob
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One of the most beautiful of them all - even in later years.
I saw her on a Fashion TV (from Toronto) show with Jeanne Beker; she was holding up a bag and I remember her saying: "this is a new bag" and then, pointing to herself: "this is an old bag!" Now that's confidence!
https://www.google.es/search?q=paulina+porizkova+photos&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=19WMU_P9L82iqAbvloHoAg&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1249&bih=886#facrc=_&imgrc=Kmovxrz82t1ijM:
Here she is, working for the boyfriend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZA6qiJVfU
Rob
Thank you for the link Rob, indeed one of the most beautiful.
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Thank you for the link Rob, indeed one of the most beautiful.
Hi Riaan!
Thought you'd gone off on long-term safari! Or at the very least, invested in a diamond mine.
I've often wondered at the strangeness of gold and diamonds etc. as measures of value. I understand their worth in terms of resistance to all manner of corrosion and damage and so on, how difficult it is to collect them, and how useful at the sharp part of a drill and inside a cellphone, but at the end of it all, they remain just rocks and metal. A ring would look just the same with a few bits of polished glass... If it takes a lot of expertise to tell the difference, don't tell me that her nibs can tell all by her untrained self! The worth must be measured by the bucks Big Daddy has spent buying it for her. Which poses the thought: if the man of the moment is a jeweller, can she trust him to have given her value or just something he couldn't sell and had lying about at the back of the store? How could she tell?
Which amazing thought forwards another two: does a lady who has achieved the big bucks the hard way, all by her own efforts and skills, also buy herself little rocks and metal rings? Or does she have different values? That's a bonus for today: immediate post-breakfast philosophical discussion! I feel quite exhausted by all of this; better pour another cup of cha. It's something some snappers do...
;-)
Rob
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Some good advice etc. from Albert Watson, in two parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xNkwEPDg4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9EJ7RTYWXQ
Rob
Actually 4 parts, there is a 1A and a 3 :)
Funny, after all that insistence on not getting obsessed with the gear, I saw there is another vid where he is endorsing a Phase 1 of some type. He seems like a man who knows how to get the bills paid :-)
(Funny in a way, he started off choosing between mathematics and art school. Art school was also my plan B if I didn't get into the mathematics PhD program I wanted... I went the other way).
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Actually 4 parts, there is a 1A and a 3 :)
Funny, after all that insistence on not getting obsessed with the gear, I saw there is another vid where he is endorsing a Phase 1 of some type. He seems like a man who knows how to get the bills paid :-)
(Funny in a way, he started off choosing between mathematics and art school. Art school was also my plan B if I didn't get into the mathematics PhD program I wanted... I went the other way).
Yes, I've corrected the post now.
He really comes alive when he tries to point out the difference betwen a job and being a photographer.
What he doesn't have to point out, though, by virtue of his success if nothing else, is that all photography is not equal any more than are all photographers equal. That first part, about the type, used to drive some members of my family crazy: they couldn't understand why I wouldn't do weddings but would do fashion stuff even for clients who couldn't pay much for it. This came to mind, in a way, at lunch today: the owner is French and a great chef, but as with everywhere here, struggling with the economic change and especially its effect on the Brits, both resident and tourists, of whom there are precious few to be seen right now, at least before Easter. The point that brings him into the photographic genre thing is this: as I eat, I was thinking whether I should or should not risk paying him a sort of backhanded compliment by telling him he shared my problem, which is that he is not capable of cutting his cloth to suit the clients. In other words, he's mentally incapable of cutting his high standards to stay within the price he has to charge, which means it's going to get tougher as everything rises in price - especially vegetables right now - which was exactly where I found myself at one stage during my fashion career: I couldn't bring myself to cutting corners because the client wasn't able to pay what others could. The only compromise was to stay studio-bound and not do exteriors. But whatever I did had to be done to the best of my ability to do it. Just like his cooking.
In the end, I eat and didn't try to broach the subject: I might not have been able to phrase it properly enough, quickly enough in French or Spanish and he could easily have flown into a rage and banned me! I don't need that!
Rob
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Hi Riaan!
Thought you'd gone off on long-term safari! Or at the very least, invested in a diamond mine.
Rob
I wish Rob. For the safari that is and not a diamond mine, well not in my country anyway.
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Maybe this belongs here for aggregation purposes...
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=117163.0
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Just in case any of us in this little group of snappers thinks we are the best in the world, here's a little collection of people I've never heard of, but who have made some damned nice images. Worth runnig the video just for the show that comes along:
http://theartofphotography.tv/episodes/photo-assignments-red/
Rob
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Wow. Special award for whoever thought of shooting a strawberry in B&W :)
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Wow. Special award for whoever thought of shooting a strawberry in B&W :)
Yeah, that tickled my imagination too! There were also some great 'Leiters' in the bunch.
Rob
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Personal friend and photographer/Videographer for U2, Depeche Mode, etc..., also director of "The American", a wonderfully thrilling and evocative movie.
https://www.google.com/search?q=anton+corbijn
Yes, good film!
-Dave-
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Which amazing thought forwards another two: does a lady who has achieved the big bucks the hard way, all by her own efforts and skills, also buy herself little rocks and metal rings? Or does she have different values? That's a bonus for today: immediate post-breakfast philosophical discussion!
In my experience the lady buys a guitar shop, hires a skilled luthier (also a lady) to do setup & repair work and runs the shop as a labor of love (not to mention source of primo coffee for in-the-know customers). The lady is also a film-era Leica afficianado, BTW. :) But this is a bit of an outlier tale in the world of wealth, which more broadly tends to correlate with corroding self-indulgence if not psychosis. Though in such cases at least the gold & diamond baubles survive!
Also, diamonds aren't particularly rare. Not in the ground and certainly not in the cosmos. Some dead star remnants are mostly made of carbon and are presumed to have diamond cores. The Cullinan is, by comparison with one of these, less than a pebble. That we still value diamonds as we do comes down to a combination of legacy behavior from a less informed age and a highly controlled diamond industry.
-Dave-
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Personal friend and photographer/Videographer for U2, Depeche Mode, etc..., also director of "The American", a wonderfully thrilling and evocative movie.
https://www.google.com/search?q=anton+corbijn
Tried to open this, Oscar, but all it does for me is bring me to a general list of entries for the photographer, not a video. May be a copyright trick with a mind to Brexit... now I really am starting to sweat: what if I do manage to sell my place after all, but it goes beyond the two-year 'transition' period? Will free movement of capital also be fucked? Exciting times!
More than ever it makes me think of the unimaginative, no-hope mindset that must have been behind many voters, folks with no inkling of the advantages to them of being able to pick up the tent and go anywhere without asking anyone's permission first, but only of the opposite scenario where somebody could come over to the UK. Amazing to think that Scotland was able to get it right where England could not; but hey, there are many top Scottish brains making English companies work... I count my granddaughter amongst them!
But wait: what if Sctland goes solo, will th girl also get hoofed out of England?
Did you ever imagine you'd see the day when things in Europe could go so stupidly wrong again?
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In my experience the lady buys a guitar shop, hires a skilled luthier (also a lady) to do setup & repair work and runs the shop as a labor of love (not to mention source of primo coffee for in-the-know customers). The lady is also a film-era Leica afficianado, BTW. :) But this is a bit of an outlier tale in the world of wealth, which more broadly tends to correlate with corroding self-indulgence if not psychosis. Though in such cases at least the gold & diamond baubles survive!
Also, diamonds aren't particularly rare. Not in the ground and certainly not in the cosmos. Some dead star remnants are mostly made of carbon and are presumed to have diamond cores. The Cullinan is, by comparison with one of these, less than a pebble. That we still value diamonds as we do comes down to a combination of legacy behavior from a less informed age and a highly controlled diamond industry.
-Dave-
Well, Dave, thank you for teaching me a new word! At first I imagined you were making a strung-out, oblique reference to a religious type of skilled lady...
Rob
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does a lady who has achieved the big bucks the hard way, all by her own efforts and skills, also buy herself little rocks and metal rings?
A young lady of my acquaintance is finally earning some bucks, and has celebrated by buying a hairless cat. She (the cat) seems very sweet, but looks like a plucked chicken next to a regular fur-wearing feline. No accounting for taste.
As for jewellery, it has been my observation, possibly not generalisable beyond my circles, that expensive watches for men are not bought by the men who wear them, but by their lovers (who may also be men, in at least one observation). So the wearing of jewellery may be more about flaunting the gift than the buying...
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A young lady of my acquaintance is finally earning some bucks, and has celebrated by buying a hairless cat. She (the cat) seems very sweet, but looks like a plucked chicken next to a regular fur-wearing feline. No accounting for taste.
As for jewellery, it has been my observation, possibly not generalisable beyond my circles, that expensive watches for men are not bought by the men who wear them, but by their lovers (who may also be men, in at least one observation). So the wearing of jewellery may be more about flaunting the gift than the buying...
I bought my own before James Bond got his - and then one (smaller, more expensive, but close to the concept) for my wife.
In general, I think that buying stuff like watches or cars is not something that should be done without consultation with the person getting the gift. One could blow a lot of money buying the wrong model version. Imagine the disappointment of getting a convertible when, in reality, the lady hates getting the wind in her hair and would have loved a closed coupe instead.
A naked cat should never be bought. By anyone. The very idea is obscene.
;-)
Rob
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More than ever it makes me think of the unimaginative, no-hope mindset that must have been behind many voters, folks with no inkling of the advantages to them of being able to pick up the tent and go anywhere without asking anyone's permission first, but only of the opposite scenario where somebody could come over to the UK.
In the US anyway there's an entire subculture of people who fear even the idea of spending significant time in other parts of the world. To them this would mean being exposed to potentially "corrupting" ideas and behavior. A consequence IMO of the psychological/emotional fraying that purity movements typically lead to.
-Dave-
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In the US anyway there's an entire subculture of people who fear even the idea of spending significant time in other parts of the world. To them this would mean being exposed to potentially "corrupting" ideas and behavior. A consequence IMO of the psychological/emotional fraying that purity movements typically lead to.
-Dave-
Yes, and I think I experienced them back in the late forties/very early fifties when I was in a boarding school in India run by American, Canadian and Oz Baptist missionaries.
It was the first time I came into contact with the pleasures of the cane: we used to spend an hour every evening cooped up at desks in a room in the boarding establishment, doing homework. I'd finished doing mine, and rather than stare blankly at the same little exercise book for the rest of the hour, I decided to read a book. There was an invigilator stalking the room, as ever, this one a visiting minister (one of the few visitors the system ever had!) and he tapped me on the shoulder and said: not allowed, you know that, you have to do homework!
The next morning, shortly after we had to get up, I was called into the housemaster's room and told to bend over a chair. Three mighty, hate-filled blows with a stick. I was twelve. I have detested those people ever since, not becaue of the pain, which was very, not even for the indignity and subsequent shame of yelling my head off, but because of the blind injustice, the idea that the rule was more important than the logic, and the incapability of that invigilator, that "man of God" to see all of that simple thing for himself, his inabilty to have resolved the little matter right there and then in that study room with just a shake of his head and a smile. Never mind the notion that he'd felt compelled to report me; what a set of spiritual priorities!
Yeah, the links to isantity are paper thin.
Rob
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…because of the blind injustice, the idea that the rule was more important than the logic, and the incapability of that invigilator, that "man of God" to see all of that simple thing for himself, his inabilty to have resolved the little matter right there and then in that study room with just a shake of his head and a smile.
One might even conclude that these "men of God" choose their vocation because it gives them permission to express loathing for and behave cruelly towards their fellow humans. Politics serves a similar function for such folk, no? ;) "Yes, we could run things kindly as well as justly. But how would that let us get off!?"
-Dave-
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One might even conclude that these "men of God" choose their vocation because it gives them permission to express loathing for and behave cruelly towards their fellow humans. Politics serves a similar function for such folk, no? ;) "Yes, we could run things kindly as well as justly. But how would that let us get off!?"
-Dave-
Dave, maybe we could start a political party of our own?
Seriously, though, it wouldn't be the first time that I have wondered about that incident, and thought that along with all the other little sons of bitches trapped therein (the boarding school) and frequently subjected to similar doses of authority, there wasn't perhaps just a smidgen of paedophilia lurking about there in the dim corners of some minds.
One thing, though: the years that I spent there - doing time? - did bring me one huge benefit in that I developed a sense of spiritual survival that has brought me through the loss of my wife and kept me truckin' with pictures...
Rob
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Dave, maybe we could start a political party of our own?
The Get Away From Me* party? ;D
Seriously, though, it wouldn't be the first time that I have wondered about that incident, and thought that along with all the other little sons of bitches trapped therein (the boarding school) and frequently subjected to similar doses of authority, there wasn't perhaps just a smidgen of paedophilia lurking about there in the dim corners of some minds.
The things we try to suppress or repress will express themselves anyway, but in aberrant and often harmful form. You'd think we might get a clue about this at some point…but then there's that whole getting off thing. Some folks get off on denial. Hairshirt-ism. Wankery by other means.
One thing, though: the years that I spent there - doing time? - did bring me one huge benefit in that I developed a sense of spiritual survival that has brought me through the loss of my wife and kept me truckin' with pictures...
It's a tough way of finding out what you're made of. But you do find out, I think. My mom, the center of my first eight+ years of life, died shortly before I turned nine. I doubt this made me a different person but it certainly made me a more resilient one.
-Dave-
*Title of the debut album by singer & songwriter Nellie McKay. She'd heard the first Norah Jones album, Come Away With Me, and may've been less than enamored. OTOH she's a very funny lady and may've been less than serious.
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http://fadedandblurred.com/lillian-bassman/
Rob
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http://www.azquotes.com/author/31685-Alexey_Brodovitch
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http://www.azquotes.com/author/31685-Alexey_Brodovitch
Thanks, Rob! Quotes worth remembering.
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I like what Brodovitch has to say about "surprise quality." IMO it applies equally well to music, as does his comment about people being spoiled by good technical quality.
-Dave-
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Wellll.... another way of putting it is that technical quality is no longer enough to surprise. But yeah, good thoughts. "Find your way of looking at things" seems to be the distillation.
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"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."
This one seems to be fairly reasonable, but what does it say when put alongside:
"The creative life of the commercial photographer is like the life of a butterfly. Very seldom do we see a photographer who is really productive for more than eight or ten years."
Apart from the money aspect and some presumption (usually) of technical mastery, the pro isn't that different a creature to the amateur. A conclusion, if one is not to discard the whole quotations thing as nothing more than an expression of situation smartassedness, is that perhaps the amateur will spread out his possibilites over a lifetime whereas the pro burns 'em out in a shorter, compressed time-scale. The bath, in the end, holding the same volume of water and baby, with the ratio of baby to water changing as baby grows.
It must be Saturday; it will be worse on Sunday.
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http://www.artbookspublishing.co.uk/terence-donovan-fashion/#jp-carousel-2038
One third.
Rob