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"Fu: This is not the problem of photography. Faking situations can’t be blamed on photography. Ever since the invention of photography, if you choose to believe that photographs depict reality, it suggests you don’t understand photography very well or that you’re gullible. Without text, a photograph can prove nothing. Take one photograph as an example: a smashed car that is upside down on top of another car, surrounded by a mess of random objects. If you saw the photo after a tsunami had hit, you would know instantly that the photo was about the tsunami. Indeed the caption would prove that to be the case. If you saw the photo by itself, without such a context, however, you’d wonder what it was about.
Therefore, photographs can be only secondary evidence, since the same photograph can generate a variety of interpretations. Even when we hold on to a photograph as evidence, we need some other proof to show that the photograph is credible. By itself, a photograph can’t prove much."
Therefore, photographs can be only secondary evidence, since the same photograph can generate a variety of interpretations. Even when we hold on to a photograph as evidence, we need some other proof to show that the photograph is credible. By itself, a photograph can’t prove much."
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"It all began with the high heels. In 1976, as a precocious teenager, Samuel Fosso traveled from Bangui, Central African Republic, where he operated his own photography business called Studio Photo Gentil, to visit his family in Nigeria. There he discovered a pair of platform boots similar to those worn by the popular Nigerian highlife musician Prince Nico Mbarga on the cover of his record albums. Fosso’s grandmother agreed to buy him the boots, and upon returning to Bangui he completed the look, ordering a pair of bell-bottoms from a local tailor. “I put on my new outfit and went out. In the street, I ran into a priest who said, ‘You look handsome. You look like an astronaut. Do you want to reach heaven?’ And I answered, ‘Yes!’”
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Ray Metzker | 1931-2014
"For Metzker, photography was a calling, a way of life. He did not regard it as a profession; he never took on commercial work. It was a stance that gave him the freedom to experiment. This is how William Ewing, a curator who worked with Metzker, described him: “Rare is the photographer who can strike as skilful a balance between formal brilliance and a tender gaze for the world…as Metzker does.”
"For Metzker, photography was a calling, a way of life. He did not regard it as a profession; he never took on commercial work. It was a stance that gave him the freedom to experiment. This is how William Ewing, a curator who worked with Metzker, described him: “Rare is the photographer who can strike as skilful a balance between formal brilliance and a tender gaze for the world…as Metzker does.”
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Richard and Cherry Kearton | ++The Public Domain Review | +The Guardian
"So successful was the false ox that the brothers experimented with ever more ambitious hides. They converted a sheep into a pneumatic camera, but it kept getting attacked by sheepdogs. They built a giant boulder and even a limestone wall, constructed moveable trees and disguised themselves as a rubbish dump in pursuit of their birds. To get pictures of a nesting skua in the Orkneys, Richard Kearton dug a hole and covered himself with peat for days at a time. To film birds' nests the brothers would take their cameras and tripods 40ft into trees."
Excerpted from /Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/06/wildlife-photography-pioneers-attenborough-camera
"So successful was the false ox that the brothers experimented with ever more ambitious hides. They converted a sheep into a pneumatic camera, but it kept getting attacked by sheepdogs. They built a giant boulder and even a limestone wall, constructed moveable trees and disguised themselves as a rubbish dump in pursuit of their birds. To get pictures of a nesting skua in the Orkneys, Richard Kearton dug a hole and covered himself with peat for days at a time. To film birds' nests the brothers would take their cameras and tripods 40ft into trees."
Excerpted from /Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/06/wildlife-photography-pioneers-attenborough-camera
John Bevis explores the various feats of cunning and subterfuge undertaken by the Kearton brothers — among the very first professional wildlife photographers — in their pioneering attempts to get ever closer to their subjects: http://buff.ly/2qZiZQ3
(Pictured: the Kearton's "stuffed sheep", in which a camera was hidden and operated via a fifty-foot length of pneumatic tubing)
(Pictured: the Kearton's "stuffed sheep", in which a camera was hidden and operated via a fifty-foot length of pneumatic tubing)
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For that reason, we’re actually going to look at how Migrant Mother (1936), her best-known photograph, became de-contextualized over time—and why that is atypical for Lange. How do individuals become icons? Visitors walk past the six preliminary photographs from that day and then come across Migrant Mother in its own niche, Mona Lisa style. After that, there is a case filled with Migrant Mother tchotchkes and memorabilia including t-shirts and mugs. There are also examples of how the image was adapted to later messages, like the Black Panther newspaper, where the mother is rendered as a black woman. On the wall, quotes from various people, times, and contexts form a montage. Roy Stryker says, “You can see anything you want to in her. She is immortal.” Florence Thompson laments, “I didn’t get anything out of it. I wish she hadn’t taken my picture.” Lange says, “I do not remember how I explained my presence … I did not ask her name or history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two.”
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"Photography is my language, and it gives me the power to tell what otherwise is not told,” he said. “Eugene Smith told me vision is a gift, and you have to give something back. He haunts me like that. It’s not the bang-bang that compels me. It never was. At the end of the day, it is not about death; it is about life.
"The quest is to try to understand why human beings behave the way they do,” he continued. “The question is, How does this happen? And sometimes, the only way to find out is to go to where it is happening. One day the neighbors are talking to each other over the fence, and the next they are shooting at each other. Why is it that we don’t consider life precious, and instead we literally let it drip through our fingers?”
RIP
"The quest is to try to understand why human beings behave the way they do,” he continued. “The question is, How does this happen? And sometimes, the only way to find out is to go to where it is happening. One day the neighbors are talking to each other over the fence, and the next they are shooting at each other. Why is it that we don’t consider life precious, and instead we literally let it drip through our fingers?”
RIP
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William Klein
"Today, everybody's photographing everybody else. But in those days, sometimes people would be surprised and say, "What are you doing?" I'd say I was doing a book that would be like the Daily Bugle—a very noisy tabloid—which, for me, corresponded to New York. I was inspired by the New York Daily News, which had a big photograph on the front page of a cop raiding someplace. So I went along with that idea. Sometimes people would stop me, and I'd say, "This is for the news!" They'd say, "What do you mean, for the news?" And I'd say, "I'm the Inquiring Photographer." [chuckles] In the New York Daily News, on the Op-Ed page, they would have a column called the Inquiring Photographer, who would take a photograph of somebody, and they would ask, "Do you think it's right for a man to beat his wife?" Or, "Do you think it would be terrible if the Communists came here?" And, he goes on asking them questions, and the guy who's photographed or published would answer. So I would say to people, "I'm the Inquiring Photographer." And they would say, "Yeah? Yeah? When are these coming out?" And I would say, "Tomorrow." They'd say, "Tomorrow? Hey, you're kidding!" [laughs] I'd say, "No, we work fast. You'll see... By tomorrow, you'll see. You'll see your photograph." You know, New Yorkers, maybe they're less naïve today, but in those days, they were very naïve about photography and the press and everything. When I said "I'm working for the News..." [laughing], they'd say, "Okay, that's cool." I'm a New Yorker, you know, so I'd be able to bullshit with people."
Excerpted from
A lens on William Klein
By Rachel Small/Published 03/01/13
Full interview online @ http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/william-klein
"Today, everybody's photographing everybody else. But in those days, sometimes people would be surprised and say, "What are you doing?" I'd say I was doing a book that would be like the Daily Bugle—a very noisy tabloid—which, for me, corresponded to New York. I was inspired by the New York Daily News, which had a big photograph on the front page of a cop raiding someplace. So I went along with that idea. Sometimes people would stop me, and I'd say, "This is for the news!" They'd say, "What do you mean, for the news?" And I'd say, "I'm the Inquiring Photographer." [chuckles] In the New York Daily News, on the Op-Ed page, they would have a column called the Inquiring Photographer, who would take a photograph of somebody, and they would ask, "Do you think it's right for a man to beat his wife?" Or, "Do you think it would be terrible if the Communists came here?" And, he goes on asking them questions, and the guy who's photographed or published would answer. So I would say to people, "I'm the Inquiring Photographer." And they would say, "Yeah? Yeah? When are these coming out?" And I would say, "Tomorrow." They'd say, "Tomorrow? Hey, you're kidding!" [laughs] I'd say, "No, we work fast. You'll see... By tomorrow, you'll see. You'll see your photograph." You know, New Yorkers, maybe they're less naïve today, but in those days, they were very naïve about photography and the press and everything. When I said "I'm working for the News..." [laughing], they'd say, "Okay, that's cool." I'm a New Yorker, you know, so I'd be able to bullshit with people."
Excerpted from
A lens on William Klein
By Rachel Small/Published 03/01/13
Full interview online @ http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/william-klein
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Garry Winogrand | 1928-1984
"In his heyday, Winogrand was like an athlete. He didn’t have a program or theory about photography, or a set of interlocking interests. He relied on his reflexes and his skill at making aesthetic decisions in split-second increments. By virtue of its nature, his art also relied on chance. He didn’t stage or predetermine anything. I met someone recently who took a class with Winogrand in the seventies. She said he used to tell his students to take as many pictures as they could, to “increase your odds.” When he was asked how much of a role accident played in his work, Winogrand replied “99%” — and at some point, his luck just ran out.
But if Winogrand felt the diminution in his work, he didn’t let it slow him down. He kept right on taking pictures, looking for the thrill, trying to find his way back to the physical sensation of making art and forgetting about the results. This is something that happens to photographers sometimes. Photographs are so easy to make and so hard to make well, that there is always a temptation to make work blindly, letting the work expand towards infinity in the hopes that something will turn up. It’s a kind of obsession, or a compulsion. Call it shutter madness."
Excerpted from Shutter Madness by Jacob Mikanowski at
https://theawl.com/shutter-madness-951f25e04908
"In his heyday, Winogrand was like an athlete. He didn’t have a program or theory about photography, or a set of interlocking interests. He relied on his reflexes and his skill at making aesthetic decisions in split-second increments. By virtue of its nature, his art also relied on chance. He didn’t stage or predetermine anything. I met someone recently who took a class with Winogrand in the seventies. She said he used to tell his students to take as many pictures as they could, to “increase your odds.” When he was asked how much of a role accident played in his work, Winogrand replied “99%” — and at some point, his luck just ran out.
But if Winogrand felt the diminution in his work, he didn’t let it slow him down. He kept right on taking pictures, looking for the thrill, trying to find his way back to the physical sensation of making art and forgetting about the results. This is something that happens to photographers sometimes. Photographs are so easy to make and so hard to make well, that there is always a temptation to make work blindly, letting the work expand towards infinity in the hopes that something will turn up. It’s a kind of obsession, or a compulsion. Call it shutter madness."
Excerpted from Shutter Madness by Jacob Mikanowski at
https://theawl.com/shutter-madness-951f25e04908
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Leonid Zhdanov (1927-2010)
"Leonid Zhdanov (1927−2010) took this photograph in 1978 during the Moscow tour of the Brussels-based Ballet of the Twentieth Century when it performed at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. It shows Jorge Donn (1947−1992) dancing the main role in the ballet The Rite of Spring, set to the music by Igor Stravinsky, and choreographed by Maurice Béjart (1927−2007). This ballet, first staged in 1959, played a crucial role in the career of the French choreographer. Its success encouraged him to found a new company and a contemporary dance theater, Ballet of the Twentieth Century. The company and its performances brought worldwide fame to Béjart. Creator of more than 100 ballets, dramas, and movies, Béjart was one of ballet titans of the 20th century. Donn joined the Ballet of the Twentieth Century in 1963 as a young dancer from Argentina, and Béjart credited him with helping to create a range of great ballets over a period of many years. Zhdanov, a Bolshoi dancer and then a professor of choreography for 50 years, was also a professional ballet photographer for most of his career. His pictures are spontaneous and capture on film the movements, moods, and emotions of the unposed dancers. The Reborn Art Foundation in Moscow holds this image and the rest of the Zhdanov archive."
Text and photo from the World Digital Library @ https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14376
"Leonid Zhdanov (1927−2010) took this photograph in 1978 during the Moscow tour of the Brussels-based Ballet of the Twentieth Century when it performed at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. It shows Jorge Donn (1947−1992) dancing the main role in the ballet The Rite of Spring, set to the music by Igor Stravinsky, and choreographed by Maurice Béjart (1927−2007). This ballet, first staged in 1959, played a crucial role in the career of the French choreographer. Its success encouraged him to found a new company and a contemporary dance theater, Ballet of the Twentieth Century. The company and its performances brought worldwide fame to Béjart. Creator of more than 100 ballets, dramas, and movies, Béjart was one of ballet titans of the 20th century. Donn joined the Ballet of the Twentieth Century in 1963 as a young dancer from Argentina, and Béjart credited him with helping to create a range of great ballets over a period of many years. Zhdanov, a Bolshoi dancer and then a professor of choreography for 50 years, was also a professional ballet photographer for most of his career. His pictures are spontaneous and capture on film the movements, moods, and emotions of the unposed dancers. The Reborn Art Foundation in Moscow holds this image and the rest of the Zhdanov archive."
Text and photo from the World Digital Library @ https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14376
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