"Photojournals" - What equipment did Linda McCartney Use?
Lewis Lang
with a new photography book called Photojournals: Light From Within" (title is
from my memory so may be slightly off).
Some beautiful/sensitive people photography is in it. Besides the exquisite
photographs (aesthetics/subject matter/eye) I also like the lens qualities/how
the backgrounds have been rendered out of focus in some of the shots.
I was/am? under the impression that she used Pentax Spotmatics or some other
kind of 35mm Pentax equipment for her work (there is also a photo in the book
of what looks like a reflection in the mirror of her, her camera (out of focus)
and her son. Lest some jump down my throat, I am _intimately_ aware that it is
the person/photographer that counts umpteen times more than the equipment, so I
have no delusions about that, just curiosity... What specific 35mm equipment
did Linda use (cameras and lenses, films too if anybody knows...) for the
photos in this book?
P.S. - I would reccommend anybody interest in "personal photography" to take a
look at/buy this book - she had a wonderful eye, whichever 35mm equipment she
used... No, I'm not schilling for her/etc., its just been awhile since any book
has grabbed at me like this...
Any real help on these questions would be appreciated, and, yes, I did do a
search on the net for her but came up basically empty handed.
Regards,
Lewis
I've set (anti-spam) controls to allow in only people on my list. If you want
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Thanks.
Check out my photos at "LEWISVISION":
Canongirly
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011206040538...@mb-mm.aol.com...
last photo I saw of her with a camera (taken in the seventies by Jim
Marshall) she had an Nikon F2 round her neck, but she proberbly
used/changed/had alsorts
Lewis Lang
>Marshall) she had an Nikon F2 round her neck, but she proberbly
>used/changed/had alsorts
Thanks Canongirly :-)
Anybody else w/ more specifics?
TIA
eMeL
name lense and loaded with a brand name film.
Her journalistic technique is being described as "focus and shoot" so....
there is not much room for equipment fascination and/or fetish.
She' used Canon cameras - the rumor has it that she'd borrowed a friends
Canon before starting her two basic photography classes in 1965 (?) (this
tidbit comes from the catalogue of "Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of
an Era.")
She's most certainly used Nikon cameras (quote from her interview in O.K.
magazine in 1998 "...In one movement, Linda has grabbed her Nikon, focused
and snapped it...") Also, pictures of her with a Nikon hanging around her
neck.
And a Pentax for her first photographs of The Rolling Stones aboard SS Sea
Panther in NYC in 1966 (?) while working for Town & Country (as a
receptionist, not photographer.)
Like every photographer she's probably used just about everything out there.
After all -it is the end, not the means she was after.
Michael
Lewis Lang <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011206045943...@mb-mm.aol.com...
Mark Roberts
> I was/am? under the impression that she used Pentax Spotmatics or some other
> kind of 35mm Pentax equipment for her work (there is also a photo in the book
> of what looks like a reflection in the mirror of her, her camera (out of
> focus) and her son. Lest some jump down my throat, I am _intimately_ aware
> that it is the person/photographer that counts umpteen times more than the
> equipment, so I have no delusions about that, just curiosity... What
> specific 35mm equipment did Linda use (cameras and lenses, films too if
> anybody knows...) for the photos in this book?
I've seen photos of her with a Nikon F and Pentax LX. I've never seen
a photo of her with a Spotmatic but back then it's quite likely that
she used one at some point.
No idea what film she used. Before she married Paul McCartney she was
Linda Eastman but had no relation to the Eastmans of Kodak fame ;-)
Tony Spadaro
shooting. The only picture I remember seeing of her with equipment (early
70s perhaps even very late 60s) the camera was about the right size and
shape for a Spotmatic. I owned one at the time so I knew the look pretty
well. It was too small to see any detail though.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011206040538...@mb-mm.aol.com...
Lewis Lang
Comments follow below...
>Subject: Re: "Photojournals" - What equipment did Linda McCartney Use?
>From: "eMeL" badb...@hotmail.com
>Date: Thu, Dec 6, 2001 3:02 PM
>Message-id: <u0v25t8...@corp.supernews.com>
>
>Most of the time she used a brand name 35 mm cameras fitted with a brand
>name lense and loaded with a brand name film.
>Her journalistic technique is being described as "focus and shoot" so....
>there is not much room for equipment fascination and/or fetish.
>
>She' used Canon cameras - the rumor has it that she'd borrowed a friends
>Canon before starting her two basic photography classes in 1965 (?) (this
>tidbit comes from the catalogue of "Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait
>of
>an Era.")
>
>She's most certainly used Nikon cameras (quote from her interview in O.K.
>magazine in 1998 "...In one movement, Linda has grabbed her Nikon, focused
>and snapped it...") Also, pictures of her with a Nikon hanging around her
>neck.
SNIP
Thanks for the info Michael. Do you have any idea when those photos of her
taken w/ the Nikon by Jim Marshall date from? Any idea _specifically_ which
brandlenses (focal lengths/apertures) she preferred and why? And yes, I am well
aware that it is the person that makes the photos, not the equipment, I am just
curious as to what 35mm equipment she did use (not an unreasonable request for
a 35mm equipment newsgroup ;-)) :-)
Thanks and..
Lewis Lang
>Date: Thu, Dec 6, 2001 6:50 PM
>Message-id: <41ad7443.01120...@posting.google.com>
Thanks, Mark. Is it possible that Linda Eastman ever used Fuji or Agfa ;-) :-)
Lewis Lang
>Date: Thu, Dec 6, 2001 7:01 PM
>Message-id: <rgPP7.84$MR2.1...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
> She did have a good eye - and I'm not usually interested in celebrity
>shooting.
Actually, what strikes me in her new books, "Photojournals" is her excellent
eye for photojournalistic/personal/artistic family shots, though since the
photographs are mainly of her family (and some celebs as well, but w/ the
majority? being of her family) and the fact that her family is a very
famous/celeb family, I can see how some might still regard this as celeb
photography (I am not saying you do or don't regard it this way or whether
you've even seen this new book, I'm just mentioning it as a point). I thought,
if not all then a great majority of the photos in this book were superbly
"seen" and hope to own the book soon...
The only picture I remember seeing of her with equipment (early
>70s perhaps even very late 60s) the camera was about the right size and
>shape for a Spotmatic. I owned one at the time so I knew the look pretty
>well. It was too small to see any detail though.
From the reality/story of others on this newsgroup I am getting the impression
that she might have started off w/ owning and or using her or a friends Canon,
then moved onto Pentax (possibly Spotmatics the an LX) and then finally onto
Nikon. Many of her 70's photos have both wonderful color rendition and super
excellent bokeh (probably her Canon/Pentax period). When she started using
Nikons is anyones guess. Several? people have pegged her w//using a Nikon from
Jim Marshall's photograph(s?) of her but I'm not sure if those photographs are
recent (later 90's?) or more "ancient" ('80's or even as far back as the
'60's?) - maybe I should look at some more photo books from when she was with
Wings as well as on the side-lines of that other big rock and roll group (what
was their names? ;-)) to see what she was using back then ('60's/'70's)?
Perhaps AP or PP (Brittish publications) have either interviews or stories
about her that either tell or show through pictures what she was using? Perhaps
I'll run into some other non photo-mag interviews that will go more in depth
into this subject. Specific lenses and films she preferred, I'm still wondering
about... :-)
Thanks for your help Tony.
Capt Nud
common portrait lense
Tony Spadaro
rockers for Rolling Stone. That's what I meant by "celebrity" photos. Most
of such shots stink. The photographers are usually papparazzi shooting
drunks and running, loving fans who think every move a star makes is
photogenic, or they do something "artistic". As you can probably tell, I
think Annie Leibowitz is a hack.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011206174541...@mb-fa.aol.com...
Lewis Lang
>From: "Tony Spadaro" tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com
>Message-id: <toXP7.155303$HA6.27...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
> I've not seen the recent book - just stuff from when she was shooting
>rockers for Rolling Stone. That's what I meant by "celebrity" photos. Most
>of such shots stink. The photographers are usually papparazzi shooting
>drunks and running, loving fans who think every move a star makes is
>photogenic, or they do something "artistic". As you can probably tell, I
>think Annie Leibowitz is a hack.
Hi Tony S.:
In these times especially, it gets harder and harder to do something that
doesn't smack of photo op/PR work. At least back in the seventies (and early
80's?) she mixed her "art" stuff w/ more PJ work where she followed bands such
as the Stones to show the less glamorous/more real? side of it. Do you think
that her (Leibowitz's spelling?) photography is overly arty (conceptual) &/or
shallow or just the people she photographs or both are shallow? Same question
goes for Linda McC... What in your mind would make their work more
valuable/exceptional/go within (in depth) or beyond the genre? - or are you
just so disgusted w/ the cult of celebrity that you find that genre of
photography inane to the point of no matter what a shot they do is like/how
good it is, you can't stomach it (the way I feel about much of the rocks and
twigs genre called landscape photography, no matter how well its accomplished,
99% of the shots/genre bores me, same goes for most pet photography and most
current photography in "classical mode" wedding/portrait photography that
looks so incredibly stilted like somebody froze both the photographer and the
subject in a 1945 time capsule like color versions of Karsh w/ one fifth the
talent and the style)? Lest you mistakenly mis-read my intentions, I am not
lambasting you or calling your tastes into question (as a matter of fact I am
showing my own prejuidices here too), I just want to know what you think and
why you think the way you do as that (responses to a photograph or a
photographer or photographic genre) is as much "vision" and "photography" to me
(the way someone sees the world) as actual photographs themselves.
Just curious.
TIA
Lewis Lang
>Date: Fri, Dec 7, 2001 1:23 AM
>Message-id: <20011206202343...@mb-cc.aol.com>
>
>I read in a book that she early on she used a Nikon F with a 105
2.5.....pretty
>common portrait lense
Thanks Cap. Though I'm not discounting what you're saying, especially because I
don't know how early on she used the Nikon, its possible that she had used
multiple systems since her early days in addition to her reportedly using Canon
and/or Pentax back then. Got to check some old photographs, books or interviews
as thinking about this just makes me more and more curious...
Thanks.
Tony Spadaro
Either that or I should just say "Agreed" - or "Yes" or "Huh?"
I'll get back to you
PS - email me at the address on my webpage - I have something to say that is
not for public consumables.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011207042737...@mb-fa.aol.com...
Tony Spadaro
I feel that she has been on a long downhill slide from the days when she
was a good photographer. I find the "Celebrity in Mud" type stuff to be more
affected than artistic, and particularly do not like her imitations of Marie
Cosindas Polaroid work.
Portrait work - of any type is the hardest branch of photography - I
admit. And perhaps week after week of shooting yet another vapid rising star
who will be long gone in six months took a toll on her creativity. What I
feel when looking at her stuff now is a desparation that does not help the
picture.
Others have done this sort of thing, allowing the subject no control over
the picture (Cosindas for one, and Brassai to a lesser extent) but it may
well be that if you put someone famous in a funny outfit, what you have is a
picture of a famous person in a funny outfit - that does not convey anything
of the famous person other than a willingness to co-operate with a
photographer.
It may well be that one cannot do Steichen's portrait of J.P. Morgan
every day of the week but I would hope one could do better than she does.
Linda McCartney
I never actually heard of her until she and Yoko Ono got blamed for
breaking up the Beatles, but I recognised her pictures when shown a group of
them. She was, at that time at least, the fly on the wall type shooter.
Nothing arty, nothing "directed" just good candids.
Of course a lot of this does have to do with the celebrities themselves.
Do we need thousands of pictures of rock stars, people who make movies,
politicians, etc.
To me one of the most inane practices is the press photographers snapping
away throughout press conferences. the lights flash, the shutters snap, and
there it is folks -- the same background and the same pol in the same suit
as last time. There was a time when such events had an actual "photo op".
The press guys got their shot, and got their asses out of the way while the
pol talked. If he had to shake a hand or pass out an award the press guys
came back and shot again while everyone stood around with frozen grins on
thier faces. I think that was by far the preferable method.
Do we need a thousand pictures of some movie star walking from the limo
to the theater? Do we need a thousand pictures of that same movie star
staggering out of a bar the next morning?
I am not, as you can tell, very interested in celebrities. Perhaps it was
the Jack Paar show (Tonight pre Johnny Carson) that set my attitude. My
Cousin found this to be the height of entertainment, and I was never able to
watch a late movie unless I went to my brother's place. Jack was an
amazingly un-funny comedian who paraded forth a group of third rate has
beens bad enough to make him look good. Zaza, and Charlie Weaver, and on and
on. I remember a long conversation about ZaZa's new bathroom curtains --
while I was missing "The Road to Zanzibar" or something similar.
Movie stars belong in movies - I don't want to know about their lives.
Same with musicians, artists, and even photographers. There are those who
have had interesting lives - they tend to be too busy for talk shows
though - or too dead.
And I agree on all the type of photography you mention too. Too much
conformity, too much standardization, too many people out to get a shot that
was already done. If I shoot El Capitan from Ansel Adams spot, in the right
light with the right filter and the right film and developer - does that
make me as good as Adams?
There is a Bourges story about a man writing "Don Quixote" - Not
re-writing it although every word is identical to Cervantes - but writing
it. The book has to be viewed as a completely different work of art if done
by a 20th century writer than the same book written by a 16th century
writer -- Right? While it makes a good story - if one is into Borges and his
strange world view - if one really writes "Don Quixote" word for word, it
still ain't a work of art - no matter what the lit crit boys say. And this
is exactly what is happening to every famous photograph that can be
copied -- day in day out.
In every issue of Shutterbug there are two ads that catch my eye. One is
for filters, but it looks like Avedon's solarized shot of John Lennon, the
other is for backdrops but it is a near clone of the shot titles "Dietrich's
Legs". These are two celebrity pictures that actually caught the celebrity
in a way that illuminates the personality behind the face (although the face
is essentially hidden in both). Instead of shooting something of his own the
photographers assigned to these ads simply copied others work. Lebowitz had
a magazine cover about a year ago - Vogue or something similar - with a
batch of movie stars in one shot. The shot looked exactly like a Marie
Cosindas - she had stolen the style entirely. Yes the subjects were
different, but the technique was filched. That's the bottom of the heap in
my book.
Long rant. But I feel better. Maybe we sould start a new thread and find
out how others see the "Cult of Celebrity" and the "Cult of Celebrity
Photographers" or whether anyone even gives a damn.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011207042737...@mb-fa.aol.com...
Lewis Lang
I am rarely left just about speechless, well almost..., but dang!, you've
accomplished it! :-)
Well, for a while... Here comes the torrent of words anyways ;-) ;-)...
You mentioned “Others have done this sort of thing, allowing the subject no
control over the picture (Cosindas for one, and Brassai to a lesser extent) but
it may well be that if you put someone famous in a funny outfit, what you have
is a picture of a famous person in a funny outfit - that does not convey
anything of the famous person other than a willingness to co-operate with a
photographer.”
Is it possible to go beyond/transcend making shallow celeb shots from shallow
photo ops or shallow concept portraits of shallow people in this shallow photo
op/PR driven age? Have I used the word shallow too much or perhaps I should
underline it w/ a magic marker and use it some more ;-). The only one who comes
close to this (making meaningful content filled portraits about the personality
not the celebrityhood/public image), ironically?, to me, is Harry Benson, whose
photography has real depth and dare I say the “C” word - “content,” gasp! - the
“exquisite” (my term) photojournalist who shows (or at least did during the
80’s, I have to admit I have not seen very much of his current work) the human
side of the plastic facade (or what Billy Joel and I might combinedly call “The
Nylon Curtain Call”). (I find Arnold Newman’s style of photography somewhere
inbetween Benson’s more photojournalistic work and Leibowitz’s past? concept
portraits).
Can posed celeb shots be more than a clever photographer’s “stupid pet
(celebrity) tricks.” What makes a celeb shot (or any shot for that matter) able
to transcend its genre to show deeper insights/more personality? You mentioned
Avedon’s photo of John Lennon but that seems more like an icon to me than a
personality shot... I agree about the Steichen shot of J.P. Morgan, it actually
makes a statement as well as shows his personality (and beyond/despite that, in
a way, whilst retaining its deeper “personalityhood” aspects, it has become
somewhat of a photo icon in its own right, at least to the photographers, art
people, historians and other people who have seen it over and over again
through its being reproduced in books, magazines, etc. over and over again),
same goes for that shot of Winston Churchill w/ the sourpuss expression on his
face gotten from removing/plucking the cigar out of the lions mouth done by (my
mind is going here...) Newman/Eisendstadt/Karsh anybody want to throw in a name
while I’m waiting for two of my neurons to fire/connect w/ each other?
Even though I actually prefer conceptual/illustration/narrative photography
when its done well I sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off w/ a more
photojournalistic (in its best sense of the word, not as PR/photo op) approach
to celeb portraiture (and other genres of people photography), a PJ/contentfull
approach that seems to be left behind somewhere in the 70’s w/ the death of the
old LIFE (the first one, not the re-incarnation), or, even going more into a
more bare bones basic mode of portraiture such as just looking at the
map/”soul” of the face w/ a minimal of artifice a la Julia Margaret Cameron and
Nadar. Even Julia Cameron did “posies,” posey conceptual allegorical stuff, but
perhaps because I/we are more separated in time and/or because there is less
“hipness” to her style that I still see her portraits of celebrities as “fresh”
though classical and romantic in nature (as opposed to overworked/”stale”
hip/cynical conceptual concepts. Her family and famous friends (or am I getting
her mixed up w/ Nadar’s work now - its late at night, uggghh! :-)), very much
like/paralleling in the family/famous friends bit Linda McC in the 20th century
except Cameron is more of the posed aesthetic verses Linda McC’s almost casual
though insightful “snapshotty” approach to friends and family (at least in her
book “Photojournals” if not her work in her other photo books). Ironically, the
photos I most appreciate from Linda McC were not her celebs but her well seen
family shots (more complicatedly composed/showing a lot more psychological
depth than just casual “snap shots”).
At least Leibowitz is not going into a “Hurrellesque mode” as he did it best,
and like Cosindas, one is enough, two is a clone. Hurrell seems more of the old
style glamor technical wizard w/ a feel for both lighting and the subject
unparalleled - more the public image/”mask” literally skin deep of their face
“glamor”/”aura”/”Hollywood Halos” (like alluring religous icons from the 20th
century Hollywood heaven/firmament of stars) than the deeper down actual
“personality/character” of the celeb sitter - do you think the end justifies
the means in his ultra controlling/posing of the subject? If it does for
Hurrell’s shallow (in the sense that there’s no insight into the depths of
their character) yet superbly lit celeb shots, then how do you justify your
attitude towards Leibowitz (technical mastery issues aside) who is just as
controlling a celebrity photographer many years later? Aren’t they equally
“shallow” statements about the sitters but just shallow in different (though
fun to look at) ways? Should it matter whether a photo is posed or overly posed
or even overly shallow (more concerned w/ the celebs outer image that we all
know and love or hate rather than the real person) if it still has an effect
upon you viscerally (deep down in your gut beyond its concept and posed
situation)?
What is your attitude towards Mortensen’s (the
“Anti-Adams”/Antif/64/”AntiCeleb” photographer’s) extremely posed overly
stylized photo illustration work? What do you like/not like about his attitude
towards his subjects/photographic style and how does this relate, if at all to
your feelings about Leibowitz, Hurrell and other celeb photographers?
Other than celeb photographers/talking about “people” photographers in general
(which covers photojournalism, classic portraiture, conceptual portraiture and
beyond...) whose (photograper’s) work do you currently respect and why? You
mentioned Avedon, who else and why?
To get back on topic, wherever, whatever that is for this 35mm newsgroup... I
found the 35mm sapshotish aesthetic of Linda’s family portraits in
“Photojournals” to be more pleasing to me because it, beyond its aesthetic but
just through the choice/aplication of the equipment itself, seems better suited
to showing not only real and personal moments but its lack of artifice and
spontaneity when compared to medium/large format lets the subject shine through
- when I see some of Liebowitz’s more posed larger format work or Hurrell’s my
mind/attention if not consciously then borderline consciously goes to the
aesthetic qualities of the image itself like the wolf looking at Little Miss
Red Ridinghood- “My what big smooth tonality(s) and lack of grain you have,” or
“my, what smooth transition of hilights you have” (because of the larger
formats greater tonality than 35mm, retouching of the neg and or the ability to
see all the most minutests subtleties of the lighting kind of like exploring w/
your eyes all the deepest recesses of highlights and shadows of a subject’s
face as you would a cave on a speelunking expedition) :-) Something is gained
but something is lost also with the switch up to a larger format, it becomes
too much about the image, the look of the image, and less about the
subject/moment/etc./what that image is about. I am not saying that you can’t do
magnificent posed headshots w/ tech pan or Tmax or whatever and emulate a
larger format or do the oppositte and use a larger format to capture
spontaneous moments (Weegee certainly handled is 4x5” Speed?/Crown? Graphic
more abley than many a tyro w/ the latest moonlanding AF technology 36 custom
function 35mm whiz bang SLR). I’m just saying that film format can be a
magnifying “lens” to focus attention on its own qualities (whether that be fine
grained smooth tonality medium or large format or ultra grainy Tri X or TMax
3200 pushed 5 stops so you could photograph the glint of a blade of grass under
the pale moonlight) or the subject. Its a hip/slick world though, and in order
to compete (at least in some magazines and especially it seems to me for
portraaits/celeb “portraits”) it seems to me that some photographers are goaded
either by their clients and/or what other photographers seem to be doing the
more commercial/Leibowitz/Mamiya route regardless of whether the subject
benefits from the change in format/focus of attention or not. Of course, some
pros can/do/will shoot in multiple formats as a client needs, but I wonder if
some are dunking/ducking their own artistic preferences of what format they
feel the subject needs in favor of what they feel is expected of them whether
they are asked to shoot in a larger format or not...
At an event 2 years back I saw Mary Ellen Mark, who has been using more larger
format gear recently which is of course her artistic choice, for better or for
worse, w/ a (what seemed to be Rollei 6006 series 2 1/4 SLR), it makes me
wonder how the shots turned out and whether, depsite her having the same
sensibility/sensitivity to however she shoots her subjects whether it helped or
hurt the impact of the candid? shots she was taking there. Perhaps she had a
justifiable reason (other than liking the larger format and/or its more
pleasingly fine grained/longer tonal ranged results), but its certainly hard to
be inconspicuous w/ a 2 1/4 and a huge telephoto? lens despite the fact that
this was a political rally. But every artist makes their own choice and its the
results that count. Perhaps the reason I’m so attracted to Linda’s (family)
pictures (especially in the 70’s) is that for me they represent a simple
barebones approach - I am getting sick of all (well, most of) the artifice
(overly lit/posed) and slickness in mags, etc. which I find the photo
equivalent to “breaking wind” as opposed to Linda’s family pictures as “fresh
air.”
I don’t know how I stand on Sally Mann’s large format 8x10” (semi-posed?, I’m
assunming) candid large format black and white snapshots/photographs of her
family/kids. I doubt she’s doing much fancy lighting (either w/ reflectors
and/or artificial lights as most of it seems to be done in the great outdoors).
Some of them (her photographs) I like but in the front and back of my mind
there’s that voice in me that’s constantly saying “8x10 tonality, 8x10”
tonality, 8x10” tonality” in much the same way that John Lennon repeated “Sugar
Plum Fairy, Sugar Plum Fairy” at the opening of the Beatle’s song “A Day In the
Life.”
What more can I say (apparently a lot! :-)) than I thank you for your deep
insightful points (which I will be pondering for a while) and wonder who's work
you respect photographically currently and why (outside of the celeb genre if
you must ;-)).
Again, thanks for a thoughtful review, you should've been a critic for ArtNews
or American Photo but nah... you tell it like it is and make too much sense...
you'd have to practice on the art b.s. for a while until you could talk about
how so and so's Nielsen frames gives "context" ;-) to their work and how the
incorporation of a spoon into a shot gives it "elliptical qualities of
existance" (long story on origin of this, not really worth repeating)... LOL
Thanks again.
Regards,
Lewis ("CONTAX QUALITIES OF EXISTANCE MAN")
>Subject: Re: "Photojournals" - What equipment did Linda McCartney Use?
>From: "Tony Spadaro" tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com
>Date: Sat, Dec 8, 2001 7:08 AM
>Message-id: <u%iQ7.181798$HA6.30...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
Bob Hickey
that kind of celebrity work has to be a little like having a life long
contract with Dole. One day you realize that one pineapple pretty much
looks like any other. Like Scuvulllos Cosmo covers. Who remembers who
was on Jay Leno last nite, or any night. If he wasn't wearing shades, I
guess it wasn't Jack Nicholson. There's a reason this stuff is on at
mid-nite.
I've never liked Annie Leibovitz work, but lets face it, as far as jobs
go, that's a pretty good one. And for all we know, maybe at nite she
walks the streets of SoHo doing photography. Bob
Hickey
From: tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com (Tony Spadaro)
Capt Nud
E.R.N. Reed
<a very long essay which I'm not going to quote, but including this:>
> that shot of Winston Churchill w/ the sourpuss expression on his
> face gotten from removing/plucking the cigar out of the lions mouth done by (my
> mind is going here...) Newman/Eisendstadt/Karsh anybody want to throw in a name
> while I’m waiting for two of my neurons to fire/connect w/ each other?
IIRC it was Karsh.
Fascinating reading, that essay, Lewis. Maybe something to be
published on your site? Actually, the dialogue between you & Tony
would, I think, be an interesting publication, so perhaps one of you
could get permission from the other and publish on his site (or both)
... What a shame it was so dreadfully off-topic, being of course a
discussion of technique and style.
Incidentally, as long as I'm already in here: I have looked at many of
the great photo essays of the original LIFE, although not in context
(i.e., not in the original magazine) and also am quite familiar with
the reincarnated LIFE. I personally don't see why people -- not just
you; I've seen others do it repeatedly -- specifically exclude the
monthly from discussions of photo essays/stories. Many very good
fly-on-the-wall photo stories were published in the monthly also! Yes,
they were shorter, but in my view quite good -- e.g. the Hensel twins
and the teen who waited years for a multivisceral transplant and
didn't survive it. (Many were even in black & white ... )
Well, as I said, that's very off-topic -- but I have wondered about
it. I think a lot of those essays to which I refer were 35mm work (if
that helps).
Ruth
("They call me Mrs Reed")
Virtual photo exhibit: http://members.aol.com/ernreed
Alan Browne
The miles of film that the celebrities are recorded on is driven by a simple
fact:
$
And the photographers are mediocre, and good and great. Personnaly I like
Annie L's cover of whatsername, pregnant and nude on the cover of whatever
mag. I also liked the fold out Vogue cover you're mentioning with all the
young and older celebs in it.... if the style was pilfered, well imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery.
Celebrities are here to stay. Fashion Mags are here to stay. The
Photographers will turn out the same high-quality pablum.
Cheers,
Alan
Bob Hickey wrote:
--
Lert's live longer.
Be A Lert.
Anthony Polson
<big snip>
> Ruth
> ("They call me Mrs Reed")
Hi Mrs Reed,
("Why can't we call you Ruth?")
> Virtual photo exhibit: http://members.aol.com/ernreed
Some excellent shots here; I particularly liked "A fellow visitor to the
San Antonio Zoo" although a slightly different viewpoint would have
placed the subject against a darker portion of the background away from
the distracting (very) highlights.
Also, "Very fine painting skills are needed to finish a miniature
warrior" is a class act. Once again, a wider aperture would have
further defocused the background, in this case a face.
However, the shot works very well as it is, and you may well have
wished to produce exactly the effect that is seen here.
I'm impressed, Mrs Reed.
--
Best regards,
Anthony Polson
Thomas Edward Witte
preference of my own, but it'll shake up your style.
Thomas
GO Photography
http://www.mindspring.com/~photoj
To contact me directly, please reply to pho...@mindspring.com
>>>>>SNIP<<<<<
Tony Spadaro
My printer is printing out your last post right now. I'm going to read
it, make a few notes and get back to you.
One thing I know for sure (or fershirdude in the language of the
interviewees on talk shows): You can never use the word "shallow" too many
times in reference to Some Celebs.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011208050938...@mb-ma.aol.com...
Lewis Lang
Comments follow in-line...
>Subject: Re: "Sometimes A Fantasy..." (Was Re: "Photojournals" - What
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>From: ern...@aol.com (E.R.N. Reed)
>Date: Sat, Dec 8, 2001 3:36 PM
>Message-id: <c2a69544.01120...@posting.google.com>
>
>cont...@aol.comnospam (Lewis Lang) wrote in message
news:<20011208050938...@mb-ma.aol.com>...
>
>
>
>> that shot of Winston Churchill w/ the sourpuss expression on his
>> face gotten from removing/plucking the cigar out of the lions mouth done
>by (my
>> mind is going here...) Newman/Eisendstadt/Karsh anybody want to throw
>in a name
>> while I’m waiting for two of my neurons to fire/connect w/ each
>other?
>
>
>IIRC it was Karsh.
>
Thanks, I knew I was close ;-)
>Fascinating reading, that essay, Lewis.
Thank you on both our behalfs.
Maybe something to be
>published on your site?
Good idea, thanks, I’ll consider it.
Actually, the dialogue between you & Tony
>would, I think, be an interesting publication, so perhaps one of you
>could get permission from the other and publish on his site (or both)
Same as above. :-)
>... What a shame it was so dreadfully off-topic, being of course a
>discussion of technique and style.
>
Yes, you’re right though I did try to bring it back to the merits of using the
35mm format towards the end. I’d love to start a thread on “Great Pentax 35mm
SLR Photographers” or “Great Minolta 35mm SLR Photographers” but I’m sure it
would devolve in the end into either a digi vs. film flame war(t) or a “Minolta
Sucks” troll and/or a thread on who makes the best cars/motorcycles, etc.
>Incidentally, as long as I'm already in here: I have looked at many of
>the great photo essays of the original LIFE, although not in context
>(i.e., not in the original magazine) and also am quite familiar with
>the reincarnated LIFE. I personally don't see why people -- not just
>you; I've seen others do it repeatedly -- specifically exclude the
>monthly from discussions of photo essays/stories. Many very good
>fly-on-the-wall photo stories were published in the monthly also!
That could be but I must admit I rarely saw it/perused it to my shame :-( and I
really shouldn’t comment about something I’m not that familiar with. Though
I’ve seen story excerpts from the old Life and used to look at it occaisionally
as a young boy, most of my knowledge of the old Life’s essays comes from slide
shows in photo classes, looking through the old Life magazine many years later
at photo school(s) and possibly books which had excerpts and/or probably some
kind of best of Life excerpts, though I have seen W. Eugene Smitth’s work not
only in mags?/books (Let Truth Be the Prejuidice”/etc.) but up close as free
(non-matted?) prints at the University of Arizona? about a decade or so ago...
Yes,
>they were shorter, but in my view quite good -- e.g. the Hensel twins
>and the teen who waited years for a multivisceral transplant and
>didn't survive it. (Many were even in black & white ... )
>
See above :-). Sounds like good essays but I’m not that familiar with the newer
Life (except as a possible market for my photographs for their back photo page
which I submitted to several times but didn’t get into :- ( (combined
photo-journalistic/surreal images that are not on my website) and none of their
essay stood out in my mind as much as things like “Country Doctor” and “Spanish
Village,” etc. - I’m not saying they were bad or anything less than excellent,
its just that I relate to some things/essay subject/photographers better/more
emotionally/more rapport than others. with regard to both content and subject
matter as well as how expertly/aesthetically well done they are.
>Well, as I said, that's very off-topic -- but I have wondered about
>it. I think a lot of those essays to which I refer were 35mm work (if
>that helps).
>
Essays in the newer Life you refer to?
One of these days I’m going to have to look/delve more deeply into the newer
Life too w/ an open mind and see what strikes me and why.
>Ruth
>("They call me Mrs Reed")
>Virtual photo exhibit: http://members.aol.com/ernreed
>
Thanks for your comments/commendations :-).
Lewis Lang
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>From: "Tony Spadaro" tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com
>Date: Sun, Dec 9, 2001 12:32 AM
>Message-id: <EiyQ7.195547$HA6.33...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
> Now I'm speechless.
LOL :-)
> My printer is printing out your last post right now.
Hope it doesn't break down from all the printing it'll have to do ;-)
I'm going to read
>it, make a few notes and get back to you.
Thanks.
> One thing I know for sure (or fershirdude in the language of the
>interviewees on talk shows): You can never use the word "shallow" too many
>times in reference to Some Celebs.
Or hear too many questions on the old Mike Douglas show about Kristy McNichol's
new dress...LOL :-)
Regards and fershirdude :-),
Lewis Lang
>Date: Sat, Dec 8, 2001 12:42 PM
>Message-id: <4763-3C...@storefull-224.iap.bryant.webtv.net>
>
> Not to sound like a fan or anything; far from it, but doing
>that kind of celebrity work has to be a little like having a life long
>contract with Dole.
Bob Dole or the pineapple company that makes great Pine Orange Banana juice?
One day you realize that one pineapple pretty much
>looks like any other. Like Scuvulllos Cosmo covers.
Scuvullo is excellent at what he does but he tends to do the same thing over
and over again, what I would call a “Johnny One Note” in photography. Many of
his photos (black and white Tri-x) tend to look like “pineapples” to me as they
all seem like clones of the other shots in style, and not too much depth or
“juice” ;-).
Who remembers who
>was on Jay Leno last nite, or any night. If he wasn't wearing shades, I
>guess it wasn't Jack Nicholson. There's a reason this stuff is on at
>mid-nite.
>I've never liked Annie Leibovitz work, but lets face it, as far as jobs
>go, that's a pretty good one. And for all we know, maybe at nite she
>walks the streets of SoHo doing photography. Bob
>Hickey
Haven’t seen her on the street but I have seen Mary Ellen (Mark) both on the
street and in person being interviewed. I told her I very much liked the
Masters of Contemporary photography book about her work but she was less than
enthusiastic about it. I still like that book though and find it inspiring as
it went into the hows/whys of her photography and contrasted anecdotes/info on
her w/ Leibovitz (they’re both in the same book - other books were on Erwitt,
Art Kane, Bert Stern, Paul Fusco, great series, more info and more inspiring
than 3 years at Brooks (Institute of Photography) at a fraction of the price
;-).
E.R.N. Reed
> ern...@aol.com (E.R.N. Reed) wrote:
> <big snip>
> > Ruth
> > ("They call me Mrs Reed")
>
> Hi Mrs Reed,
>
> ("Why can't we call you Ruth?")
(But you may -- I'm just leaving the other line in for the moment for
continuity.)
>
> > Virtual photo exhibit: http://members.aol.com/ernreed
>
> Some excellent shots here; I particularly liked "A fellow visitor to the
> San Antonio Zoo" although a slightly different viewpoint would have
> placed the subject against a darker portion of the background away from
> the distracting (very) highlights.
>
> Also, "Very fine painting skills are needed to finish a miniature
> warrior" is a class act. Once again, a wider aperture would have
> further defocused the background, in this case a face.
>
> However, the shot works very well as it is, and you may well have
> wished to produce exactly the effect that is seen here.
Actually, I do prefer this shot to others in the sequence without the
face. I consider the face a secondary subject. However, one of the
limitations of the FinePix is in the area of depth-of-field; the lens
is quite short and the maximum aperture is f/2.8 -- this image was
made at 2.8 but the focal length of the lens was 18mm.
> I'm impressed, Mrs Reed.
Thank you!
Ruth
("They call me Mrs Reed")
Tony Spadaro
I do do my best to avoid "artspeak". I find it scarey though that I
actually usually understand it, and find myself taking sides "Of course the
spoon is simply half an egg, the true elliptical mother of us all, so the
artist is saying he's only half way there. See what I mean? I try to stick
to "Good shot man. I like the spoon, it's way cool."
Avedon and Lennon -yep it is more of an icon than a portrait, but
considering the influence Lennon had at the time, I think he may have been
more of an icon than a person in his own mind at times.
On the same lines of the Morgan shot -- who was it that did the shot of
Krupp? The one where he looks like the devil. I can't remember which
photographer got that one but I do remember he was amazed that what he saw
came out on the film. Has to have been a Life shooter but was it
Eisenstaedt?
On Karsh - When I see a Karsh portrait, I usually find it worth a good
look, even when I'm none too sure who the sitter was. My mind is not good
with remembering names of politicians and people in the arts unless I've
actually seen a good deal of their work, so frequently I find myself looking
at a portrait of a complete unknown. I think that's probably a worthwhile
definition of a good portrait -- on you are willing to look at even if you
haven't a clue as to who the sitter is.
The early calotypists Somebodyorother and Hill who did portraits so that
Hill could include the faces in paintings catch me the same way. It isn't
necessary to know who one is looking at to be interested - same with
Margaret Cameron and Nadar. The Yorkshire photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliff
did many portraits of the local fisherfolk. The faces tell a story, even
though the names are unknown, and their effect on the planet as a whole was
probably pretty minimal.
I read LIFE every week growing up - my mother was a magazine junkie. I
think this may be the reason why I tend to shoot in "series" rather than
single images. I don't usually tell narrative stories like a photojournalist
but I rarely look for that "ONE PERFECT SHOT" that sums up the struggle for
existance, the history of western culture, the life of the cosmos, etc. Mrs.
Reed - if you are still with us on this. I think the biggest difference
between the original LIFE and the later version is the Weekly vs Monthly
thing. At once a month Life didn't have the immediacy. True there were many
stories in the weekly that didn't survive on being current, but there was
always that factor. Etna erupted 5 days later the shots were in LIFE. The
first clear shots of many events, and the only shots of many others.
What I've seen of Linda McCartney's work struck me as being more like
LIFE than like the usual Celeb shooting of the era.
This was true of Lebowitz at the time too. You mention the "Masters
of Modern Photography" series -- I used to have them all but lost them in a
fire. I've tried to get the Lebowitz/Mark volume again but have always found
it in lousy condition and priced as if pristine. Of the ones I was able to
find again the Bert Stern is my favourite. Here is a man who played director
with celebs too, but the shots are more coherent than I find Lebowitz' later
work. There is one of Brian Donlevy in a Vodka ad (same brand he got the
pyramid to pose for) that is just perfect. Almost makes me wish I drank.
I'm afraid I'm not 100% sure which one is Hurrell. There are a number of
Hollywood photographers and I'm never sure which is which. While I can
appreciate the magnificent use of light in this type of shooting I have to
admit it does not much interest me. In many ways it reminds me of "Product"
shots, where the Rice Krispies no longer look like mere food, but are
transformed into manna swimming in ambrosia. Hurrell and the others were
selling a product too, women and men who were idealized almost to the point
of deification. Hedy Lamarr - we all know the shot, becomes so luminously
rapturously beautiful you almost fear ever seeing the actual woman for fear
your eyes would boil out of your head. I'll have to see if the library has
any Hurrell so I can better discuss this though.
On that subject , the most telling shot of Garbo is the one Steichen did.
She's yanking her hair back, her face fierce, teeth clenched. She's still
beautiful, but you can see all the frustration of star status in that shot.
Her life is not under her control. She is not entirely happy to be a
"product".
Mortensen. While I was taught darkroom techniques by a couple Mortensen
devotees, I never cared for his pictures. I don't universally condemn the
picturialists though - Some like Otto Littel, the previously mentioned
Sutcliffe, Clarance White, Kasabier, Steichen and Strand in their early
days, etc etc were great photographers. Each shot has to be judged by
itself. I for one don't think pictorialism has really gone away - it was
much larger than the battle between the soft and fuzzies and the f64s. I am
also very fond of Art Deco, and no one could call the art deco photographers
anything but pictorialists. I haven't seen any MOrtensen for years however,
and might have a differnet opinion now. I'd be interested in hearing what
you think of him - and the pictorialist movement in general.
I have a hard time coming up with "current" photographers whos work with
people I really like. I tend to be a few decades behind the times anyway and
I'm so bad with names. Cosindas seems to have dissapeared - she was amazing.
I really like the work of Mary Ellen Mark, but I'm not sure how recent my
knowledge is at this point. One book that recently went on my "must have"
list is Bill Owen's "Suburbia" but the book is 25 years old! I didn't like
it until recently. I felt he was too cruel. Now I find the shots much more
interesting, and less sarcastic. I don't own any book of Diane Arbus
shots -- she was too cruel.
I do like contemporary street shooters like WInogrand (okay, he is dead,
but not for all that long) and a fellow named Ray Metzker - I just ordered a
book by him.
The larger format thing is a whole 'nother rant for me. I feel that an
awful lot of large format photography is about that smooth tonality and lack
of grain -- but I am a content person (back to LIFE I guess) and since I
began shooting in the 60s, I'm also quite fond of grain.
I try not to hold it against anyone for using a larger format though. As
you pointed out Weegee never worked with anything but that massive speed
graphic.
The ball's back in your court. Name some contemporary photographers I
should look into. Compare and contrast... ooops! You don't have to
contextualize them however, and worry not about the eliptical qualities of
formalism - I likes a good picshure myself.
I find your remarks on Sally Mann interesting. One never thinks of 8x10
as snapshot size but she obviously ain't using no Minox. I never even
thought about it before. I haven't used anything but 35mm in so long I don't
even consider the changes other formats bring to the game.
Are you when chanting the mantra of 8x10 tonality, bothered that it
might be diminishing the value of the picture itself? Ands if so do you
think that is a serious problem with her work.
Besides If we mention at least one piece of equipment in every post, we
remain on topic for the newsgroup, and I would hate to have to move over to
rec.photo.technique.people - those guys are seriously mentally disturbed. I
think Annie Lebowitz should get an OM-1 and Sally Mann NEEDS a Leica to
chase after those kids.... who must be approaching 40 by now... oh well
there are prolly grandkids.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011208050938...@mb-ma.aol.com...
Tony Spadaro
feeling it will be going on my "must have or I'll kick and I'll scream and
I'll hold my breath until I turn blue in the face" list.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Lewis Lang" <cont...@aol.comnospam> wrote in message
news:20011208203807...@mb-ma.aol.com...
Lewis Lang
Welcome to the latest installment of "As the lens turns"...
>Subject: Re: "Sometimes A Fantasy..." (Was Re: "Photojournals" - What
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>From: "Tony Spadaro" tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com
>Date: Sun, Dec 9, 2001 9:19 AM
>Message-id: <B0GQ7.205108$HA6.35...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
>Starting at the end.
> I do do my best to avoid "artspeak". I find it scarey though that I
>actually usually understand it, and find myself taking sides "Of course
>the
>spoon is simply half an egg, the true elliptical mother of us all, so the
>artist is saying he's only half way there. See what I mean? I try to stick
>to "Good shot man. I like the spoon, it's way cool."
> Avedon and Lennon -yep it is more of an icon than a portrait, but
>considering the influence Lennon had at the time, I think he may have been
>more of an icon than a person in his own mind at times.
True/possible.
> On the same lines of the Morgan shot -- who was it that did the shot of
>Krupp? The one where he looks like the devil. I can't remember which
>photographer got that one but I do remember he was amazed that what he saw
>came out on the film. Has to have been a Life shooter but was it
>Eisenstaedt?
Arnold Newman. He calls his work “symbolic portraits” while others/just about
everybody else calls them “environmental portraits - I think they’re all/both
right (the public and Newman) about this.
> On Karsh - When I see a Karsh portrait, I usually find it worth a good
>look, even when I'm none too sure who the sitter was. My mind is not good
>with remembering names of politicians and people in the arts unless I've
>actually seen a good deal of their work, so frequently I find myself looking
>at a portrait of a complete unknown. I think that's probably a worthwhile
>definition of a good portrait -- on you are willing to look at even if you
>haven't a clue as to who the sitter is.
I find Karsh’s style technically excellent but very dry/boring/similar - they
all look like they were posed by a P.P. of A. committe and they all seem to
have that same double edge lighting - sort of a beautified version of that
Krupp/Newman portrait. He is the master of his style, but the style seems stale
to me (stilted classical poses and an over emphasis on lighting to the point
where it doesn’t matter what subject you’re looking at anymore you might as
well be looking at the subject he shot/lit before because its all the same
thing. I feel the same way about a lot of Scuvullo’s black and white work as
I’ve said - too “Johny One Note” - more of a surface style as opposed to a
vision.
> The early calotypists Somebodyorother and Hill who did portraits so that
>Hill could include the faces in paintings catch me the same way. It isn't
>necessary to know who one is looking at to be interested
This I definitely do agree w/, the best portraitists make all subjects seem
interesting.
- same with
>Margaret Cameron and Nadar. The Yorkshire photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliff
>did many portraits of the local fisherfolk. The faces tell a story, even
>though the names are unknown, and their effect on the planet as a whole
>was
>probably pretty minimal.
Sounds almost like Atget’s, no, probably August Sander’s study of the people of
Germany’s various social classes...
> I read LIFE every week growing up - my mother was a magazine junkie.
>I
>think this may be the reason why I tend to shoot in "series" rather than
>single images.
I love series and appreciate photo essays perhaps better than (or at least as
much as) anyone else when they are well done. I like to do series in the more
loose sense of the word - I’m really a single picture taker trying to cram an
entire narrative into one shot (when I can) so my series are more
looser/loosely tied by the same thing than the more classic PJ illustration of
a theme photo essay like Smith’s “Pittsburgh” (no, I haven’t seen the book yet
though I have seen many photos from the essay), “Spanish Village,” etc.
I don't usually tell narrative stories like a photojournalist
>but I rarely look for that "ONE PERFECT SHOT" that sums up the struggle
>for
>existance, the history of western culture, the life of the cosmos, etc.
I’m the exact oppositte in this regard. See above...
>Mrs.
>Reed - if you are still with us on this. I think the biggest difference
>between the original LIFE and the later version is the Weekly vs Monthly
>thing. At once a month Life didn't have the immediacy. True there were many
>stories in the weekly that didn't survive on being current, but there was
>always that factor. Etna erupted 5 days later the shots were in LIFE. The
>first clear shots of many events, and the only shots of many others.
One of the advantages of the older Life, or so I am told was that photographers
had the luxury of spending many weeks if not months to go in depth on a
subject/assignment - I think the closest (American) magazine now getting into
that kind of time/depth is National Geographic - I can’t speak for the European
magazines... For imediacy there is no way the new or old Life or even the
current Newsweek can compete w/ TV, just the natures of both the respective
mediums and the fact that both the public’s I.Q./attention span and interest
lie in the quick sound/video bytes of TV. The best of TV coverage in terms of
being in-depth tends to be either the non-”visual” interview shows like
“Charlie Rose,” “Dateline,” and “60 Minutes” (haven’t watchee this one in a
looong time though...) - I’m sure I’ve left some good shows out but you get the
drift... If I’m remembering correctly, the new Life did some good coverage of
the Mt. St. Helen’s erruption back in the early ‘80’s...
> What I've seen of Linda McCartney's work struck me as being more like
>LIFE than like the usual Celeb shooting of the era.
The old Life or the new Life? And are you talking about her cleleb shots or her
more personal family shots like in her newest book “Photojournals”?
> This was true of Lebowitz at the time too. You mention the "Masters
>of Modern Photography" series -- I used to have them all but lost them in
>a
>fire.
That’s a real shame. You can probably still pick them up at some larger photo
swap meets, Amazon, etc. To me they are more valuable than most equipment
because they go into “vision” - the whys of photography and how the
photographer came up with the idea/insight to do each particular shot - as well
as a lot of why the photog shoots in the style (choice and treatment of
subjects, equipment, lighting, compositions, etc.) they do.
I've tried to get the Lebowitz/Mark volume again but have always found
>it in lousy condition and priced as if pristine. Of the ones I was able
>to
>find again the Bert Stern is my favourite. Here is a man who played director
>with celebs too, but the shots are more coherent than I find Lebowitz' later
>work.
Coherent in what sense of the word coherent? And how come (what
factors/reasons) do you like Sterns work over Leibovitz’s?
There is one of Brian Donlevy in a Vodka ad (same brand he got the
>pyramid to pose for) that is just perfect. Almost makes me wish I drank.
> I'm afraid I'm not 100% sure which one is Hurrell. There are a number
>of
>Hollywood photographers and I'm never sure which is which. While I can
>appreciate the magnificent use of light in this type of shooting I have
>to
>admit it does not much interest me.
I’m much the same way, interest me more for the magnificent lighting (and
posing) technique and set design/composition technique than for the subject
that is portrayed - sort of a “glamorous” version of Karsh’s portrait
techniques to me, though they are very good for training the eye to appreciate
and look for and apply (hopefully where/when necessary in one’s own work) all
the fine points/subtleties of lighting/posing/etc.
In many ways it reminds me of "Product"
>shots, where the Rice Krispies no longer look like mere food, but are
>transformed into manna swimming in ambrosia.
Actually that actually sounds enticing and would be a level/step above most
“Product shots” which are really “catalog” shots and bland and w/o much
aesthetic, pardon the pun, “taste” or lighting skills.
Hurrell and the others were
>selling a product too, women and men who were idealized almost to the point
>of deification.
“The Defecation of Stars” LOL :-)
Hedy Lamarr
“That’s Hedley, not Hedey” - old Mel Brooks or Carol burnett show joke if I
recall - I think its from “Blazing Saddles” - just thinking about that movie
makes me laugh. There’s no low art only low appreciation of art. I like (some)
Pop Art and even like some “bad art” (beyond naiive art, works of art (usually
paintings as opposed to photography in this category of “bad art”) that are
crappy because they look like botched/visual abortions yet they still do have
something fascinating to them - saw an exhibition of bad art in Santa Barbara
about ten years back and it stuck with me/made an impression on me - I found it
more interesting than the perfectly technically executed but dryer than a Bert
Stern ad for Vodka ;-) commercial product (portraits and still lifes)
“craptography” that I was subjected to and unsuccessfullly forced to emulate
back at Brooks Institute of Photography, but that’s another story and a
life-time, or just about, ago...)
- we all know the shot, becomes so luminously
>rapturously beautiful you almost fear ever seeing the actual woman for fear
>your eyes would boil out of your head. I'll have to see if the library has
>any Hurrell so I can better discuss this though.
I’m a visual person (duh! ;-)) so I’d have to actually see the shot you are
talking about too, I can remember lots of titles too if the titles are
inventive enough like my own (he said immodestly/blushingly ;-)) but “Hedey
Lamar” even though it names the subject is too, ironically, non-descript for me
to remember the actual photograph based onthe title alone.
> On that subject , the most telling shot of Garbo is the one Steichen
>did.
>She's yanking her hair back, her face fierce, teeth clenched. She's still
>beautiful, but you can see all the frustration of star status in that shot.
>Her life is not under her control. She is not entirely happy to be a
>"product".
I wonder if HCB, Eisenstaedt or anybody else ever got a true “portrait” of
Marilyn Monroe she always seemed to have a face that was really a smiling mask,
almost like a modern Mona Lisa, exposed for the world to see yet still very
much a mystery as to who the real person really was, she was exposing her celeb
face/persona but never seemed to expose her true self. Though her function was
“sex goddess” in the Hollywood of the ‘50’s to the early ‘60’s, it seems that
almost all the photographers were merely perpetuating that glamor image much
the same way Andy Warhol reproduced both her and the dollar bill over and over
again but w/o Warhol’s obvious “mass production/consumption” visual
irony/social commentary and Pop Art distanced sensibility.
> Mortensen. While I was taught darkroom techniques by a couple Mortensen
>devotees, I never cared for his pictures. I don't universally condemn the
>picturialists though - Some like Otto Littel, the previously mentioned
>Sutcliffe, Clarance White, Kasabier, Steichen and Strand in their early
>days, etc etc were great photographers.
I was just looking at Clarence H. Whie’s “RING TOSS,” what a classic! You’ve
mentioned some other greats too. One of my favorites is the series of very
staged photos Lewis Carroll did on Alice Lidell (the supposed “Alice” of his
“Alice in Wonderland” and I’m supposing “through the Looking Glass” books).
Very posed, but her sweetness/innocence seems to shine through despite comments
people have made about her being some kind of suggestive street urchin.
Each shot has to be judged by
>itself.
Yes, that’s true, but some series are great/consistant fro mshot to shot too
like Stieglitz’s portraits of his wife O’Keefe, his cloud equivalents, etc.
I for one don't think pictorialism has really gone away - it was
>much larger than the battle between the soft and fuzzies and the f64s.
Almost reminds me of the technical battle/version betwen the film vs. digis, AF
verses manual, 35mm/small format vs medium and large formats etc. I think
thereis plenty of room for both styles of photography even into the present so
long as the shots are well done and not to “cloning”/cloying of Adams/Weston or
early Stieglitz/Mortensen/White/etc. Its not the genres I object to so much as
the dry rehashing/almost incestuous cloning that goes on within each genre -
there are few men (and women) of vision regardless of the genre they pursue.
Even, in films, Kubrick made not just a horror film but a Stanley Kubrick film
when he made The Shining (actually, re-made it from the Stephen King book).
I
>am
>also very fond of Art Deco, and no one could call the art deco photographers
>anything but pictorialists.
I haven’t hear dof the term Art Deco being used in association with
photographers and especially with pictorialists, could you give me some
examples/names of “Art Deco photographers”? Unless you are talking about
pictorialist photographers from the Art Deco era. I thought that most
pictorialist photographers solidified their style around the time of Art
Nouveau although the movement was still going strong into the 30’s/40’s which
is Mortensen’s main time frame.
I haven't seen any MOrtensen for years however,
>and might have a differnet opinion now.
He was ultra stylized, overly posed, like an anti-Karsh or anti-Hurrell but
focusing more on the grotesque as well as the more classical pictorialist
sensibility. He is a photographer I have ambivalent feelings for since he was a
supremem craftsman and some of his photos are interesting and show a dark
sensibility that transcended the beautiful butterflies and classical peasant
babes in fields purist attitudes of most pictorialists, but at times his work
is so stilted and classical that I find it stale. Same thing for Adams - about
half? of his work is art and the other half is at best good postcard fodder (I
am not looking down on postcards as a medium, I collect them from all eras
when/if I can, its just that I mean “postcard imagery” in the sense of the
(black and white versions of, for Adams) the color postcard shot of “wish you
were here” shots of famous places that are merely beautiful and colorful and
nothing more to them - surface beauty that rings ahollow bell, no deep
emotional echoes reverberate in your eye/heart/etc., dare I use the word again,
“shallow”?
I'd be interested in hearing what
>you think of him - and the pictorialist movement in general.
See above, though I’d be happy to answer some more questions about indivual
photographers and/or shots within the movement...
> I have a hard time coming up with "current" photographers whos work with
>people I really like. I tend to be a few decades behind the times anyway
>and
>I'm so bad with names. Cosindas seems to have dissapeared - she was amazing.
I’ve seen so little of her work, must have been in Aperture or some other photo
nagazine or in some photo class’s slide show once. You also never here of David
Hamilton (I also feel half and half about his work, some of its like very well
done color pictorialism, if that’s the right word for it, other shots appear
much like some kind of beautified soft core pornography to me) or Bob Carlos
Clarke or Art Kane anymore too, a real shame...
>I really like the work of Mary Ellen Mark, but I'm not sure how recent my
>knowledge is at this point. One book that recently went on my "must have"
>list is Bill Owen's "Suburbia" but the book is 25 years old!
I loved that book, its another classic and is also worth more to me than a lot
of equipment. I heard he got out of photography and entered the restaurant
business because there weren’t enough people buying/interested in his work for
him to make a go of it (a familiar story to me). I hope I can afford a copy of
that book (in whatever condition) too someday... I also love Ralph Eugene
Meatyard and Francesca Woodman’s work - both long since deceased. I like Robert
Farbers work (met him several times, but thats another story(s)) and Avedon who
I find both brilliant and rather dry (almost antiseptic for his American West
work) , but I still like his work.
I didn't like
>it until recently. I felt he was too cruel. Now I find the shots much more
>interesting, and less sarcastic.
I loved his style of documentary photgraphy, some of its slant was o personal
it reminds me of the next photographer you are going to talk about, Arbus.
I don't own any book of Diane Arbus
>shots -- she was too cruel.
I never found her work to be cruel, just loving PJilistic snapshots (perhaps
snapshots is too “shallow” a word here) of people on the fringe. What did you
find particularly cruel about her work, her subjects or her approach to those
subjects? What did you find cruel about her approach to her subjects? Her shots
ring a bell inside my mind that never stops reverberating at both the level of
head and heart - when I close my mind I can still see her images in my head,
the mark of a great photogrpher, their images become “close personal friends”
to you (even if you do find their subjects to be odd or repulsive or strange,
etc.).
> I do like contemporary street shooters like WInogrand (okay, he is dead,
>but not for all that long)
You mean he’s going to resucitate and do a sequel - “Winogrand III - The Search
for Shots”? :-) LOL
and a fellow named Ray Metzker - I just ordered
>a
>book by him.
I think I might’ve heard his name before but I’m not familiar with his work.
> The larger format thing is a whole 'nother rant for me. I feel that an
>awful lot of large format photography is about that smooth tonality and
>lack
>of grain -- but I am a content person (back to LIFE I guess) and since I
>began shooting in the 60s, I'm also quite fond of grain.
You are the Will Rogers of grain? “I never met a grain I didn’t like”?
> I try not to hold it against anyone for using a larger format though.
>As
>you pointed out Weegee never worked with anything but that massive speed
>graphic.
Yes, but he above all was interested in people and the moment, the fact that
his large negatives delivered very clear pictures/tonality is just an added
bonus. Had 35mm films and lense sof today been available to him I don’t think
he would have objected to using that. I almost appreciate his work despite the
large negative because it focused on striking content (dramatic people and
events) and vision rather than the superficialities of surface glossiness large
format can give because of its luscious tonalities. Am I sad/mad that he used
large format instread of medium or small format to do his shots with? Heck no!
It adds to the a surface beauty quality to the starkness of the subject matter
of the shot, but in the end, format matters little, what’s most important was
that he was a man with a vision, a view of the world that was uniquely and
powerfully and sensitively his own and that’s what fascinates me about his
work, they’re their own world or universe - its like entering another
realm/outlook on the world/their world - just like it fascinates me about any
great writer (novelist, songwriter, composer, etc. - John Lennon, Neil Young,
Suzanne Vaega, Paul SImon, Tom Petty, Jonatha Brooke and Sting (both w/ a nd
w/o The Police), Leonard Bernstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, Kurt Weil, Bach,
Bethoven, Mozart and Vivaldi among many others come to mind for the latters).
> The ball's back in your court.
Not for long... tag, you’re it! :-)
Name some contemporary photographers
>I
>should look into. Compare and contrast... ooops! You don't have to
>contextualize them however, and worry not about the eliptical qualities
>of
>formalism - I likes a good picshure myself.
Besides the more classical photographers and mid to late 20th century
photographers I’ve mentioned above, I guess not that many. Paul Danar (formerly
Lopez) who is as obscure as I am and who also does surrealistic work, I like
Mel DiGiacomo’s wedding work (a Newsweek photographer too), Larry Fink, Duane
Michals (I guess you can consider his work both “classic” and contemporary),
Arnold Newman (same comments as Michals), I love Carrie Branovan’s children’s
fashion portraits, some of Barbara Bordnick’s work, Harry Benson, I like some
of Steve McCurry’s work, William Albert Allard, Elliott Erwitt (more for his
classical PJ than his current stuff though I am really not too familiar w/ much
of his _most_ current work), Gary Waltz (who has an excellent site on
Minolta/the Minolta35mm wireless flash system has done, albeit in the past, a
project on the breakdown/suicide of his dad which is very powerful, his current
work is well done too), I like Michael Kenna’s landscape work (I’ve met him,
nice fellow), Robert ParkeHarrison’s surreal work is great, I am looking into
Joel Sternfield’s work but I really don’t know much about him yet... I am
probably leaving out _so_ _so_ many other current photographers, but its
late/early and my mind is beginning to gel on me -if you have some specific
questions about some specific photographers though I’d be happy to answer them
if not “compare and contrast” them :-)
Here is a non-contemporary photographer you probably haven’t heard of - Jerome
Ducrot. He used to do work for Vogue in the 60’s but some of his work looks
anything but fashioney. Check him out where/if you can...
> I find your remarks on Sally Mann interesting. One never thinks of 8x10
>as snapshot size but she obviously ain't using no Minox.
I think a 4x5 or a 6x7cm camera would be a Minox to her ;-).
I never even
>thought about it before. I haven't used anything but 35mm in so long I don't
>even consider the changes other formats bring to the game.
> Are you when chanting the mantra of 8x10 tonality, bothered that it
>might be diminishing the value of the picture itself?
No, for her style and vision it works. But it seems to me that some people are
confusing technical quality w/ aesthetics themselves. Not everyone’s vision is
best suited/expressed through a medium/large format, and I’m just saying that
photographers should consider the choice of their formats as carefully as they
do their subjects, whether they are commercial or fine art photographers just
doing it mainly for themselves (and hopefully some day a paying audience) they
should learn how to please themselves first rather than falling for format envy
(and the luscious tones of larger formats). I just think that many editorial
photographers nowadays get on the mee-too medium format badwagon rather than
looking at their vision and style first and let that drive the choice of
format, though I do realize that editiorial/magazinephotographers have to
please their agencies/clients too and that will dictate choice of format.
I used to be a documentary filmmaker - waaayyyy back. Some of my films have
been shown on cable in New York City and in Toronto. Back in college they
called me the King of Super 8 (one of my film instructors did anyways) because
I tried to shoot all my stuff on Super 8 when I could. I did two independent
films when I was a t N.Y.U. (here I mean not just independent in the sense of
independent filmmaking/outside the Hollywood film industry) but independent in
the sense of on my own w/o the usual groups we were hearded like lemmings w/
Arriflexes and Bell & Howells into doing what I would call “committee
filmmaking.” There were so many people on a production that it became an
excersize in group dynamics and politics. I wanted to do mty own vision and
work at my own pace and have the project be as personal as if I’d just picked
up a pen and wrote down what I thought, like a writer does, without all the
people/b.s. in the way. Anyways Super 8 allowed me both the quality and the
ecnomical feasibility (was cheap enough) to let me do everything by myself - no
interfernce from anyone, I lit, directed, shot, dubbed and edited the whole
thing myself (all except the titles which I had a cousin do). I used video tape
as my editing medium because it also allowed high quality (3/4 inch U-matic) at
a very reasonable price (renting Super 8 flatbed editors and doing A & B
rolling for editing on film would have driven me broke (in the first case) and
mad/frustrated (in the second case). I did a rough cut then... When I got the
film transferred from Super 8 onto video they asked me at the video transfer
place whether I had shot the production in 16mm or 35mm film format. I told
them they should know because they did the transfer, it was Super 8 (Kodachrome
40, 24 f.p.s., crisp lighting and a nicely crisp Canon zoom on my 814XLS
probalby had a lot to do with this), they couldn’t believe that it had been
done in Super 8.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say with that long seemingly tangential walk down
memory Super 8 lane (make a right at Penny Lane and keep on going..) is that
had 16mm been economically feasible and just as easy for one man to do I would
have used that, same goes possibly for HDTV w/ digital video - what is most
important was that I could be my own one man band and have as little between me
and my ability to put down my finished vision as possible. If 645 SLRs were as
small and lightweight as my Maxxum 7 I’d be using them but as it is 35mm is
cheaper (in fim costs), lighter weight, and is more portable (especially for on
location work). I have done people shots w/ hotlights using 4x5” format and
Sheimfluging on the face (almost lost/”burned” a friend that way under the hot
lights, lol) as well as all 3 formats (4x5”, 6x6” and 35mm (mostly Leica R for
the quality)) for still lifes. But for me, format choice, just like film choice
is a very personal preference and if someone asked me/told me to photograph in
a particular format for money I don’t think I’d do it or I’d do it in my own
format choice because I thought it (whatever the format choice) would be the
best choice for me and either they like and paid for the final results or
didn’t. But I rarely do commercial work anymore. And my work is not about how
many subtle transitions you can count but in the expression of my vision,
format is my servant not my master. In Brooks (Institute of Photography) they
forced me (down my throat or my eye sockets) to use a 4x5” camera for
bothtungsten light portraiture and some location photography. Later on the head
of the illustration department there at the time asked me before I went into
that department “what if your client wanted you to photograph a milk bottle
and they made you usea 4x5” camera,” I think I replied and/or thought something
to the effect of, then I guess I’d do it my way anyway, or, I wouldn’t do the
shot/find another client. Both back then and now I don’t want anybody what
format to shoot in, if they want a hack let them go find someone else, I have a
vision, and to be honest, my format of choice, 35mm can handle most any type of
job anyway nowaday with the quality of films and lenses (as well as the option
of scanning directly to digital w/o the interference of an enlarger lens). So
format is really a non-issue for me, I consider it my choice and no one else’s
- I don’t tell people how to breath or what kind of underwear to wear, why
should I allow them to tell me how to shoot or w/ what to shoot it with. As for
the milk bottle shooters, let them eat cake (or cookies...). :-)
Ands if so do you
>think that is a serious problem with her work.
See above.
> Besides If we mention at least one piece of equipment in every post,
I already mentioned the /my Maxxum 7, your turn... ;-)
>we
>remain on topic for the newsgroup, and I would hate to have to move over
>to
>rec.photo.technique.people - those guys are seriously mentally disturbed.
Oh, you’ve noticed? ;-) It used to be a lot worse - I’ve had to subscribe and
unsubscribe and re-subscribe and unsubscribe from that group several times,
though w/ filters on that problem is largely eliminated.
> I
>think Annie Lebowitz should get an OM-1 and Sally Mann NEEDS a Leica to
>chase after those kids.... who must be approaching 40 by now... oh well
>there are prolly grandkids.
>
I think Sally isonto other things by now, landscapes, I hear... As for Annie, I
wonder how she’d get on w/ using her old Nikons theses days...
>
>
>--
>http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
>The Camera-ist's Manifesto
>a Radical approach to photography.
>Old site with some pictures still up at
>http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
>The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
>overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
Regards (and give me the OM-1(n), Leibovitz can afford her own...),
LEDMRVM
>Krupp? The one where he looks like the devil. I can't remember which
>photographer got that one but I do remember he was amazed that what he saw
>came out on the film. Has to have been a Life shooter but was it
>Eisenstaedt?
I have the book - just checked the photo credit - It was Arnold Newman.
Regards,
Ed M.
E.R.N. Reed
> Mrs. Reed - if you are still with us on this. I think the biggest difference
> between the original LIFE and the later version is the Weekly vs Monthly
> thing. At once a month Life didn't have the immediacy. True there were many
> stories in the weekly that didn't survive on being current, but there was
> always that factor. Etna erupted 5 days later the shots were in LIFE. The
> first clear shots of many events, and the only shots of many others.
I'm still here, reading the essay-dialogue. I'm not finding I have
much to contribute, except the following:
> I've tried to get the Lebowitz/Mark volume again but have always found
> it in lousy condition and priced as if pristine.
Have you tried searching Barnes & Noble online? I've had some luck
finding out-of-print stuff that way; the search takes place
immediately upon your requesting it and the results returned include a
description of the book's condition. (It has been a while since I used
this service, but it worked well at the time.)
Later ...
ERNR
Tony Spadaro
I realised as I read your post that I was no longer sure what pictures
I remember as being Karsh -- When later in the post you mentioned Arnold
Newman I remembered it was he who did the shot of Stravinsky framed by the
piano. I had to check out my memory before going any further.
So I went down to the library and took out their Karsh book. I had it
under my arm and was about to go look at mysteries when I noticed a second
book with the name Karsh on the spine. It was a different book with the same
title, and I took it out two.
The book I was familiar with "Karsh a 50 year retrospective" is full of
images that pretty much fit with my opinion above (in my opinion - this gets
pretty elliptical too), and I was beginning to think perhaps you had Karsh
mixed up with someone else - my immediate thought was the Fabian brothers
who made everyone look exactly the same.
Then I opened the second book - "Karsh - American Legends". There were
some very good portraits in this book too, but as I leafed through there
were a vast number that looked exactly like the other portraits in the book.
Nothing was changed except the sitter and the background. In many cases if I
didn't know who the sitter was, I couldn't see anything in the shot that
gave me any indication of who they were or what they did or why they had
their picture taken - they just looked like very well done versions of those
Olan Mills generic portrait shots..
So it may well be that the difference in our opinions has more to do with
selection seen than the with differing perception of the portrait
photographers art. The early book had some duds in a rich field. The later
book had some remarkable shots (The Jessye Norman shots are magnificent and
there are more than just a few others too) in a field of remarkably dull
sameness.
BTW: The earlier book has the picture of Churchill glaring at the camera
just after his cigar was snatched from his hand - along with a smiling
version gotten a few minutes later, after Karsh cajoled him into a better
mood.
Lewis Lang
>Subject: Re: "Sometimes A Fantasy..." (Was Re: "Photojournals" - What
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>From: "Tony Spadaro" tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com
>Date: Mon, Dec 10, 2001 12:29 AM
>Message-id: <xlTQ7.218101$HA6.38...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
> A partial reply - to only this section of the previous post.
>>
>> > On Karsh - When I see a Karsh portrait, I usually find it worth a
>good
>> >look, even when I'm none too sure who the sitter was. My mind is not
>good
>> >with remembering names of politicians and people in the arts unless I've
>> >actually seen a good deal of their work, so frequently I find myself
>looking
>> >at a portrait of a complete unknown. I think that's probably a worthwhile
>> >definition of a good portrait -- on you are willing to look at even if
>you
>> >haven't a clue as to who the sitter is.
>>
I totally agree w/ your statement here, good definition of a good portrait,
Tony ;-).
>> I find Karsh's style technically excellent but very dry/boring/similar
>-
>they
>> all look like they were posed by a P.P. of A. committe and they all seem
>to
>> have that same double edge lighting - sort of a beautified version of
>that
>> Krupp/Newman portrait. He is the master of his style, but the style seems
>stale
>> to me (stilted classical poses and an over emphasis on lighting to the
>point
>> where it doesn't matter what subject you're looking at anymore you might
>as
>> well be looking at the subject he shot/lit before because its all the
>same
>> thing. I feel the same way about a lot of Scuvullo's black and white work
>as
>> I've said - too "Johny One Note" - more of a surface style as opposed
>to a
>> vision.
>
> I realised as I read your post that I was no longer sure what pictures
>I remember as being Karsh -- When later in the post you mentioned Arnold
>Newman I remembered it was he who did the shot of Stravinsky framed by the
>piano.
Yes, the piano that looks like a note. A classic. Actually I find this less of
a good standard portrait - in the sense of learning about who the sitter is as
a person/personally - and more of a good conceptual portrait - it tells you
what he does (music composer) very elegantly and simply through a symbol (the
brilliant use of a piano shaped as a note) but it doesn’t necessarily show his
temprament (whatever that might have been). Ironically, the Karsh shot of a
growling? Winston Churchill comes closest to an excellent example of the
definition of a good (classical mode) portrait as it shows his personality
rather than symbolizing his profession (as Newman might have done/interpreted
with him).
I had to check out my memory before going any further.
> So I went down to the library and took out their Karsh book. I had it
>under my arm and was about to go look at mysteries when I noticed a second
>book with the name Karsh on the spine. It was a different book with the
>same
>title, and I took it out two.
A different book with the same title, don’t you mean a different book on the
same photographer - Karsh? Certainly the titles must have been different, no?
> The book I was familiar with "Karsh a 50 year retrospective" is full
>of
>images that pretty much fit with my opinion above (in my opinion - this
>gets
>pretty elliptical too), and I was beginning to think perhaps you had Karsh
>mixed up with someone else - my immediate thought was the Fabian brothers
>who made everyone look exactly the same.
> Then I opened the second book - "Karsh - American Legends". There were
>some very good portraits in this book too, but as I leafed through there
>were a vast number that looked exactly like the other portraits in the book.
Welcome to the eyes rolling up into my head club ;-) :-) LOL.
>Nothing was changed except the sitter and the background.
...”To protect the names of the innocent” (old “Dragnet” V.O. line?)?
In many cases
>if I
>didn't know who the sitter was, I couldn't see anything in the shot that
>gave me any indication of who they were or what they did or why they had
>their picture taken - they just looked like very well done versions of those
>Olan Mills generic portrait shots..
Only that Olan Mills is more like unglorified soft, even catalog lighting...
Anyway, I totally agree w/ you on this.
> So it may well be that the difference in our opinions has more to do
>with
>selection seen than the with differing perception of the portrait
>photographers art.
Perhaps... I’m going to have to look at the two books in question (if I can get
my hands on them...) and compare...
The early book had some duds in a rich field. The later
>book had some remarkable shots (The Jessye Norman shots are magnificent
>and
>there are more than just a few others too) in a field of remarkably dull
>sameness.
If you still have the books can you make a list of the names/Titles of two
groups of shots - “Remarkable Shots” vs. “Duds” - its up to you and you don’t
have to list all of his pictures, just ones that seem representative to you,
but its your choice and I don’t want to put to much on you if you’d rather
not...
> BTW: The earlier book has the picture of Churchill glaring at the camera
>just after his cigar was snatched from his hand - along with a smiling
>version gotten a few minutes later, after Karsh cajoled him into a better
>mood.
Does the book say how he got Churchill to smile (very rare I beleive from what
Iremeber for Churchill to do, he supposedly rarely smiled and/or photographers
were rarely if ever able to capture him in a smile...). Perhaps he gave
Churchill his cigar back or let him take a few puffs or told him a joke or two
about EOS1vfan? LOL.
Did Newman ever do Churchill? I think Eisenstaedt did him but got a famous shot
of him from the back and possibly one where Churchill woke up during a ceremony
or a parade and gave his famous “V” for victory sign (what hippies and most
latter day people who don’t look at Verizon commercials would later call the
same sign an almost oppositte kind of sign, the earlier sign being more
associated w/ perhaps a victory in a war, the “peace” sign...). It would be
great to see a photo book on portrait interpretations of just one person,
a.k.a. in our discussion, Winston Churchill (or perhaps an even more modern
figure that’s still alive). Van Gogh and Gauguin used to do the same portrait
subject (of an Arliesienne woman in a cafe) and sometimes it Picasso and Braque
would do, if not the same person then works so much in the same style that it
was hard to tell who did what because the end results were so much alike.
Unfortunately, Karsh, Scavullo and other “Johnny One Notes” achieve this
sameness all within their work regardless of the sitter... Even Monet?, used to
do lighting studies of the same church/etc. not only to understand lighting
but, I believe, to find as many ways to do one subject as possible and stretch
his abilities/powers of observation (correct me if I’m wrong here about the
artist and/or the reason).
Regards,
Lewis Lang
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>Date: Sun, Dec 9, 2001 2:07 PM
>Message-id: <20011209090701...@mb-fv.aol.com>
Thanks Ed:
Yup, Ed, just as I thought :-)
Tony Spadaro
>
> Sounds almost like Atget's, no, probably August Sander's study of the
people of
> Germany's various social classes...
There is a great deal of similarity between Sanders and Sutcliffe, but
Sutcliffe was definately more of a "pictorialist" in his outlook while
Sanders was an objectivist - at least in his self-opinion. One has only to
look at the pictures and, as with Atget, one sees the art the shooter
denies.
>
> > I read LIFE every week growing up - my mother was a magazine junkie.
> >I
> >think this may be the reason why I tend to shoot in "series" rather than
> >single images.
>
> I love series and appreciate photo essays perhaps better than (or at least
as
> much as) anyone else when they are well done. I like to do series in the
more
> loose sense of the word - I'm really a single picture taker trying to cram
an
> entire narrative into one shot (when I can) so my series are more
> looser/loosely tied by the same thing than the more classic PJ
illustration of
> a theme photo essay like Smith's "Pittsburgh" (no, I haven't seen the book
yet
> though I have seen many photos from the essay), "Spanish Village," etc.
>
> I don't usually tell narrative stories like a photojournalist
> >but I rarely look for that "ONE PERFECT SHOT" that sums up the struggle
> >for
> >existance, the history of western culture, the life of the cosmos, etc.
>
> I'm the exact oppositte in this regard. See above...
Ive also seen your website, so I know this is the way you work. I think
your movie experience may have an influence there. I, at one point, bought a
16mm Cine Pathe reflex and then realized what it was going to cost to feed
the thing. So I never shot a foot of movie film. Instead I made "movies"
although certainly not narrative films, on 35mm film, one shot at a time. My
plans for actual films would have been non-narrative too. I was interested
in motion (still am) not necessarly logic. Is this what you mean by working
alone with the 8mm? Making assemblages of semi-un-related motions etc?
The one film I planned that I still remember clearly was going to be shot
in the Boston subway - out the front window, against the first movement of a
Vivaldi recorder concerto (I planned to play the recorder for it myself but
never got very good at the instrument). The second movement was going to be
taken from a basement on Charles Street, with all the legs passing by. I
planned to throw in a couple ringers - friends who owned dogs. The third
movment was to be from the last car of a train on the Eln shot at dusk. All
three moviements were planned for B/W which would have cost three times as
much as colour to get processed even back then. I planned to cut the film to
match the phrases of the music - although there would not have been any
change in camera position - just position of the train in the tunnels or the
surrounding city and/or the beings that occupy it.
Immediacy is now so immediate. I remember when Oswald was shot (I
didn't see it live but about half the people I knew did) and we all realised
together, the watchers, the newspaper men, the tv men, etc that tv was going
to be the major component of every story eventually. It took a while, but no
one looks to the news magazines for actual "news" anymore. It has to be
analysis - cause there is nothing new about it by the time the newspapers
come out. When the magazines hit the stand it's history.
>
> > What I've seen of Linda McCartney's work struck me as being more like
> >LIFE than like the usual Celeb shooting of the era.
>
> The old Life or the new Life? And are you talking about her cleleb shots
or her
> more personal family shots like in her newest book "Photojournals"?
I haven't yet seen her newer work. I remember her from teh days when I
actually got Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, The East Village Other, and
The L.A. Free Press. When I followed to one extent or another, pop music. I
actually never heard of her until she and Paul McCartney became an item. But
remember seeing a pile of her pictures then.
The particular shot is of Donlevey playing the kind of part he usually
played, dressed in early 19th century style - a large cape and top hat, with
a dueling pistol a bottle of vodca and a cocktail glass on the table. His
expression is distrustful, as if he expects the vodka to be watered. Great
shot!
ank.
"History of the World Part 1" Hedley LaMarr calls for the "pissboy" in
the garden. He is accompanied by his friend saucy Bernaise. Brooks plays
both the pissboy and Louie VX - It's great to be King.
It was copied in Corel Draw and became the cover shot for Corel Draw 8 -
and Ms Lamarr sued Corel and won.
>
> > On that subject , the most telling shot of Garbo is the one Steichen
> >did.
> >She's yanking her hair back, her face fierce, teeth clenched. She's still
> >beautiful, but you can see all the frustration of star status in that
shot.
> >Her life is not under her control. She is not entirely happy to be a
> >"product".
>
> I wonder if HCB, Eisenstaedt or anybody else ever got a true "portrait" of
> Marilyn Monroe she always seemed to have a face that was really a smiling
mask,
> almost like a modern Mona Lisa, exposed for the world to see yet still
very
> much a mystery as to who the real person really was, she was exposing her
celeb
> face/persona but never seemed to expose her true self.
I know many people mentioned that she "turned Marilyn Monroe on like a
lightbulb" whenever cameras appeared.
Correct - shot or series. As one who shoots series I should be tha last
to forget that.
>
> I for one don't think pictorialism has really gone away - it was
> >much larger than the battle between the soft and fuzzies and the f64s.
>
> Almost reminds me of the technical battle/version betwen the film vs.
digis, AF
> verses manual, 35mm/small format vs medium and large formats etc. I think
> thereis plenty of room for both styles of photography even into the
present so
> long as the shots are well done and not to "cloning"/cloying of
Adams/Weston or
> early Stieglitz/Mortensen/White/etc. Its not the genres I object to so
much as
> the dry rehashing/almost incestuous cloning that goes on within each
genre -
> there are few men (and women) of vision regardless of the genre they
pursue.
> Even, in films, Kubrick made not just a horror film but a Stanley Kubrick
film
> when he made The Shining (actually, re-made it from the Stephen King
book).
I guess it is a sign of just how far outside the mainstream I am that it
bothers me when people do NOT march to a different drum. I view the work of
others, I have certainly tried out styles, I most assuredly steal
techniques, and even shoot some of the same places. But my copies (or
Homages if one wants to be like the Hitchcock clones who made bad movies in
the 80s) are not for the public. THey are for me. They are my lessons, my
raw material. They are what I hope to synthesise into the "Spadaro style". I
may never actually find it, but I consider the search to be enough to make
my life enjoyable.
I can't see any reason in the world to take one of those artcic polar
bear tours and come back with my own shots of the bears surrounding the
truck. I have no desire to catch the perfect expression on the bride's face
as she cuts the cake. I don't want to shoot some heavy metal guitarist
bending the 17th fret of the third string while jerking back on his heels,
grimacing at the ceiling. I recognise that others do -- and it's a good
thing too. Someone has to get the picture, but I really don't want it to be
me.
Like your experience at Brooks, I spent 2 years working with a
professional. He wanted me to shoot weddings for him - he already had three
guys shooting at least two weddings a week for him. I learned lighting from
him on his model shoots and his product shoots. It was a small town in
Upstate New York, and he kept saying that if I wanted to make a living in
photography here, I had to do it all and take any assignment. I decided I
didn't want to make a living in photography. I wanted the freedom to do what
I wanted to do without having to please the customer. I think he never
understood that I wasn't rejecting his way of earning a living, and simply
didn't want it for myself. He was a man of boundless energy and found
weddings great fun, liked nothing better than to soup up a dozen rolls of
film between dinner and going out to shoot the girls at the modeling school,
and was ready in the morning to go to his day job, and still had time to
visit the parents of the bride and sell five times as many pictures as the
original contract called for. He loved it all. I was 20 years younger and
couldn't keep up.
>
> I
> >am
> >also very fond of Art Deco, and no one could call the art deco
photographers
> >anything but pictorialists.
>
> I haven't hear dof the term Art Deco being used in association with
> photographers and especially with pictorialists, could you give me some
> examples/names of "Art Deco photographers"?
I don't think anyone was ever an Art Deco photographer, but many of the
pictorialists were very much into the themes - not just shooting pictures of
art deco objects, but creating shots in the studio. There was even an Art
Deco painter, named Lempica, who combined deco styling, with cubism in
portraiture. very very different stuff. Reviera had a lot of it too - I
remember one portrait of a redhead wearing a dress with a hem like the
oversized lillies that surround her.
Unless you are talking about
> pictorialist photographers from the Art Deco era. I thought that most
> pictorialist photographers solidified their style around the time of Art
> Nouveau although the movement was still going strong into the 30's/40's
which
> is Mortensen's main time frame.
>
> I haven't seen any MOrtensen for years however,
> >and might have a differnet opinion now.
>
> He was ultra stylized, overly posed, like an anti-Karsh or anti-Hurrell
but
> focusing more on the grotesque as well as the more classical pictorialist
> sensibility. He is a photographer I have ambivalent feelings for since he
was a
> supremem craftsman and some of his photos are interesting and show a dark
> sensibility that transcended the beautiful butterflies and classical
peasant
> babes in fields purist attitudes of most pictorialists, but at times his
work
> is so stilted and classical that I find it stale.
Tis last is what I remember too.
Same thing for Adams - about
> half? of his work is art and the other half is at best good postcard
fodder (I
> am not looking down on postcards as a medium, I collect them from all eras
> when/if I can, its just that I mean "postcard imagery" in the sense of the
> (black and white versions of, for Adams) the color postcard shot of "wish
you
> were here" shots of famous places that are merely beautiful and colorful
and
> nothing more to them - surface beauty that rings ahollow bell, no deep
> emotional echoes reverberate in your eye/heart/etc., dare I use the word
again,
> "shallow"?
I think one of the prices of fame is that too much of your work goes on
display.
I had forgotten Meatyard - there was a man with a vision. Avedon, perhaps
because I've seen Funny Face several times, stirkes me as a man who puts his
eye ahead of the entire world - and gets away with it - just as Astaire did
with his dancing.
I feel that many of them would not want the world to see the picture
she took, and that others only want the world to see it to say "See what you
did to me?" But this is as much or more about me than about the pictures.
We all see things as we see them. I can't show people shots I took that I
feel make them look bad. Perhaps too much training with the wedding shooter
"Every bride is beautiful, Tony - It's up to you to show that beauty."
>
> > I do like contemporary street shooters like WInogrand (okay, he is
dead,
> >but not for all that long)
>
> You mean he's going to resucitate and do a sequel - "Winogrand III - The
Search
> for Shots"? :-) LOL
From what I gather there is enough film still unprocessed for him to
come out with a book a year for the rest of eternity.
>
> and a fellow named Ray Metzker - I just ordered
> >a
> >book by him.
>
> I think I might've heard his name before but I'm not familiar with his
work.
I just saw a few pieces an decided to order up a book. What I saw I liked
but I don't even remember a single shot right now. THe book should be here
this week.
>
> > The larger format thing is a whole 'nother rant for me. I feel that an
> >awful lot of large format photography is about that smooth tonality and
> >lack
> >of grain -- but I am a content person (back to LIFE I guess) and since I
> >began shooting in the 60s, I'm also quite fond of grain.
>
> You are the Will Rogers of grain? "I never met a grain I didn't like"?
Maybe more liek the Will Gekko of grain. "Grain, for want of a better
word, is good."
Erwitt was another book in the Masters of Contemporary Photography
series.
And you didn't get slapped?
There are those of us who, should we ever find we are marching to
someone else's drummer will chew off our own foot in order to remain out of
step.
>
> Ands if so do you
> >think that is a serious problem with her work.
>
> See above.
>
> > Besides If we mention at least one piece of equipment in every post,
>
> I already mentioned the /my Maxxum 7, your turn... ;-)
>
> >we
> >remain on topic for the newsgroup, and I would hate to have to move over
> >to
> >rec.photo.technique.people - those guys are seriously mentally disturbed.
>
> Oh, you've noticed? ;-) It used to be a lot worse - I've had to subscribe
and
> unsubscribe and re-subscribe and unsubscribe from that group several
times,
> though w/ filters on that problem is largely eliminated.
>
> > I
> >think Annie Lebowitz should get an OM-1 and Sally Mann NEEDS a Leica to
> >chase after those kids.... who must be approaching 40 by now... oh well
> >there are prolly grandkids.
> >
>
> I think Sally isonto other things by now, landscapes, I hear...
When you're pushing 60 it's hard to keep up with kids and drag a 30 pound
rig about too.
I was out shooting some lights tonight and a cat decided to keep me
company. HE kept brushing against the tripod and me, until I was about ready
to go nuts. Imagine what life would be like setting up an 8x10 amidst a
group of 8 year olds.
Getting late. I'm font hunting and not having much luck. I might have to do
a bit of fudging. Typography - the other graphic obsession.
I wonder if we can talk some others into giving an opinion - or are we
putting them all to sleep?
Lewis Lang
36%40typhoon.southeast.rr.com
Hi Tony:
This article/essay/book has grown so long that my AOL newsreader reads
something like “Error Downloading” since it must down load it as a separate
attachment its so long. You might want to break up your next replies into more
separate posts (and/or do more snippings) as must I if I ever intend to get
these posts past my AOL newsreader’s electronic constipation, lol. AOL’s (and
possibly our own) faults not withstanding, I have decided to answer this by
going to google so I’m going to put my own comments in between lots of big
paragraph spaces in addition to putting past comments by the both of us between
two quotes instead of the usual quote arrow signs on the left, I’m sure you’ll
be able to follow along, as they said in the old Beatle’s cartoon (or something
like it)... “just follow the bouncing ball”...
“Groups BETA • Advanced Groups Search
• Groups Help Groups search result 14 for
From: Tony Spadaro (tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com)
Subject: Re: "Sometimes A Fantasy..." (Was Re: "Photojournals" - What equipment
did Linda McCartney Use?)
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.35mm
View: Complete Thread (17 articles) | Original FormatDate: 2001-12-10 00:48:52
PST
>
> Sounds almost like Atget's, no, probably August Sander's study of the people
of
> Germany's various social classes...
There is a great deal of similarity between Sanders and Sutcliffe, but
Sutcliffe was definately more of a "pictorialist" in his outlook while
Sanders was an objectivist - at least in his self-opinion. One has only to
look at the pictures and, as with Atget, one sees the art the shooter
denies.”
By saying Sanders was an objectivist do you mean he supposedly admitted to
doing little interpretation of his subject as if his camera just happened to be
there and document the subject w/ minimal interference and/or minimal
artistry/no artistic statement and/or style trying to be expressed - just
documentation?
“>
> > I read LIFE every week growing up - my mother was a magazine junkie.
> >I
> >think this may be the reason why I tend to shoot in "series" rather than
> >single images.
>
> I love series and appreciate photo essays perhaps better than (or at least as
> much as) anyone else when they are well done. I like to do series in the more
> loose sense of the word - I'm really a single picture taker trying to cram an
> entire narrative into one shot (when I can) so my series are more
> looser/loosely tied by the same thing than the more classic PJ illustration
of
> a theme photo essay like Smith's "Pittsburgh" (no, I haven't seen the book
yet
> though I have seen many photos from the essay), "Spanish Village," etc.
>
> I don't usually tell narrative stories like a photojournalist
> >but I rarely look for that "ONE PERFECT SHOT" that sums up the struggle
> >for
> >existance, the history of western culture, the life of the cosmos, etc.
>
> I'm the exact oppositte in this regard. See above...
Ive also seen your website, so I know this is the way you work. I think
your movie experience may have an influence there.”
I know it has. My desire to make films has not changed, just the medium I make
them in. (35mm still) film is a lot cheaper than either Super 8 or 16mm per
finished shot (definitely cheaper than 16mm and 35mm motion picture film) and
once that (still shot) is over its over and done w/, and no need to drum up
thousands of dollars from a commercial client to do their ideas, just a few
dollars and a bit of inginuity to record my own visions not some record store’s
or fle markets desire to promote their own product. I started off doing
narrative shorts then moved into paid Camp promotion films, independent
documentaries on artists (later shown on cable tv) then commercials for a flea
market, then a large Crazy Eddies-type record store chain on broadcast tv. I
got sick of the feast and famine between independent jobs and wanted to do my
own personal work...
“ I, at one point, bought a
16mm Cine Pathe reflex and then realized what it was going to cost to feed
the thing. So I never shot a foot of movie film. Instead I made "movies"
although certainly not narrative films, on 35mm film, one shot at a time.”
Are you saying that you made some kind of 35mm slide show to be set to music,
or did some kind of animation on movie film or what one frame at a time?
“ My
plans for actual films would have been non-narrative too. I was interested
in motion (still am) not necessarly logic.”
I used to do surreal chase films back in college - a surreal conceptual plot
was loosely hung onto the narrative device of a chase.Done in 16mm, shot w/o
sound but cut to CSN&Y’s “Deja Vu” (my film goes by the same title). Very
strange if not thought provoking... :-)
“ Is this what you mean by working
alone with the 8mm? Making assemblages of semi-un-related motions etc?”
I believe you are referring to the two documentaries I did on artists (in NYU)
not my present surreal conceptual narrative and still life photography. If you
are referring to the documentary films, my main desire was to work on my own
and do my own editing on videotape (after the film was transferred to video
tape). I’m not sure what you mean by the term “assemblages of semi-unrelated
motions etc” - could you go into more detail on this as to what you’re trying
to get at please? Thanks.Some of my still lifes are assemblages/”real life
collages” of 2d cut outs and 3d objects set and photographed in a real life 3d
scene on still film, centered on a narrative situation, but that’s my
surrealistic conceptual still life (_still photography_) so I don’t think you
are referring to that but my prior movie work, right?
“ The one film I planned that I still remember clearly was going to be shot
in the Boston subway - out the front window, against the first movement of a
Vivaldi recorder concerto (I planned to play the recorder for it myself but
never got very good at the instrument). The second movement was going to be
taken from a basement on Charles Street, with all the legs passing by. I
planned to throw in a couple ringers - friends who owned dogs. The third
movment was to be from the last car of a train on the Eln shot at dusk. All
three moviements were planned for B/W which would have cost three times as
much as colour to get processed even back then. I planned to cut the film to
match the phrases of the music - although there would not have been any
change in camera position - just position of the train in the tunnels or the
surrounding city and/or the beings that occupy it.”
Sounds alot like the experimental conceptual loosely narrative short films I
used to make in NYU (before I started doing more “straight” “narrative”
documentaries/”stories” on artists)...
“>
> >Mrs.
> >Reed - if you are still with us on this. I think the biggest difference
> >between the original LIFE and the later version is the Weekly vs Monthly
> >thing. At once a month Life didn't have the immediacy. True there were many
> >stories in the weekly that didn't survive on being current, but there was
> >always that factor. Etna erupted 5 days later the shots were in LIFE. The
> >first clear shots of many events, and the only shots of many others.
>
> One of the advantages of the older Life, or so I am told was that
photographers
> had the luxury of spending many weeks if not months to go in depth on a
> subject/assignment - I think the closest (American) magazine now getting into
> that kind of time/depth is National Geographic - I can't speak for the
European
> magazines... For imediacy there is no way the new or old Life or even the
> current Newsweek can compete w/ TV, just the natures of both the respective
> mediums and the fact that both the public's I.Q./attention span and interest
> lie in the quick sound/video bytes of TV. The best of TV coverage in terms of
> being in-depth tends to be either the non-"visual" interview shows like
> "Charlie Rose," "Dateline," and "60 Minutes" (haven't watchee this one in a
> looong time though...) - I'm sure I've left some good shows out but you get
the
> drift... If I'm remembering correctly, the new Life did some good coverage of
> the Mt. St. Helen's erruption back in the early '80's...
Immediacy is now so immediate.”
I love that phrase, its almost like saying ‘redundancy is so redundant’ ;-)
:-).
“ I remember when Oswald was shot (I
didn't see it live but about half the people I knew did) and we all realised
together, the watchers, the newspaper men, the tv men, etc that tv was going
to be the major component of every story eventually.”
I was three years old when that happenend so I really don’t remember any of it
(except from the media which played the film footage and showed the still photo
of the event many times over the years since then). I think it is one of the
few events that I think were equally powerful in both motion picture film as
well as still photo medium - Robert Kennedy’s assasination on film and the shot
of him lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood w/ the kitchen attendant?
by his side is another one. The WTC attack, despite the re-iterated flag
rasising still shot and other good still coverage is by far a video “event” and
whilst the Eddie Adams “assasination” shot and young naked (napalmed?)
Vietnameese girl running down a road were both shot on motion picture film and
still film, for me, it is by far the still image (along w/ the kent State
National Guard massacre) that is tatooed in my mind. Hardly portraits in the
traditional sense of the word since they are PJ of events/people but still the
most powerful portraits I’ve seen by far and they leave most Karsh/pictorialist
portraits behind in their power and yes “immediacy” even many years after they
were taken. On a more “fun” note, so does Harry Benson’s (semi-staged?) shot of
The Beatle’s pillow fight around 1964 or so. I consider many of Karsh’s
“portaits” magnificent toilet paper in
comparison/power/immediacy/spontaneity/staying power - though I do admit that
churchill shot of his was a great one, the others just seem like lighting
excersise to me...
“ It took a while, but no
one looks to the news magazines for actual "news" anymore. It has to be
analysis - cause there is nothing new about it by the time the newspapers
come out. When the magazines hit the stand it's history.”
True.
“>
ank.”
He actually looks like we’ve just played a game of poker in the 19th century
Old West and gives me the feeling of “either we can share a glass of this Vodka
or I can watch you take a leak from all the holes I fired into your body for
cheating at cards” (I don’t gamble w/ cards/etc. nor do I cheat at cards, this
is just the impression I got from the photo, though your interpretation is
equally if not more valid, I am just saying my slant on things/this photo
here...).
“> > I'm afraid I'm not 100% sure which one is Hurrell. There are a number
both the pissboy and Louie VX - It's great to be King.”
Right about the Harvey Korman/Hedley La Marr quote.Of course, if you’re Tom
Petty, “its good to be king”... ...”Now German go into your dance”... :-)
and Ms Lamarr sued Corel and won.”
Sorry, I still think I haven’t seen the shot, but if she looks anything like
Hrvey Korman in the shot I now know why she sued ;-)
“>
> > On that subject , the most telling shot of Garbo is the one Steichen
> >did.
> >She's yanking her hair back, her face fierce, teeth clenched. She's still
> >beautiful, but you can see all the frustration of star status in that shot.
> >Her life is not under her control. She is not entirely happy to be a
> >"product".
>
> I wonder if HCB, Eisenstaedt or anybody else ever got a true "portrait" of
> Marilyn Monroe she always seemed to have a face that was really a smiling
mask,
> almost like a modern Mona Lisa, exposed for the world to see yet still very
> much a mystery as to who the real person really was, she was exposing her
celeb
> face/persona but never seemed to expose her true self.
I know many people mentioned that she "turned Marilyn Monroe on like a
lightbulb" whenever cameras appeared.”
She sounds like a sexy version of Mary Tyler Moore - ‘who can turn the world on
with her smile?’...
“Though her function was
bothers me when people do NOT march to a different drum.”
Amen to that, right bacatcha and sock it to me baby! ;-)
“ I view the work of
others, I have certainly tried out styles, I most assuredly steal
techniques, and even shoot some of the same places. But my copies (or
Homages if one wants to be like the Hitchcock clones who made bad movies in
the 80s) are not for the public. THey are for me. They are my lessons, my
raw material. They are what I hope to synthesise into the "Spadaro style". I
may never actually find it, but I consider the search to be enough to make
my life enjoyable.”
I understand and agree and even enjoy various people’s “style”, but “vision” is
always more important to me. “Style” to me always smacks of surface
superficiality and whilst being the most obvious, and in some cases, most
enticing aspect of a good photographer’s or even a good hack photographer’s
work, unless the shot has something to say to my mind or emotions it leaves me
dry. I love the use of motion, particularly of Ernst Haas’s creation motion
blur studies shot on ancient ultra slow kodachrome, but the style suited his
subject matter and wasn’t an add on... Too many people try to think of style
first (and last) and never get around to the substance so you get clones and
clones of clones. And like in the film “Multiplicity,” (one of my favorite
films) starring Michael Keaton as both himself and his clones, each successive
generation of clones made from clones gets progressively dumber and dumber
(another decent film, by the way)...
“ I can't see any reason in the world to take one of those artcic polar
bear tours and come back with my own shots of the bears surrounding the
truck.”
You might as well just save the film and the money and the trouble and by a
postcard w/ the image on it or by a photo book w/ that image in it...
“ I have no desire to catch the perfect expression on the bride's face
as she cuts the cake.”
Yes, but wouldn’t it make a great shot to see the expression on the bride’s
face as the cake came to life and cut a piece of her, lol, and, no I’m not
being mysogenistic, just surrealistic and anthropomorphistic... :-)
“ I don't want to shoot some heavy metal guitarist
bending the 17th fret of the third string while jerking back on his heels,
grimacing at the ceiling.”
I would. Especially if the reason they are grimacing at the ceiling is shown, a
giant wedding cake w/ a rampaging appetitie is about to cut and devour the rock
guitarist... “Nightmare On Pastry Street Part VIII - The Revenge of The
Goutmeisters.”
“ I recognise that others do -- and it's a good
thing too. Someone has to get the picture, but I really don't want it to be
me.”
Amen to that w/ a non-fat dairy latte’ on top ;-)
“ Like your experience at Brooks, I spent 2 years working with a
professional. He wanted me to shoot weddings for him - he already had three
guys shooting at least two weddings a week for him. I learned lighting from
him on his model shoots and his product shoots. It was a small town in
Upstate New York, and he kept saying that if I wanted to make a living in
photography here, I had to do it all and take any assignment. I decided I
didn't want to make a living in photography. I wanted the freedom to do what
I wanted to do without having to please the customer.”
Actually I would like the freedom to do my own work and yet get paid for it
anyways, but I haven’t found a way to make that jive as aliving yet - not much
call for 5 reddish orange Hitlers marching towards you w/ various products in
front of three Uncle Sams pointing “I Want You” at you nowadays (my
surrealistic narrative conceptual still life shot “SOUL DADDY: I WANT YOU/HE’S
SO HEAVY!”...
“ I think he never
understood that I wasn't rejecting his way of earning a living, and simply
didn't want it for myself. He was a man of boundless energy and found
weddings great fun, liked nothing better than to soup up a dozen rolls of
film between dinner and going out to shoot the girls at the modeling school,
and was ready in the morning to go to his day job, and still had time to
visit the parents of the bride and sell five times as many pictures as the
original contract called for. He loved it all. I was 20 years younger and
couldn't keep up.”
I understand. Photography for me is “soul food” (a way of expressing my
spiritual/etc. convictions) not McDonald’s or any other kind of fast food ie.
selling as many sausages/photos of something or someone I don’t care about as I
can - money alone is not a reason to create, especially when its used to make
me create “more Parks sausages ma” - clones of photos we’ve all seen a million
times before w/ only the face changed to protect the guilty... I don’t get
emotionally fed or energistically charged up from exposing film for money
alone, I need to express myself in my photos, not what others want me to
re-express in their photos/”visual clones”...
“>
> I
> >am
> >also very fond of Art Deco, and no one could call the art deco photographers
> >anything but pictorialists.
>
> I haven't hear dof the term Art Deco being used in association with
> photographers and especially with pictorialists, could you give me some
> examples/names of "Art Deco photographers"?
I don't think anyone was ever an Art Deco photographer, but many of the
pictorialists were very much into the themes - not just shooting pictures of
art deco objects, but creating shots in the studio. There was even an Art
Deco painter, named Lempica, who combined deco styling, with cubism in
portraiture. very very different stuff.”
Never heard of Lempica, I’ll have to do a search on him/her/whomever...
“ Reviera had a lot of it too - I
remember one portrait of a redhead wearing a dress with a hem like the
oversized lillies that surround her.”
I am very familiar w/ Diego Riviera and his wife the excellent surrealist Frida
Kahlo, if that’s who you’re referring to (the husband). His murals are superb.I
am going to have to re-examine his design elements, I do believe he was
influenced by the Cubists, Picasso/Braque/etc.though...
“Unless you are talking about
display.”
Its still up to the artist, at least while he’s alive if not after, how much
and what quality of work is shown. Picasso is claimed to have said he was
guilty of faking/creating many fake Picassos (ie.I am guessing he signed his
name to his some of prolific works that if not were “imitations of himself/his
work” were not up to his usual standards..)
“>
I saw a scene from that film, truly astounding, but I don’t think I’ve seen the
entire film by itself. By an “eye ahead of the entire world” you mean what
exactly?
“>
> I didn't like
> >it until recently. I felt he was too cruel. Now I find the shots much more
> >interesting, and less sarcastic.”
Personal note, to recaptiulate, Tony is talking about Bill Owen’s “Suburbia”
documentary work/book in the paragraph just above, not Avedon (so no one gets
confused...).
“>
> I loved his style of documentary photgraphy, some of its slant was o personal
> it reminds me of the next photographer you are going to talk about, Arbus.
>
> I don't own any book of Diane Arbus
> >shots -- she was too cruel.
>
> I never found her work to be cruel, just loving PJilistic snapshots (perhaps
> snapshots is too "shallow" a word here) of people on the fringe. What did you
> find particularly cruel about her work, her subjects or her approach to those
> subjects? What did you find cruel about her approach to her subjects? Her
shots
> ring a bell inside my mind that never stops reverberating at both the level
of
> head and heart - when I close my mind I can still see her images in my head,
> the mark of a great photogrpher, their images become "close personal friends"
> to you (even if you do find their subjects to be odd or repulsive or strange,
> etc.).
I feel that many of them would not want the world to see the picture
she took, and that others only want the world to see it to say "See what you
did to me?" But this is as much or more about me than about the pictures.
We all see things as we see them. I can't show people shots I took that I
feel make them look bad. Perhaps too much training with the wedding shooter
"Every bride is beautiful, Tony - It's up to you to show that beauty."”
What was beautiful about Arbus’s work was the humanity behind the
strangeness/the ‘ugliness’ if you must of her subjects. It was this empathy I
believe she was trying to bring out of her subjects. I see them more as loving
PJ snapshots than ugly laboratory slide specimens/documents of the ugly (as I
think many view her work). I think her photos are beautiful on a much more
deeper level than most portraits and especially a much more deeper level than
most cookie cutter “beautiful” bridal portraits. There is more to beauty than
looks, there is an emotional resonance in Arbus’s image which is far more
lasting in my heart soul then any superficial “fashion photography/classical
posing portrait type photography” beauty that most people mistake for real
beauty. Even in their so called “ugliness”/”twistedness” there is something
human, something almost nobel about the human spirit, no matter how lowly
depicted, whether its a kid w/ a hand grenade in Washington Square Park or a
Trailer park? woman holding her “monkey baby” a la a Virgin Mary w/ Child
picture overtones, which can’t be denied.Even ugliness can be beautiful if
photographed with empathy.
“>
> > I do like contemporary street shooters like WInogrand (okay, he is dead,
> >but not for all that long)
>
> You mean he's going to resucitate and do a sequel - "Winogrand III - The
Search
> for Shots"? :-) LOL
From what I gather there is enough film still unprocessed for him to
come out with a book a year for the rest of eternity.”
Actually he probably has enough film (formerly undeveloped but now developed,
I’m assuming) to make a feature length motion picture every year from now to
the rest of eternity, lol ;-)
“>
> and a fellow named Ray Metzker - I just ordered
> >a
> >book by him.
>
> I think I might've heard his name before but I'm not familiar with his
work.
I just saw a few pieces an decided to order up a book. What I saw I liked
but I don't even remember a single shot right now. THe book should be here
this week.”
Ray Metzker, is he the guy that used to go around with his Leica rangefinder in
the “60’s shooting documentary street type photography? I think/thought I might
have seen his work (if I’m talking about the right/same guy) in a book that
included several photographers in it...
“>
series.”
I know (he said smilingly looking over his shoulder from his computer to his
book shelves... ;-))
“(more for his
And you didn't get slapped?”
Actually, I did, how did you know? (but that’s another story...) :-)
“(almost lost/"burned" a friend that way under the hot
> lights, lol) as well as all 3 formats (4x5", 6x6" and 35mm (mostly Leica R
for
> the quality)) for still lifes. But for me, format choice, just like film
choice
> is a very personal preference and if someone asked me/told me to photograph
in
> a particular format for money I don't think I'd do it or I'd do it in my own
> format choice because I thought it (whatever the format choice) would be the
> best choice for me and either they like and paid for the final results or
> didn't. But I rarely do commercial work anymore. And my work is not about how
> many subtle transitions you can count”
What I meant ot say here but left out a word was that ‘And my work is not about
how many subtle _tonal_ transitions’...
“ but in the expression of my vision,
step.”
That must be the reason I’m limping and/or hopping nowadays, lol ;-)
“>
> Ands if so do you
> >think that is a serious problem with her work.
>
> See above.
>
> > Besides If we mention at least one piece of equipment in every post,
>
> I already mentioned the /my Maxxum 7, your turn... ;-)
>
> >we
> >remain on topic for the newsgroup, and I would hate to have to move over
> >to
> >rec.photo.technique.people - those guys are seriously mentally disturbed.
>
> Oh, you've noticed? ;-) It used to be a lot worse - I've had to subscribe and
> unsubscribe and re-subscribe and unsubscribe from that group several times,
> though w/ filters on that problem is largely eliminated.
>
> > I
> >think Annie Lebowitz should get an OM-1 and Sally Mann NEEDS a Leica to
> >chase after those kids.... who must be approaching 40 by now... oh well
> >there are prolly grandkids.
> >
>
> I think Sally isonto other things by now, landscapes, I hear...
When you're pushing 60 it's hard to keep up with kids and drag a 30 pound
rig about too.
I was out shooting some lights tonight and a cat decided to keep me
company. HE kept brushing against the tripod and me, until I was about ready
to go nuts. Imagine what life would be like setting up an 8x10 amidst a
group of 8 year olds.”
Her kids must be tame compared to me and my brothers, we were real terors
growing up (I proudly managed to demloish at least one if not several marble
tables by just jumping up and down on them and used to get locked in my room w/
a hook by my “baby sitter” for misbehaving but that was before I owned a Nikon
;-)) and would’ve given anyone from Hitler to Mother Teresa a nervous breakdown
(I think Mother Teresa would’ve seriously considered becoming a Nazi just to
keep order around us during our childhood “wild time” :-))
“Getting late. I'm font hunting and not having much luck. I might have to do
a bit of fudging. Typography - the other graphic obsession.
I wonder if we can talk some others into giving an opinion - or are we
putting them all to sleep?”
Nah... I’m sorry I was having a bit of narcolepsy could you repeat the question
and add some Ovaltine please (just kidding, about the first part, not the
Ovaltine, I’m getting thirsty for a chocolatey treat...)? Actually I’d be glad
to hear from others too but this seems more like a two sided Simon and
Garfunkel/Lennon & McCartney collaberation so far and I’m just as happy to
continue this two sided conversation but would not be amiss if anybody else
wanted to chime in w/ their takes so long asi t didn’t devolve into an on topic
equipment argument/brand war ;-)...
“As for Annie, I
> wonder how she'd get on w/ using her old Nikons theses days...
>
> >
> >
> >--
> >http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
> >The Camera-ist's Manifesto
> >a Radical approach to photography.
> >Old site with some pictures still up at
> >http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
> >The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
> >overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
>
> Regards (and give me the OM-1(n), Leibovitz can afford her own...),
>
> Lewis
>
> I've set (anti-spam) controls to allow in only people on my list. If you want
> to be on my list contact me through the newsgroup. I regret the
inconvenience.
> Thanks.
>
> Check out my photos at "LEWISVISION":
>
> http://members.aol.com/Lewisvisn/home.htm
Post a follow-up to this message
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©2001 Google”
No its not, its © 2001 Lewis Lang and Tony Spadero you Googlemeister web page
you!
Regards,
Tony Spadaro
started a new thread on Karsh. Later I'll mine this thread for other things
and start a couple more . Please do the same - if the others get annoyed
they get annoyed. This is really a better place to discuss photographers and
thier work than the other forums. This is the forum that seems to have the
most actual photographers. The technique forums are more about people
promoting websites or crazies fighting battles that will rage until they all
die.
Paul Rubin
> The technique forums are more about people
> promoting websites or crazies fighting battles that will rage until they all
> die.
You mean like Annika's EOS1V site, and battles like Leica vs. SLR and
Canon vs. Nikon?
Tony Spadaro
haven't seen a real flame war. I've tuned in after months away and found the
same "soandso is a dirty $^%$% ^%$&^% and his mother &^%&@ the entire 7th
fleet." threads still in progress.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Old site with some pictures still up at
http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
"Paul Rubin" <phr-n...@nightsong.com> wrote in message
news:7xu1uym...@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
Tony Spadaro
> doing little interpretation of his subject as if his camera just happened
to be
> there and document the subject w/ minimal interference and/or minimal
> artistry/no artistic statement and/or style trying to be expressed - just
> documentation?
>
others classify him. Sutcliffe was a pictorialist and consciously
romanticised his subjects. Whether there is a real difference or not is sort
of a question. I know more that one critic who considers Ansel Adams to be a
pictorialist, along with Weston and Steichen.
> Are you saying that you made some kind of 35mm slide show to be set to
music,
> or did some kind of animation on movie film or what one frame at a time?
Mostly no. I have done things like combine shots onto one frame but I
usually just combine shots into themes. The Noctonaut was al grouping of a
number of related series of night shots into one large folder. There was one
movie of about 8 still frames within that and when I learn how to use this
$%#^&% web publishing program I intend to animate it. A related "movie" was
"Steeple" - long exposures of a lit steeple with people passing on the
sidewalk. THe people are blurs the steeple is sharp. That sort of thing.
I'd like to see some of your films - commercial and personal.
Drat - i just deleted your "chase film" reference. It reminded me of the
one project I ever worked on with others in this respect. We never filmed
it, of course but it would have been fun. A parody of L'avventura" titled
"Destiny's Fate - and subtitled "The Fate of Destiny". It was going to be
silent with un-synched sound. I did the screenplay and a friend was going to
film it on super 8 but schedules never came together.
Donlevy
> He actually looks like we've just played a game of poker in the 19th
century
> Old West and gives me the feeling of "either we can share a glass of this
Vodka
> or I can watch you take a leak from all the holes I fired into your body
for
> cheating at cards" (I don't gamble w/ cards/etc. nor do I cheat at cards,
this
> is just the impression I got from the photo, though your interpretation is
> equally if not more valid, I am just saying my slant on things/this photo
> here...).
Just as valid as my interpretation. I love shots like that that can mean
different things to different people or even to the same person at different
times.
>
Marilyn
> "Though her function was
> > "sex goddess" in the Hollywood of the '50's to the early '60's, it seems
that
> > almost all the photographers were merely perpetuating that glamor image
much
> > the same way Andy Warhol reproduced both her and the dollar bill over
and
> over
> > again but w/o Warhol's obvious "mass production/consumption" visual
> > irony/social commentary and Pop Art distanced sensibility.
And yet he was very involved at the same time - Warhol. He was as caught
up in the Marilyn mystique as everyone else.
> There's no low art only low appreciation of art. I like (some)
> > Pop Art and even like some "bad art" (beyond naiive art, works of art
> (usually
> > paintings as opposed to photography in this category of "bad art") that
are
> > crappy because they look like botched/visual abortions yet they still do
have
> > something fascinating to them - saw an exhibition of bad art in Santa
Barbara
> > about ten years back and it stuck with me/made an impression on me - I
found
> it
> > more interesting than the perfectly technically executed but dryer than
a
> Bert
> > Stern ad for Vodka ;-) commercial product (portraits and still lifes)
> > "craptography" that I was subjected to and unsuccessfullly forced to
emulate
> > back at Brooks Institute of Photography, but that's another story and a
> > life-time, or just about, ago...)
Sounds like me and Music Composition classes. "Mr Spadaro, we do not
have our soprano swoop down into Baritone range" - Mozart did it! "You are
not Mozart Mr. Spadaro. C minus unless you fix that bit by the next class."
I usually didn't.
Mortensen - There is a discussion of Mortensen going on at
rec.photo.darkroom right now. I plan to read the rest tonight and there are
some links I want to try.
> I understand and agree and even enjoy various people's "style", but
"vision" is
> always more important to me. "Style" to me always smacks of surface
> superficiality and whilst being the most obvious, and in some cases, most
> enticing aspect of a good photographer's or even a good hack
photographer's
> work, unless the shot has something to say to my mind or emotions it
leaves me
> dry.
But that was exactly what I was talking about. I feel my "vision" or
"visions" since I practice a sort of multitasking photography, is pretty
much what it always has been, just more mature now than 35 or 50 years ago.
In many ways I'm a formalist corrupted by LIFE and LOOK into
photo-journalistic design and solipsism - to say nothing of bad spelling.
It's the style that has never really settled down -- and perhaps that is
really the way I want it.
> " I have no desire to catch the perfect expression on the bride's face
> as she cuts the cake."
> Yes, but wouldn't it make a great shot to see the expression on the
bride's
> face as the cake came to life and cut a piece of her, lol, and, no I'm not
> being mysogenistic, just surrealistic and anthropomorphistic... :-)
I've had discussions with wedding shooters about staging the "Wedding From
Hell" Every shot straight out of Modern Bride Meets Psychology Today.
>
Actually I would like the freedom to do my own work and yet get paid for it
> anyways, but I haven't found a way to make that jive as aliving yet - not
much
> call for 5 reddish orange Hitlers marching towards you w/ various products
in
> front of three Uncle Sams pointing "I Want You" at you nowadays (my
> surrealistic narrative conceptual still life shot "SOUL DADDY: I WANT
YOU/HE'S
> SO HEAVY!"...
I've decided my posters for 2002 are going to have cyrillic lettering for
the text. Lots of commercial potential there.
I came to wish I had never tried to make a living playing and teaching
music. I enjoyed it so much more when it was not important to get it just
like the record or else we'll get another band. Might have had a different
opinion if other poor sods were having to get it just like My records.
> Never heard of Lempica, I'll have to do a search on him/her/whomever..
A woman, first name Trina I believe, operated in the 20s and 30s mostly
amazing work. I was reminded of her the other day looking at a couple
mysteries from the 1990s with cover illustrations essentially stolen
directly from her paintings. >
> I am very familiar w/ Diego Riviera and his wife the excellent surrealist
Frida
> Kahlo, if that's who you're referring to (the husband). His murals are
superb.I
> am going to have to re-examine his design elements, I do believe he was
> influenced by the Cubists, Picasso/Braque/etc.though...
Yep - there are a lot of deco elements in his style too. But then ther eis
a lot of cubism in deco so...
Snipped the rest for brevity. I'll look at it again tomorrow and see what
can go into a new thread. This is more fun than a garage full of gorillas.
Lewis Lang
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>Date: Mon, Dec 10, 2001 11:44 PM
>Message-id: <7xu1uym...@ruckus.brouhaha.com>
>
>"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> writes:
>> The technique forums are more about people
>> promoting websites or crazies fighting battles that will rage until they
>all
>> die.
>
>You mean like Annika's EOS1V site
Annika has an EOS1v site - what's th URL?
Lewis Lang
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>Date: Mon, Dec 10, 2001 11:21 PM
>Message-id: <LrbR7.231141$HA6.40...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
> I'm having trouble following it too. I've decided to break it up a bit
>and
>started a new thread on Karsh. Later I'll mine this thread for other things
>and start a couple more . Please do the same - if the others get annoyed
>they get annoyed. This is really a better place to discuss photographers
>and
>thier work than the other forums. This is the forum that seems to have the
>most actual photographers. The technique forums are more about people
>promoting websites or crazies fighting battles that will rage until they
>all
>die.
LOL Tony:
Perhaps a new newsgroup should be started - how does
rec.photo.technique.argument w/ both tips on how to argue and how to flame and
how to turn cyber vendettas into a life long obsession, better yet, that's what
wrecked.people used to be for... ;-)
Lewis Lang
“Where fantasy ends... obsession begins” (no, must’nt become commercialized)...
“Sugar frosted Nikons, theeeeeeyyyyyyre greaaaat!!!” - help! :-)
>Subject: Re: "Sometimes A Fantasy..." (Was Re: "Photojournals" - What
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>From: "Tony Spadaro" tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com
>Date: Tue, Dec 11, 2001 7:31 AM
>Message-id: <vDiR7.232796$HA6.41...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>
>
>> By saying Sanders was an objectivist do you mean he supposedly admitted
>to
>> doing little interpretation of his subject as if his camera just happened
>to be
>> there and document the subject w/ minimal interference and/or minimal
>> artistry/no artistic statement and/or style trying to be expressed - just
>> documentation?
>>
> I don't know if he called himself an objectivist but that is the way
>others classify him. Sutcliffe was a pictorialist and consciously
>romanticised his subjects. Whether there is a real difference or not is
>sort
>of a question. I know more that one critic who considers Ansel Adams to
>be a
>pictorialist, along with Weston and Steichen.
>
How does that one critic define pictorialsim and how/why does he include
Adams/et al...?
>> Are you saying that you made some kind of 35mm slide show to be set to
>music,
>> or did some kind of animation on movie film or what one frame at a time?
>
> Mostly no. I have done things like combine shots onto one frame but I
>usually just combine shots into themes.
How do you combine (still? movie?) shots on one frame? Do you do multiple
exposures, or perhaps I am missing the gist of what you’re trying to do...
The Noctonaut was al grouping of
>a
>number of related series of night shots into one large folder. There was
>one
>movie of about 8 still frames within that and when I learn how to use this
>$%#^&% web publishing program I intend to animate it.
Are you using “movie” in the loose term here such as “animatic” - as in an
animated slide show or story board?
A related "movie"
>was
>"Steeple" - long exposures of a lit steeple with people passing on the
>sidewalk. THe people are blurs the steeple is sharp. That sort of thing.
> I'd like to see some of your films - commercial and personal.
>
I think they’re on Beta if I can still find them, the 16mm personal films
(actually College shorts) have separate film and mag stock, I don’t have the
funds right now to do a video transfer(s) for them. If you have some of your
films on tape (VHS, my Beta’s been long busted) I wouldn’t mind doing a
temporary swap - my copy, on VHS (if I can find any besides Beta) are probably
several generations away from the original and not stellar in quality, but they
should give you an idea of what I was able to accomplish (or not ;-)) w/ early
1980’s technology.
> Drat - i just deleted your "chase film" reference. It reminded me of the
>one project I ever worked on with others in this respect. We never filmed
>it, of course but it would have been fun. A parody of L'avventura" titled
>"Destiny's Fate - and subtitled "The Fate of Destiny". It was going to be
>silent with un-synched sound. I did the screenplay and a friend was going
>to
>film it on super 8 but schedules never came together.
>
Was it fate or destiny the reason why it never came to pass? ;-) - sorry for
the rather obvious joke, a shame really, sounds like the beginnings of an
interesting concept though...
> Donlevy
>> He actually looks like we've just played a game of poker in the 19th
>century
>> Old West and gives me the feeling of "either we can share a glass of this
>Vodka
>> or I can watch you take a leak from all the holes I fired into your body
>for
>> cheating at cards" (I don't gamble w/ cards/etc. nor do I cheat at cards,
>this
>> is just the impression I got from the photo, though your interpretation
>is
>> equally if not more valid, I am just saying my slant on things/this photo
>> here...).
> Just as valid as my interpretation. I love shots like that that can mean
>different things to different people or even to the same person at different
>times.
>>
Yep, those are the shots that “live” :-).
>Marilyn
>> "Though her function was
>> > "sex goddess" in the Hollywood of the '50's to the early '60's, it seems
>that
>> > almost all the photographers were merely perpetuating that glamor image
>much
>> > the same way Andy Warhol reproduced both her and the dollar bill over
>and
>> over
>> > again but w/o Warhol's obvious "mass production/consumption" visual
>> > irony/social commentary and Pop Art distanced sensibility.
> And yet he was very involved at the same time - Warhol. He was as caught
>up in the Marilyn mystique as everyone else.
>
That’s probably true too...
Just give her/him/the teacher the same answer that was given to Mozart in the
film “Amadeus” - “fix it? ‘Too many notes!” - alternatively you could do a
scene from “Taxi Driver”... “You tawkin to me? You tawkin to me?” or “Go a
head, make my staff”...
>Mortensen - There is a discussion of Mortensen going on at
>rec.photo.darkroom right now. I plan to read the rest tonight and there
>are
>some links I want to try.
>
>> I understand and agree and even enjoy various people's "style", but
>"vision" is
>> always more important to me. "Style" to me always smacks of surface
>> superficiality and whilst being the most obvious, and in some cases, most
>> enticing aspect of a good photographer's or even a good hack
>photographer's
>> work, unless the shot has something to say to my mind or emotions it
>leaves me
>> dry.
> But that was exactly what I was talking about. I feel my "vision" or
>"visions" since I practice a sort of multitasking photography, is pretty
>much what it always has been, just more mature now than 35 or 50 years ago.
>In many ways I'm a formalist corrupted by LIFE and LOOK into
>photo-journalistic design and solipsism - to say nothing of bad spelling.
LOL (“corrupted by Life/Look into bad spelling” ;-))
>It's the style that has never really settled down -- and perhaps that is
>really the way I want it.
>
Actually, part of me wants a “style” that I can settle down into but the other
part of me, the “vision” part always ends up beating it over the head and
Chineese water torturing it till it gives in...
Vision: Look here style, no two bit styles going to pidgeon hole me into
expressing my vision, if I want to do a lyrical, I ‘ll do a lyrical, if I want
to do it surreal, I’ll do it surreal, if I want to do it PJillistic I’ll do it
PJillistic. Nobody’s going to stop me, shee? Not even Courageous Cat and Minute
Mouse shee? Nyah... Nyah...!!!
>> " I have no desire to catch the perfect expression on the bride's face
>> as she cuts the cake."
>
>> Yes, but wouldn't it make a great shot to see the expression on the
>bride's
>> face as the cake came to life and cut a piece of her, lol, and, no I'm
>not
>> being mysogenistic, just surrealistic and anthropomorphistic... :-)
>
> I've had discussions with wedding shooters about staging the "Wedding
>From
>Hell" Every shot straight out of Modern Bride Meets Psychology Today.
>>
“Bride of Young Frankenstein meets the Wolfman Jack”? Forget about the
preacher, the first thing the couple to be will have to do is hire a lifelong
therapist/couples counselor, LOL...
> Actually I would like the freedom to do my own work and yet get paid for
>it
>> anyways, but I haven't found a way to make that jive as aliving yet -
>not
>much
>> call for 5 reddish orange Hitlers marching towards you w/ various products
>in
>> front of three Uncle Sams pointing "I Want You" at you nowadays (my
>> surrealistic narrative conceptual still life shot "SOUL DADDY: I WANT
>YOU/HE'S
>> SO HEAVY!"...
> I've decided my posters for 2002 are going to have cyrillic lettering
>for
>the text. Lots of commercial potential there.
>
Is Cyrill the tenth planet? Might go over big there, along w/ Fig Newtons and
Sir Isaac Newton...
> I came to wish I had never tried to make a living playing and teaching
>music. I enjoyed it so much more when it was not important to get it just
>like the record or else we'll get another band.
Are you a session man? Jazz? Rock? Classical? Cyrillic?
Might have had a different
>opinion if other poor sods were having to get it just like My records.
>
You mean if the other poor sods were working on your own record?, I’m not sure
I get the gist of what your saying here...
>> Never heard of Lempica, I'll have to do a search on him/her/whomever..
> A woman, first name Trina I believe, operated in the 20s and 30s mostly
>amazing work. I was reminded of her the other day looking at a couple
>mysteries from the 1990s with cover illustrations essentially stolen
>directly from her paintings. >
>
Thanks for letting me know about her, maybe there’s some of her work upon the
web thatI can view...
>> I am very familiar w/ Diego Riviera and his wife the excellent surrealist
>Frida
>> Kahlo, if that's who you're referring to (the husband). His murals are
>superb.I
>> am going to have to re-examine his design elements, I do believe he was
>> influenced by the Cubists, Picasso/Braque/etc.though...
> Yep - there are a lot of deco elements in his style too. But then ther
>eis
>a lot of cubism in deco so...
>
Cubism and Deco were great until they merged in the ‘70’s and became “Disco,”
that’s when I lost interest...
> Snipped the rest for brevity. I'll look at it again tomorrow and see what
>can go into a new thread. This is more fun than a garage full of gorillas.
>--
You have a garage full of gorillas, I’m jealous... I only have a basement full
of baboons and a pantry full of talking Orangutans...
>http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
>The Camera-ist's Manifesto
>a Radical approach to photography.
>Old site with some pictures still up at
>http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/magor/tony
>The Homestead site has been closed due to a vast
>overbilling, and so funny goings on from Homestead.
Regards,
leicaddict
thread I've read in years. It shows a depth of understanding, and love
of, photography. Something I had not seen, and most certainly, had not
appreciated, in you before. For what it's worth, Lewis and you
certainly have my full support.
Glenn (Leicaddict) Travis
"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> wrote in message news:<LrbR7.231141$HA6.40...@typhoon.southeast.rr.com>...
Lewis Lang
equipment
>did Linda McCartney Use?)
>Date: Tue, Dec 11, 2001 1:59 PM
>Message-id: <2844ee43.01121...@posting.google.com>
>
>Please keep these threads going Tony, this is the most fascinating
>thread I've read in years. It shows a depth of understanding, and love
>of, photography. Something I had not seen, and most certainly, had not
>appreciated, in you before. For what it's worth, Lewis and you
>certainly have my full support.
>
>Glenn (Leicaddict) Travis
Thanks for your support, Glenn.
Mr kibria
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