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Evans, Photography and Beaches

James R Mellor wrote the exhaustive biography of Walker Evans, a remarkable book (ISBN 046509077x) unfortunately not quite finished before Mellor’s death in 1997, and a book I recommend to all. The final section of the final chapter that he completed is about the relationship between Evans and Frank and I think had he lived he would have explored more fully some of the questions this section raises.

In it, Mellor quotes (p553) from the wall label written by Evans for his nine pictures in a show containing work by him, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and August Sander presented by Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, ‘Diogenes with a Camera III‘ in January 1956. (Other shows in this series of five from 1952-1961 included work by Edward Weston, Frederick Sommer, Harry Callahan, Eliot Porter, Gene Smith, Paul Strand, Shirley C Burden, Esther Bubley, Man Ray, Todd Webb, Tosh Matsumoto, Lucien Clergue, Yasuhiro Ishimoto…)

Diogenes was of course a seeker after truth who rejected social norms, lived on the streets in a barrel on a diet of onions and was the great cynic, debunking the values and institutions of his times. Certainly he was a very “minded” guy who made himself a “King of the Street” – and it was a few words with John Benton-Harris that set my mind wandering after a quotation from Walker Evans.

Tod Papageorge in his thought-provoking essay ‘Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An essay on Influence‘ written in 1981 (Yale University Art Gallery, ISBN 0894670158, text now available in The Missing Criticism series, which republishes out-of-print writing on photography) had earlier quoted this label in its entirety as a footnote on page 3:

“Valid photography, like humor, seems to be too serious a matter to talk about seriously. If, in a note, it cant be defined weightily, what it is not can be stated with the utmost finality. It is not the image of Secretary Dulles descending from a plane. It is not cute cats, nor touchdowns, nor nudes; motherhood; arrangements of manufacturers products. Under no circumstances is it anything ever anywhere near a beach. In short it is not a lie a cliché somebody elses idea. It is prime vision combined with quality of feeling, no less.”

(I was pleased I could still find my copy of Papageorge’s book – secondhand it now sells for around $2-400, and althoughit is good to see the text republished on the web, without the images referred to by bracketed numbers throughout the text the reader has a certain amount of detective work to do. Mellor’s biography is a real bargain second-hand – unless you can find it locally you are likely to pay more for postage than the book – and there are many, many more pages to read.)

Perhaps “under no circumstances is it anything ever anywhere near a beach” is worth bearing in mind for the holiday season (although of course it was aimed directly towards Edward Weston.) When there are rather fewer (if any) posts from me over the coming few weeks at least you will know not to expect a deluge of beach images on my return.

Kings of the Street

John Benton-Harris looks at:

Henri Cartier-Bresson & Helen Levitt, ‘Side By Side‘
Laurence Miller Gallery, 20 West 57th Street, New York
(5 June to 14 August, 2008)

All things being equal (which they never are,) we who use photography to communicate should be encouraged to be courageous, minded and to speak from the heart, even while working to fill our pockets – as it once was in America. But the commercial world has become smaller, narrower, dumber, as well as much greedier, particularly in recent years.And as an American, who has resided here in England as long as I have, I pine the loss of more mature and optimistic times in a place where anything was possible as long as we made the effort to work towards it.

And thats the most honest declaration I can provide others with as to why I still return to New York once or twice yearly, but continuing to speak frankly, its to protect and fan that flame that still is in me to stay alight and grow. And also because here in Never Never Land, the UK, there is no home-grown history of serious individual expression or mature leadership, that could spark such a light. Here we merely continue to produce a glut of ambitious photographers, but not a surplus of talented ones. This will continue to be the case as long as photography is controlled by a disconnected leadership at the very conservative centre of English life.

That is why New York – and more particularly Paris today – are regarded jointly and deservedly as the Home Offices of this medium. In fact the French have overtaken us Yanks in their celebration of visual expression, through and with photography. Through doing so much more to expand interest, understanding, opportunity and access, with its introduction of major city and regional festivals that are given over to this discipline.

Now you might be wondering what has all this to do with Henri Cartier-Bresson and Helen Levitt. Well they are the two significant talents that immediately come to mind signifying that personal commitment in these twin visual cultures on a personal level. And although very different people with very different outlooks, overviews, approach modes and subjects, none the less they were both committed to their personal understanding of excellence.

One travelled the world to catch views of people and life that concentrated more on defining his sense of timing, sensitivity, and eloquence. The others eye being a motherly one mostly watched over neighbourhood life, with a particular fondness for children at play and the elderly with time on their hands. And speaking of Time, they were both equally obsessed with shaping it, catching it, saving it, and presenting it, all together in ways that capture our attention, our appreciation, and our wonderment.

Helen and Hank (excuse the familiarity) are not just good friends, they are in their very different ways, life long influences; for ones emotional warmth and sensitivity is as important as the others structuring and timing. Helen in her later years moved a little further out from her immediate neighbourhood and added additional information of another colour to her New York visual symphony that gained her an even larger and more appreciative audience. While Hank, hankering to be what he had already achieved, An Artist in his own right and place, took himself out from behind his camera. But quite apart from these late-life alterations, both still remain; put simply Kings of the Street.

In closing I feel no need to attempt to describe in words what is meant for eyes to digest, all I will say to those who know nothing of them, is that they are in for a very special treat. And for them that do, this presentation is chock full of premium works.

Selected Web Links

Lawrence Miller Gallery: Side By Side
Helen Levitt: New York Streets 1938 to 1990s
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Magnum
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

Picture Paradise?

Some years ago when I wrote a feature for a web site on the early years of photography in Australia (Australian Photography 1840-60) and another on a fine twentieth-century Australian photographer, Frank Hurley, unfortunately neither currently available on line.

After publishing my piece on the early years, I received an e-mail from an Australian that berated me for not having written a full history of photography in that country. My reply basically but politely told him that I was a pom living in England, and if he wanted a history of photography in his country he should get off his backside, do some research and write it. A few years ago there was relatively little material available on line to enable me to do so if I had wanted to, and so far as I was concerned Australia was just one of around 195 countries I wanted to write about. (Unfortunately this was 194 more than my then employers appreciated, and I only managed to mention something about photography in around 50 of these before they dispensed with my services.)

I don’t know how many of the pioneers I mentioned – Captain Lucas, George Barron Goodman, Douglas Thomas Kilburn, William Little, Norman and Heseltine, Schohl, Thomas Gill, Professor Robert Hall, J W Newland, William Freeman, John Hunter Kerr, Robert Hunt and others – are included in what looks like a fine exhibition by the National Gallery of Australia, ‘Picture Paradise – Asia-Pacific Photography 1840s-1940s, but only Kilburn from that list appears in the 5 images on line covering the same period.

The show perhaps spreads it’s net too wide by including the Indian subcontinent – I wrote at around a dozen full-length features on India while only scratching the subject, as so many fine photographers from Britain in particular worked there in Victorian times.

It certainly is surprising not to see a single picture by the great early Indian photographer Lala Deen Dayal although he does get a mention in the accompanying essay. Several other photographers I’ve also previously written about, including Felix Beato and Samuel Bourne are represented by photographs, as too – rather surprisingly, is Julia Margaret Cameron. Although a great photographer, the picture included serves to confirm the popular view that she did nothing of great photographic interest in her return to India, with all of her best work being made on the Isle of Wight, well outside the area of this show.

Lala Deen Dayal (1844-1905) is one of relatively few photographers to have been honoured by a postage stamp issue, and I was very pleased to receive a commemorative album from his great granddaughter who runs the web site about his work containing examples of the 500 Rupee stamp issued in November 2006. Few photographers can claim an edition of 0.4 million!

So although this is an interesting site and well worth a look, and does bring to our notice several photographers whose work until now has been (perhaps deservedly) fairly obscure, it isn’t really a balanced overall survey of photography in the region, and certainly fails to do Australia itself justice. There is still time for that gentleman I corresponded briefly with to get his act together.

An Increasing List

I don’t know if it’s some kind of medical condition, perhaps a harbinger of oncoming senility, but I’m developing an increasing list.

Not an ever longer chronicle of those who, come the revolution will be lined up against the wall though my weekend stroll though the deepest home counties might well have prompted that. Nor even a more and more lopsided walk due to the weight of my camera bag on my left shoulder – always my left shoulder as I collapse in pain after a just a few minutes with it on my right. It’s perhaps strange that with the coming of digital its weight has grown considerably from the more carefree past of film, when the heaviest item in the bag was a bottle of water or in winter a flask of coffee. Who would have thought all those electrons could be so heavy?

Somehow in the old days I seldom needed a flash unit or all those large spare batteries and (though I don’t often carry it) a notebook computer. Spare batteries back then were a couple about the size of a 20p piece that I changed every year on my birthday whether they needed it or no.

No, my problem is that none of my pictures are upright any more. Verticals ain’t vertical and rivers and oceans pour out from right or left frame. While a ‘dynamic composition’ may often be appropriate (as we very clearly learnt from Garry Winogrand) for demonstrations and street photography , it doesn’t always look too fine in landscapes and architecture.

One of the few possibly useful features found in the Nikon D3 lacked by the D300 is an ‘virtual horizon‘ or camera level that can be displayed at the right edge of the image in the viewfinder. Possibly it might solve my problem, but only at the expense of the camera’s weight crippling me over a long day’s work. Of course the recently announced and lighter D700 has it too…

Incidentally, for a rather different set of pictures taken with the D700, take a look at Jim Reed’s gallery – Nikon lent him a pre-production camera early in April and he used it for a hundred days of chasing storms – there is rather scary image of him running towards a tornado holding it on the page where he writes about the camera giving it an excellent rating for durability and weather-resistance. Storm-chasing isn’t an area of photography I’ve ever felt drawn to, but I did find some impressive examples as well as a wealth of excellent advice on both techniques – such as how to photograph lightning – and also some very important safety information when I wrote a feature a few years ago.

What the D300 does have is the ability (Custom setting d2) to project a rectangular grid on the viewfinder display. This is something I’ve avoided using, finding it too obtrusive as it flashes up in bright red when you autofocus. But now I’ve turned it on – and added it to ‘My Menu‘ so I can quickly turn it off when it gets really up my nose. It really is useful to be able to list just those things you want to access while shooting on that My Menu page so that they are there at the press of the menu button.

For years I walked around with a shift lens on the camera, getting things straight and even largely managing to avoid convergence when I wanted or needed to tilt the camera, though it’s main purpose was to allow me to stand in the right place and get the perspective I wanted. I don’t have one for the digital body, and my work has changed so I seldom miss it. With this lens, my favourite viewfinder screen in all my Olympus bodies (two OM4, OM2 and OM1) was a ruled one, finer and with a better thought-out layout than the Nikon version. It also worked so well with other lenses that I very seldom bothered to change it. Funnily enough the Olympus one didn’t flash red and you could focus manually and precisely on the screen. Sometimes progress seems to go backwards.

Of course it’s easy enough to correct a list. In the darkroom we came to do it almost without thinking when needed, rotating the easel slightly to make the print straight. For digital it’s just as quick in Lightroom, pressing R to change to the crop/rotate screen, dragging the image as required, then D (or R) to return to develop mode.

If you use Photoshop (at least in version 7) it is a little slower still, but perhaps easier to get absolutely right. Change to the measure tool (it’s an alternative to the eye-dropper) and click to mark two ends of a line that should be either horizontal or vertical; then go to the image menu, choose Rotate Canvas, Arbitrary…, and click on OK. Then crop away all the extra background colour the rotate has added. You can just drag a marquee over the area you want to retain using the crop tool and double click, but I usually prefer to drag guides from the rulers (Ctrl R if they aren’t visible) to mark the 4 edges, then, when I’m happy these are in the correct place, use either the crop tool or the rectangular marquee (with ‘Snap to Guides‘ set in the View menu), finally using View, Clear guides. It is a bit fussier, but that way you know exactly what you are doing, and I find it is rather easy not to get it quite right with the crop tool.

All this – even in Lightroom – does slow things down, and if like me you usually crop tightly in the viewfinder, presents a problem as the rotation results in a need for further cropping of the image. So it’s better to get the tilt exactly how you want it in camera. Better still if you don’t need a gadget like the virtual horizon to do so.

Hyena Men

Last Sunday’s Observer had an interesting piece about Pieter Hugo, the South African photographer born in Cape Town in 1976 who won the Discovery Award at Arles announced a few days ago for his pictures of the Hyena Men. It’s a piece worth reading for his stories about his experiences while taking the pictures and what it tells you about how he works. Its a piece that ends with a quotation from Elisabeth Biondi of the ‘New Yorker‘: “He has a vision and he pursues it relentlessly“.

For me the pictures on his site are from Rwanda and Messina/Musina are more interesting (perhaps because they work better on a small scale), but given the other pictures that were around this year at Arles it isn’t hard to see why apparently everyone there was talking about his work – and that it won the prize, which is awarded on a popular vote.

You can also now read more about the festival on the FOTO8 site, including more pictures by George Georgiou. And don’t forget to get busy shooting those pictures of ‘8’s for the 888 Millennium Competition – you need to send them by August 3. You can see some of the entries already on Flickr.

Prize Pictet

Yet another prize I didn’t enter for is the Prize Pictet, for which the short list of photographers has recently been announced: Benoit Aquin, Edward Burtynksky, Jesus Abad Colorado, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Sebastian Copeland, Christian Cravo, Lynn Davis, Reza Deghati, Susan Derges, Malcolm Hutcheson, Chris Jordan, Carl De Keyzer, David Maisel, Mary Mattingly, Robert Polidori, Roman Signer, Jules Spinatsch and Munem Wasif.

In fact none of them entered as you cannot do so, but they were all nominated by a “global nominations panel of 49 leading experts in the visual arts, from six continents” which “made over 200 nominations from 43 countries” from which the seven judges selected the 18 names above.

In fact exactly the kind of process that fills me with intense gloom about the future of our medium, although there are people among the two carefully selected groups I admire and even a few whose judgement I might respect (and even a few I know.)

This is apparently the ‘Premier Photographic Award in Sustainability‘ although I’m not entirely sure what they mean by this, and even less so by their claim “Pictet is a leading wealth and asset management group worldwide, which aims to be grounded on sustainable business principles for the environment, society and corporate governance.”

Of course there have been other photographic attempts to look at issues related to sustainability. At the end of last year I exhibited work as a part of Foto Arte 2007 in Brasilia, and the theme of that very extensive festival was “Nature, the Environment and Sustainability.” You can see more about the work I took there, and also read about some of the themes of the lecture I gave there in the posts ‘Under the Car‘, Garden Suburbs and Garden Cities and Architecture and Urban Landscape photography.

Elsewhere on the blog you can also find some of my posts about my experiences in Brasilia, as well as some of the shows from FotoArte 2007 that I was able to see, and on My London Diary the full set of images I showed in Brazil, as well as some of my pictures from Brasilia.

Of course I had no expectation of being nominated for the Prize Pictet, but it is perhaps a little surprising that (unless my memory is wrong) not a single photographer from the very long list of those who took part in that major international festival on the topic is included in the short list.

Up and Down: Seesaw Summer 2008

It’s in the nature of Seesaws that they go up and down, and I have to say there is work in the summer 2008 edition of this on-line magazine that excites and work that depresses me.What depresses me is perhaps not so much a reflection on the photographers concerned, but more on the photographic education some of these photographers have recently suffered. That they occasionally manage to rise above it is a tribute to their talent.

Last year in Birmingham a number of us looking at portfolios were driven almost to breaking point over so many portfolios of work in which students had gone back to their childhood homes and explored their memories (or some such similar idea) producing images that may have had interest for them but frankly were worse than boring for the viewer. But although Betsie Genou‘s Les Moguichets is an example of this genre, I actually found the variation in the subject matter and her feeling for lighting and colour made this a series of pictures I clicked through several times and ended wanting to see more. And there are more at her own web site.

Rian Dundon’s black and white work on the Chinese born since the planned birth policy limited families to a single child is also well worth a look. After getting his BFA in 2003, he worked in China from 2005-8, and on his web site you can see more of his photography from China, the US and Europe as well as his writing about China.

The third set of pictures I found of interest was Latvia:Terminus Riga, a very personal and visual investigation of the city with some intriguing images. You can also see more of Iveta Vaivode‘s work on the Latvijas fotogrāfijas Gada balvas galerija 2007 site, including both fashion and five very wintry images in “Dārziņi” (at the bottom of the page.)

Teaching photographers is never easy, at least once you get beyond the basics (though many photography courses in this country have never quite managed to teach these – where I taught it used to be a constant refrain from students who came back to visit us after a year on a higher level course: “Thank God you taught us how to… , because nobody does here.”) What is difficult is encouraging people to see things in their own way and not to be afraid of actually looking both at the motif and their own photographs and seeing where the visual might lead them, rather than working from neatly expressed and constricting ideas or reworking themes that are currently fashionable.

Perhaps there are some hopeful signs in some of the work here that I’ve not mentioned, some glimpses of individual talents that may escape the academic straight-jacket that photography tied itself into from the late 70s. There are certainly some pictures I like among the portfolios, although I think there is rather more interesting work in the Seesaw archives.

Also in this issue Seesaw is a reprint of an interview with Ryan McGinley which more or less tells us exactly the same as every other interview or feature on him (including one I wrote a few years back) and its main claim to fame is that it was made on his 30th birthday. I wrote not long ago about OjodePez, the Madrid-based on-line magazine for which Seesaw editor Aaron Schumann guest-edited issue 13 on ‘This Land Was Made for You and Me‘, including work by McGinley. Schumann contributes three found images of a bare-breasted Tahitian dancer to this issue, found in Winchester (UK) in 2008. I can see no particular reason for finding these images and even less to publish them.

Dundon is one of the contributors to the fascinating collection – kind of a photographic version of fishing stories, where it is always the biggest fishes that got away – made by Will Steacy, ‘The Photographs Not Taken‘ with an essay on social conventions in China, ‘Drunk in Fujian‘. Here’s a completely gratuitous fish that didn’t get away, a 27lb pike caught in Hornsea Mere in 1907.

The Cafe at Hornsea Mere. (C) Peter Marshall, 2008

Larry Finks “The Democrats”

A Review by John Benton-Harris

“The Democrats” by Larry Fink (July 4 -15 August)

I told myself, being that Im a socially and politically minded observer, that I couldnt leave town without taking this one in. I suppose I was hopeful that Mr Fink would reveal some degree of criticism, understanding and feeling for these candidates, their entourages, the press, and possibly even the political process, that would further enlighten and motivate me, simply because thats what I aspire to do when looking in on “My America”.

Sadly I was disappointed, but equally not surprised; for it takes a kind of distance from the everydayness of American life, and new American Photography, to begin to see and catch this nation, its people and its problems, with a minded timing, and from a perspective that has relevance. It also takes a certain kind of freshness, deceptiveness and tenaciousness, that no stay at home American photographer ever gets to develop. That is why no one since Robert Frank in the mid to late 50s has managed to articulate a more lucid and complete visual account of the growing complexities of todays America, for my fellow American photographers are all much to obsessed now with establishment career objectives (obtaining their “Pulitzers” or their “One Person Show at MOMA”) to truly focus on this subject and a meaningful chronicling of it.

I believe that Frank’s stab at this kind of (here hinted at) critical analysis only failed because Robert committed too little, in terms of thinking, analysing, researching, and seminally never questioned his actions and motives, before during and after his road-running across my native land. He also relied too much on momentary feelings and his innate bitterness towards cold war America, to achieve the exceptional goal that could have been his. If he had only spent more energy and a greater period extending the unique story dialoguing that “The Americans” intermittently revealed, he would be even more regarded the he is today.

Now, if I can say that about Frank, you can guess whats coming after looking at Fink’s big scale small offering. Let me start by saying, if someone wants to win my vote for being an artist they are going to have to offer up something more then a casual snapping of these candidates and covering all the angles at what is essentially a staged event, especially if they are attempting to market there results as “Art”. Now I do realise its not easy to work within a limited time frame and with limited access, but from the look of these 29 large well finished images displayed over two rooms at New Yorks PACE/MACGILL Gallery located at 32 E 57th Street, Mr Fink (to my eyes) made no attempt to use this small opportunity to bring anything interesting or remarkable to our attention, as an able journalist or as a significant artist; he merely looked, shaped and shot when he had line of sight. Then he selected, ordered, finished and presented these outtakes from this wasted opportunity, to conform to his art world signature.

Its difficult enough to seize on a meaningful moment, when one presents itself, even when youre regarded, as I am, as a constant pricker of the human condition. But if one hasnt the quintessential qualities for satirical commentary or something even better to aid and guide one in their expression, then one should steer clear of a explosive subject like this, especially in todays political climate. But if youre going to stand up and ask to counted, you had better have something worthy and relevant to offer. Otherwise you and those who represent you will rightly be seen just as opportunists, trying to hop a ride on the political bandwagon, for some quick personal profit. In closing, Mr Finks view of the Democrats may declare his support of this party and candidate, but it offers up nothing in the way of commentary, criticism or optimism, for it poses no questions, offers no answers, and also does nothing to entertain us.

Installation views of the show are on the Pace McGill web site.

Photo Arles on Foto 8

So far it would seem there hasn’t been a great deal to report from Arles if the first batch of images in George Georgiou’s photo-diary Photo Arles is to be believed, but it’s a nice idea and there are certainly a few images that made me wish I was there among others that made me glad I wasn’t. So far the toilets don’t appeal and only Vanessa Winship’s exhibition seems worth more than a cursory glance, but some of Georgiou’s pictures certainly look better than those on some other walls. Doubtless more will appear as the week progresses, and I’m sure there will be some interesting text on the festival too.

Also on Foto 8 is news of their latest monthly competition, which has noticed that next month we will have a Friday 08/08/08, and invites anyone to submit low-res files pictures taken on that day- either by e-mail or by posting on Flickr.

Panoramas and Balazs Gardi

I’ve long been a fan of panoramic images, though since moving to digital for most of my work I’ve taken far fewer (and there are still a few rolls of film containing them waiting for me to develop them.) Having tried a few panoramas on film by combining several exposures (so much easier with digital!) I saved long and hard for a rather expensive Japanese Widelux swing lens model in around 1990 and worked fairly hard with it and a cheap Ukranian Horizon 202 I acquired a few years later.

(See it larger on my Lea Valley web site)

With digital you can fairly easily stitch images to make panoramas – especially with static subjects, but it is hard to work with people, and cameras such as the Horizon or the no longer made Hasselblad XPan – a superb rectilinear panoramic camera, especially when fitted with the wide-angle 30mm lens, which became another favourite of mine, still have a role.

What brought panoramic photography to my mind was a fine set of black and white images, The Valley, taken in Afghanistan in late 2007 by Hungarian freelance Balazs Gardi of VII Network which includes some panoramics. Gardi first came to my attention when he won a Getty Grant in 2005 for his work on Roma. I’ve also mentioned ‘The Valley’ before but it was brought back to mind by a recent mention on PDN Pulse, where I also read news of another panorama currently arriving from Mars, which will take several Martian days to complete!