Bill Pierce
Well-known
Arthur Grace and I worked for the same national news magazine and had the same agency selling our work abroad. There the similarity stops. Arthur has also published 6 books, each a detailed look at a specific subject. Choose Me, a look at presidential campaigns is very different from the long lens head and shoulders that the rest of us were shooting at candidates public appearances. Armed with a twin-lens Rollei, Arthur shot a far more varied view of the public campaign and gained access to the candidates at private moments when there were no press and public. Of his many books, probably my favorite is Robin Williams, a many years look at an assignment that became a long-term friendship with a brilliant comic, an equally brilliant actor and a good human being.
Yesterday I attended a book signing for Arthur’s sixth book, a book that has been singled out for very positive reviews by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the London Times. But, in a sense this book is different from its predecessors. Communism(s): A Cold War Album is a look at life in an area now making headlines. Yes, there are pictures of “important people,” but there are many more pictures of regular people and the life they are living. Forty-three years ago Arthur got his first assignment in what was then known as the “Soviet Bloc,” and continued to get assignments for a dozen years. They were not easy assignments. I got arrested in Poland for photographing a line of customers waiting outside of a grocery store when word went out that the store had received some hard to get items. Arthur managed to avoid arrest while photographing something far more serious, anti government protests, photographed from the windows of nearby buildings when he realized that on the street he was being followed by someone working for the government. If you were photographing in Russia, your InTourist guide, driver and translator was actually a KGB agent who was probably higher on the pay scale than the head of InTourist. All in all there were problems in getting a comprehensive and honest look behind that curtain. Over time Arthur got that honest look. You see it in the people; you see it in their surroundings and, most important, you see in their faces what it is like to live in the “Soviet Bloc.”
There’s much to learn from a book of pictures. It’s obviously non verbal, in this case a feeling for what it is like to live in something approaching an autocracy, valuable information in today’s world. But for photographers it offers something more - once again, non verbal - what is it that makes a good photograph. Every good photographer that I know has a large library of photo books. A few are technical, but most are books of pictures. Quite a few are rare first editions simply because a lot of good books of photographs never make it to a second edition. Those books teach us in many ways, none more important than setting a standard for what is a good picture, a standard we can apply to our own work.
I’ve gone on and on just to say spend time with good photographs. They will do you good. Maybe I’ll say more in the replies section. But I’m more interested in what you have to say.
Yesterday I attended a book signing for Arthur’s sixth book, a book that has been singled out for very positive reviews by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the London Times. But, in a sense this book is different from its predecessors. Communism(s): A Cold War Album is a look at life in an area now making headlines. Yes, there are pictures of “important people,” but there are many more pictures of regular people and the life they are living. Forty-three years ago Arthur got his first assignment in what was then known as the “Soviet Bloc,” and continued to get assignments for a dozen years. They were not easy assignments. I got arrested in Poland for photographing a line of customers waiting outside of a grocery store when word went out that the store had received some hard to get items. Arthur managed to avoid arrest while photographing something far more serious, anti government protests, photographed from the windows of nearby buildings when he realized that on the street he was being followed by someone working for the government. If you were photographing in Russia, your InTourist guide, driver and translator was actually a KGB agent who was probably higher on the pay scale than the head of InTourist. All in all there were problems in getting a comprehensive and honest look behind that curtain. Over time Arthur got that honest look. You see it in the people; you see it in their surroundings and, most important, you see in their faces what it is like to live in the “Soviet Bloc.”
There’s much to learn from a book of pictures. It’s obviously non verbal, in this case a feeling for what it is like to live in something approaching an autocracy, valuable information in today’s world. But for photographers it offers something more - once again, non verbal - what is it that makes a good photograph. Every good photographer that I know has a large library of photo books. A few are technical, but most are books of pictures. Quite a few are rare first editions simply because a lot of good books of photographs never make it to a second edition. Those books teach us in many ways, none more important than setting a standard for what is a good picture, a standard we can apply to our own work.
I’ve gone on and on just to say spend time with good photographs. They will do you good. Maybe I’ll say more in the replies section. But I’m more interested in what you have to say.
