“Nothing happens when you sit at home” - Elliot Erwitt

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Ronald_H

Don't call me Ron
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Nothing really happens where I live, an old town once built around the textile industry, now long gone. There is nothing much in the way of architecture, or events. So If I want to see, experience or photograph anything, I have to go elsewhere. Or do I?

My hairdresser, who knows I like photography, told me about a photo exhibit in the local museum. So today I went to see the pictures of Elliot Erwitt. An exhibition of a Magnum photographer practically on my doorstep. Great.

13 october 2009 - 17 januari 2010, Elliot Erwitt in the Municpial Museum ("Gemeentemuseum") Helmond, The Netherlands.
 
Look up info on Mario Giacomelli. He lived in a little town on the italian adriatic coast, Senigaglia, and he probably travelled beyond 30 km from his home town no more than ten times in his life. He has probably been a more universal photographer than most National Geographic pros.
 
"nothing happens when you sit at home".....true - in a lot of ways, and probably the reason why some appear to be tuned-in to RFF all day and night, myself included! I'll hastily add before someone else does!. My reason/excuse this year, has been ill health, but thankfully this is changing, and I shall once again be venturing 'far and wide' in search of photographic delights!( one of the rewards of retirement! )
Dave.
 
I went to the Frank's exhibit Today
at the Met....
'The Americans' is a book I have mixed feelings about
but when I saw the show
I was FLOORED...Just Brilliant

Also Loved his London/Wales/Coal Miners Set as well

so YES to You & Mr Erwitt
"Nothing Happens when You sit at Home" Philosophy
who I bumped into at the Bruce Davidson Show this past week....
 
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The most interesting things happen inside you, not outside.
 
sonofdanang said:
I understand that the OP contains some irony, or at least the observation of it. Commit some irony to film or sensor and post.
Enjoy!
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Good observation 😉

And the noticing part, well, in the museum store I found a photo book about my hometown. It looked about a zillion times more beautiful and exciting than I ever noticed in 38 years...

A lot of my pictures are static. It's just capturing what I see. I can do that very well. But capturing what I feel, that's a completely different game. As an engineer I am cursed by the need to achieve technical perfection. It completely dominates the little artist that hopefully lives inside me as well.

As for posting something... I'll go for the one below. Not very ironic, but on many levels this is a very satisfying picture for me. The spontaneity, the smile, the girl. Before this shoot I had never met her before (her boyfriend asked if I wanted to make some pics of her for her portfolio). She turned out to be very pretty but also very tired. Because we did not know each other the whole experience felt awkward at first, I am a bit shy. I also was a bit awestruck how attractive she was. But she lived in an old school, the class rooms were made into small appartments, Beautiful high windows and window light. I grabbed my camera and made some shots, trying to catch her off balance. It worked.

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Increasingly, though, I suspect it's not a matter of choice. Some photographers are perfectly happy to explore a few square kilometres, exhaustively, all their lives. Where I live now, for example, is beautiful. The church across the road is 800 years old; the donjon on the hill, 1000 years; the collegiale in St. Jouin de Marnes, maybe 4 km away, is sometimes held up as the finest example of Angevin Gothic; and there are surprisingly many events here or nearby. On Wednesday, for example, Frances and I are going to an Armistice Day dinner in the village, while in June there's a major festival of musique verte et musique bricolée in the village. And so forth.

But yet, but yet... apart from Malta (where I lived 4 years as a boy and have visited many times) I have got many of my best pictures in places I haven't really liked very much: Istanbul, for example, or a Chinese tour a few years ago.

Cheers,

R.
 
It has gotten to the point where I find photos of someone's permanent and long-term living place more interesting than those of the drop in visitors even if the places are "exotic". There seems nothing seen. Few people can turn a place that they are visiting into something photographically interesting, but the amount of photographing travelers is increasing so we are seeing more mediocre photos from exotic places. Ironically.

@Roger: I would imagine that the photos are not the result of the places per se, but your attitude towards them when you were there. Time, place, person. Which also means that going to the same place more than once does not produce the same results. As photographers we know that everything changes, all the time. It is hard to reproduce anything.
 
JapanExposures said:
It has gotten to the point where I find photos of someone's permanent and long-term living place more interesting than those of the drop in visitors even if the places are "exotic". There seems nothing seen. Few people can turn a place that they are visiting into something photographically interesting, but the amount of photographing travelers is increasing so we are seeing more mediocre photos from exotic places. Ironically.

@Roger: I would imagine that the photos are not the result of the places per se, but your attitude towards them when you were there. Time, place, person. Which also means that going to the same place more than once does not produce the same results. As photographers we know that everything changes, all the time. It is hard to reproduce anything.
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There's a difference between 'drop in' and 'repeat visitor'. More and more, I go back to places I (a) like and (b) can get decent pictures, such as Arles, India, Malta, southern Portugal, the Greek islands.

Sure, the pics are a reaction to a place, but why should I find that I got disproportionately many good pictures in Istanbul, which I really disliked from the moment an immigration official stole £10 sterling off me when I landed, and tried to charge Frances more for her visa in pounds than in dollars (£20 instead of $10) because we were arriving from England and he thought we'd have no dollars with us?

Cheers,

R.
 
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Roger Hicks said:
There's a difference between 'drop in' and 'repeat visitor'. More and more, I go back to places I (a) like and (b) can get decent pictures, such as Arles, India, Malta, southern Portugal, the Greek islands.

Sure, the pics are a reaction to a place, but why should I find that I got disproportionately many good pictures in Istanbul, which I really disliked from the moment an immigration official stole £10 sterling off me when I landed, and tried to charge Frances more for her visa in pounds than in dollars (£20 instead of $10) because we were arriving from England and jhe thought we'd have no dollars with us?

Cheers,

R.
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Sometimes, la migra can ruin your ability to take good pictures by destroying your karma (or charging for it).
 
At the Erwitt lecture in September, a child asked him how he found the time to travel so much, and that drew a big laugh from the audience. Then he said that when he goes home, he considers it a vacation.
 
living since 20 years in a village with 20 inhabitants, taking my camera with me even when i go out with the dog, its getting hard to see something new. (the differents lights and seasons may help). But when i went to New york for 10 days : everything there was worth a picture, i had to buy more films at B%H. So, i think traveling and looking at new things helps pushing to new aspects of photography.
Fern
 
helenhill said:
I went to the Frank's exhibit Today
at the Met....
'The Americans' is a book I have and have mixed feelings about
but when I saw the show
I was FLOORED...Just Brilliant
Click to expand...

I went Saturday and had the same reaction. He's still not a good photographer imho, but I liked reading the concept behind the book and sections (or individual photographs) and looking at his contact sheets.

Imho photographing the exotic of far away lands can become very boring very quickly. Photographing the common and taken for granted and render it as captivating and exciting as the "exotic", that is an endeavour worth pursuing and will show one's true talent and vision.

But then maybe I'm missing Erwitt's point.
 
I have photographed my home town 'to death' over the last fifty or so years, but still enjoy the walks I've been doing since boyhood. Always there's a camera, although it often does not get used, these days I tend to look for detail, and expand on certain things in different light, and seasons. Some folks say -"why on earth did you take a picture of that?" when they see one like today's example ( below ).......I don't really know! - but the process makes me happy! 🙂
Dave
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