Elliott Erwitt Interview from Financial Times

A favorite, and just a great guy

A favorite, and just a great guy

And I loved his quote about dogs: "Dogs are expressive; they are everywhere; they are sympathetic. And they don’t ask for prints.”


- Barrett
 
There's a profound difference between the simple non-reflex, direct-viewing camera (such as a range-finder Leica) and a SLR. With a reflex you tend to make the picture in the camera; with the other, you see the picture and then put a frame around it. The RF camera is also faster, quicker to focus, less noisy, and smaller, but these advantages are much less important than the fundamental difference. - Elliott Erwitt

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy--the tone range isn't right and things like that--but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention. - Elliott Erwitt

To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place.... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. - Elliott Erwitt

Good photography is not about 'Zone Printing' or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see, or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. - Elliott Erwitt
 
re: Ansel and quality: I should make such good "postcards". If you read Ansel's writing, other than the words about craft (I admit a lot of words!), there is a lot said about intention, emotion, etc. I find those things come through in a lot of his photographs, when viewing the originals.

So for me, Ansel represents quality. A kind of quality, yes, but simply different than Frank, Erwitt, Meatyard, Capa, Weston, etc. Chacun a son gout.
 
Always a pleasure. I enjoy his work very much and find it refreshing that he is so down to earth. How could he have produced the images - seen the images - he did without displaying such humility and a lack of pretences?
 
mfogiel said:
Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy--the tone range isn't right and things like that--but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention. - Elliott Erwitt

...

Good photography is not about 'Zone Printing' or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see, or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. - Elliott Erwitt
Click to expand...

Well said, Elliot Erwitt! I just don't 'get' Ansel Adams: for me his pictures and his books are a marvellous cure for insomnia...
 
Asked what makes a great photographer, Erwitt pauses, then quotes a friend: “She said it was someone who shows you something you can’t see yourself.”


 
Obviously, Erwitt and Ansel are poles apart in their genre. For me, they are both great. Erwitt and his like seek a social dimension in their photography while Ansel take photography in pure pursuit of aesthetics. Personally, of fine arts photographer, I prefer Weston and Mapplethorp to Ansel.
 
Trius said:
re: Ansel and quality: I should make such good "postcards". If you read Ansel's writing, other than the words about craft (I admit a lot of words!), there is a lot said about intention, emotion, etc. I find those things come through in a lot of his photographs, when viewing the originals.

So for me, Ansel represents quality. A kind of quality, yes, but simply different than Frank, Erwitt, Meatyard, Capa, Weston, etc. Chacun a son gout.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Different isn't better or worse, just different.
 
Ansel was in a league of his own. Spiritual. Few people in his work so critics leap at that. Of course he was different but Weston surely understood as did Georgia O'Keefe, as they grew in Taos.

Seeing? It was Adams who with f/64 group first annihilated "Bokeh", delivering at once everything in razor focus and a full black to white range.

Humans "See" as Adams captured...everything in focus because our brains have scene persistence. We don't see out of focus unless by forced action.

Cartier Bresson was also in a separate league...a league that only an RF could support and nurture. The violin is different from the piano. Their music is all wonderful.

m
 
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