Yesterday was the first night of the exhibition. I had never seen so many people in a photography exhibition before... Really crowded outside by 8 pm, and hundreds of people inside. I'd say 80% people below 25: a young street shooting boom maybe... Full of critics, journalists, high society, photographers of all ages and men and women in the same proportion. When I got there, there wasn't wine left, and I could count more than 100 bottles empty: I think they didn't expect that much people. There were lots of sophisticated chics with elegant dresses and hats: not usual in this city's more spartan style and spirit...
There's no exhibition catalog available, and the original one (three decades ago) is out of print. I'd really like to get one someday. I had planned long ago buying two, one as a surprise gift to any RFF member loving Garry deeply, but I was really disappointed... I enjoyed the photographs a lot... They're incredibly fresh! Life's there in a very deep way... Young women in streets, indoors and even nature. Some recurrent hard pointing breasts and through the shirt wild nipples... Some of them smiling, some of them shy, and with men juxtaposition often... A lot of beauty there, both from women and from Winogrand's eye and work. The street character is intense in the collection, very fast shooting, no perfect compositions, and a few shots with clear exposure / development / printing problems, and of course the great images getting over all that always. I left twice: the first time went back after a couple of blocks (the place is near home) and saw all the images again... The man was very good at everything! Apart from the aesthetics, I was amazed at his technique... He was also great at focusing close to camera even if people were moving fast... A few amazingly close focus tack sharp images show he deserved great gear... And after leaving for the second time, I had a glass of wine nearby before walking home, but I changed my mind after the second glass, and went back again... Well, women are beautiful for sure...
Garry's son Ethan (a jazz musician) was there talking about his father and shooting trips they shared back then when Ethan was a boy... His father was especially happy when the boy had a camera Garry gave him and used to shoot around while Garry was doing his shooting... Sometime's shooting his father shooting... Ethan said Garry spend good time several times kindly developing and printing the boy's shooting with great joy and pride!
He also said he feels what his father enjoyed the most was not knowing in any way what he was just about to shoot: he never planned on subjects or anything, not even planned the places to walk around... To Ethan, the happiest Garry was a guy that's just walking around with the camera on his wrist and a small satisfied smile on his face... He enjoyed a lot looking at the world, at our society, and he could spend hours looking around happily without shooting if nothing came... Good to us things used to come...
From Winogrand's written words for the portfolio in 1975:
“Whenever I've seen an attractive woman, I've done my best to photograph her... I don't know if all the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know that the women are beautiful in the photographs. Women are beautiful is a good title for this book because they are.”
Back then when Garry was organizing these images and preparing the whole thing, there was an important woman involved and she was a radical feminist. There were a few people there and she asked Garry if he had thought about a possible title for the collection, and he said for the first time “Women are beautiful”, and then she shouted at him “You're a macho pig!”. Every time for days when they had the meetings she saluted him in public saying “Hi, macho pig”. The last time she said it, Garry answered. “OK, you did it. You're right... I decided to change the name for the exhibition. It will now be called Women are beautiful, by a macho pig.”
Cheers,
Juan
