Garry Winogrand 1977 interview now on line

Bob Michaels

Bob Michaels

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The interview that Garry Winogrand did with a class at Rice University in 1977 has now been posted on line at the National Gallery of Art website. The 16 minutes is a great indication of how Winogrand interpreted his own photography.

Winogrand would not have been able to cut it here at RFF as he never mentioned cameras, lenses, or film and was quite dismissive about exposure. But it is interesting to hear the views of someone who only cared about photographs.
 
Bob Michaels said:
The interview that Garry Winogrand did with a class at Rice University in 1977 has now been posted on line at the National Gallery of Art website. The 16 minutes is a great indication of how Winogrand interpreted his own photography.

Winogrand would not have been able to cut it here at RFF as he never mentioned cameras, lenses, or film and was quite dismissive about exposure. But it is interesting to hear the views of someone who only cared about photographs.
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Thanks for posting this, Bob.
 
I've seen both Winogrands & Franks photo of the statue in question & often wondered what Garry thought of Franks photo compared with his. Myself, I chocked it up to Garry being a much younger, more novice photographer. Franks photo was more storytelling in my view. Apparently Garry agreed that Frank made the better photograph. Good stuff here Bob...thanks.
 
Bob Michaels said:
The interview that Garry Winogrand did with a class at Rice University in 1977 has now been posted on line at the National Gallery of Art website. The 16 minutes is a great indication of how Winogrand interpreted his own photography.

Winogrand would not have been able to cut it here at RFF as he never mentioned cameras, lenses, or film and was quite dismissive about exposure. But it is interesting to hear the views of someone who only cared about photographs.
Click to expand...

Bob, its people like you is why I keep returning to this site...Thank you so much for posting this. There is no photographer like Winogrand, none in my opinion he is as good as it gets in the type of photography he does..Very few match him, even fewer are better then him..

Thanks again,
Marko
 
Bob Michaels said:
Winogrand would not have been able to cut it here at RFF as he never mentioned cameras, lenses, or film and was quite dismissive about exposure. But it is interesting to hear the views of someone who only cared about photographs.
Click to expand...

If you watch the entire video, you'll see that he actually does discuss rangefinder vs. slr cameras a bit...just a bit.
 
Thanks for posting this link - it's a good interview. Highlights for me:

He was most impressed by Walker Evans because he "got out of the way" and that Atget was hindered by the medium of the times, not allowing him to get out of the way as much. He also wished he was invisible.

I take this to mean don't let the medium or the technique be the reason for the image. You shouldn't even see the photog there.

Also said you "learn from work"

Wikipedia claims he "developed" 8,522 rolls of film while in LA. Just think of that for a minute given the time period. That's 306,792 clicks. That's an incredible amount of work. With digital, I would think he might be in the tens of millions.

Something else...
 
Starts shortly after 6 minute mark:
How do you make a photograph that's more interesting than what happened? That's really the problem.
How do you make photograph that is more beautiful than what was photographed? That's really our problem, in the end.
Is the photograph more dramatic than what was photographed? It has to be.
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Upon hearing this, Winogrand finally makes sense to me after all those years.

Just before the 6-minute mark is the story on the football game and the image that is shown there is truly remarkable, both composition and lighting wise.

I'm thinking he finally decided that chance was a big factor in images like this, and then subsequently decided that if chance was such a big part of it, why not shoot a power-wind camera from a car window. Makes perfect sense.
 
johannielscom said:
Starts shortly after 6 minute mark:
Quote:
How do you make a photograph that's more interesting than what happened? That's really the problem.
How do you make photograph that is more beautiful than what was photographed? That's really our problem, in the end.
Is the photograph more dramatic than what was photographed? It has to be.

Upon hearing this, Winogrand finally makes sense to me after all those years.
Click to expand...

Agree, it is the essence of his photography isn't it? It also makes Eggleston make sense too (I never really got his work until watching the Winogrand piece).

Michael
 
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