Garry Winogrand On "American Masters" Tonight

[rolfe]

Puzzling that this is presented as an American Masters original -- it has been around for some time...

Rolfe

 

[kkdanamatt]

I think Winogrand was more interested in the process of taking photos rather than the final product...a photograph. He died, leaving all those unprocessed rolls of film and unedited contact sheets for others to edit and print.
The question remains: is the creative work of a photographer finished and completed after the shutter is clicked?

 

[icebear]

"It's not a photo until it's printed"
Tagline of the Bergen County Camera (BCC) store in Westwood NJ.

... and the PBS series is also not avaialable online in Germany.

 

[Michael Markey]

I think Winogrand was more interested in the process of taking photos rather than the final product...a photograph. He died, leaving all those unprocessed rolls of film and unedited contact sheets for others to edit and print.
The question remains: is the creative work of a photographer finished and completed after the shutter is clicked?

Taking them is the most interesting part .
I must admit my interest in them diminishes somewhat after that.

 

[newsgrunt]

While you watch, pay attention to how the critics discuss Winogrand and his photography. You may find that the men engage in unadulterated hero worship while the women are much more perspicacious in their commentary.

His first wife had some very good insights. While he's in the pantheon of photographers, this doc showed his human side, and with that, some of his flaws.

 

[sjones]

Yes I did watch, and it was clear to me that the at least one of the younger women commentators (mainly the curator of an art museum in SF I think it was) expressed reservations about his book Women are Beautiful. Of course one might explain this, to some extent, by the modern requirement to apply current ethical standards to historical figures by the progressive left together with a compulsion to censor those who failed to comply with them...

The woman’s criticism of Winogrand’s female objectification, whether you agree with it or not, was not an abuse of presentism by any means. Such denunciation accompanied the book’s release, which occurred, as the documentary noted, at the pinnacle of the ERA movement. This was 1975, not 1875.

If anything, it’s typically the “progressive left” that supports and embraces the arts the most, whereby censorship is generally the tool of conservatives.

And while Winogrand falls firmly within my top five favorite photographers, the men’s commentary was a bit more on the deifying, if not pretentious, side…this, however, largely being a consequence of typical “art commentary” prose.

 

[ptpdprinter]

Is this the video that was Kickstarter funded a couple of years ago?

 

[Dogman]

Most of the criticism of "Women Are Beautiful" was based on political views, not on the quality of the art. The fact is, I think the book was weak from concept to fruition. But I loathe how people can't have an opinion anymore without checking their wallets for the membership cards they carry.

 

[mconnealy]

Most of the criticism of "Women Are Beautiful" was based on political views, not on the quality of the art. The fact is, I think the book was weak from concept to fruition. But I loathe how people can't have an opinion anymore without checking their wallets for the membership cards they carry.

I think that is a position that is defensible as the basis for a debate, but also one full of pitfalls. One is how to properly define "art" in today's world.

I would say that political and social dimensions of a photographer's work are perfectly valid aspects of criticism. At the same time, to focus only on a feminist perspective in relation to one book is also overlooking other important political and social perspectives of Winogrand's innovative approach.

It is also useful to broaden the topic a bit to include other artists. Winogrand, for instance, was an admirer of Robert Frank. And, Frank's work certainly had an important political dimension.

To go back a bit further, Cartier-Bresson was very critical of the f64 group, who he said, derisively, mostly took pictures of rocks.

 

[gdmcclintock]

...
Of course one might explain this, to some extent, by the modern requirement to apply current ethical standards to historical figures by the progressive left together with a compulsion to censor those who failed to comply with them.
...

If you watch the film again, you may discover that what you call "current ethical standards" were contemporary when Winogrand was active. One of the curators who criticized Winogrand's vision of women had a falling-out with John Szarkowski, her mentor and the man who created Winogrand's artistic career. The notion of applying "current ethical standards to historical figures" is a straw dog.

After several viewings of the film, I find no evidence of what you call "a compulsion to censor," although the solipsistic adulation offered by Thomas Roma and Matt Stewart is tiresome.

 

[Calzone]

"It's not a photo until it's printed"
Tagline of the Bergen County Camera (BCC) store in Westwood NJ.

... and the PBS series is also not avaialable online in Germany.

Klaus,

I agree that's it is not a photo until printed, but photography is also a process...

Too bad you could not view this show. Pretty informative and really connected the dots for me as far as the history of photography.

Cal

 

[justins7]

I remember seeing the MOMA retrospective in 1988 or so. As they mentioned in the documentary, it was somewhat startling to see that they had gone through thousands of negatives and chose images to print for the show (since he had not decided what to print from this massive archive). I recall that it was controversial at the time —*thousands of aimless shots taken from a car, with dubious choices made by the curators (and Thom Roma, apparently). Looking through the multitude of images on those rolls of negatives gave the viewer the impression of an artist lost, blindly shooting, almost randomly, hoping for a connection to be found at some later date when a print could be made, or never.

 

[Calzone]

I remember seeing the MOMA retrospective in 1988 or so. As they mentioned in the documentary, it was somewhat startling to see that they had gone through thousands of negatives and chose images to print for the show (since he had not decided what to print from this massive archive). I recall that it was controversial at the time —*thousands of aimless shots taken from a car, with dubious choices made by the curators (and Thom Roma, apparently). Looking through the multitude of images on those rolls of negatives gave the viewer the impression of an artist lost, blindly shooting, almost randomly, hoping for a connection to be found at some later date when a print could be made, or never.

J,

Garry created an interesting legacy.

Because I have shot film with a disregard to printing, I got judged rather harshly. My premise is/was to wet print my negatives, but at this time I have no darkroom. Realize that I live in NYC and that I believe that shooting 150 rolls a month at my peak was a wise thing to do because film was less costly and I was able to use economy of scale to reduce prices further.

So I created an archive of sorts, and I also believe time is the best editor. Much of what I shot has been torn down and has been replaced. I recorded and documented history. I pretty much have an ethnography of a changing and disappearing NYC. Several times I have been compared to Garry, and as Klaus has quoted above, "It is not a photograph until a print is made," but I also say that "photography is a process."

On the other hand 5 years ago I purchased a Leica Monochrom and have been printing and have evolved into a fine art printer who specializes in B&W using Piezography. With digital I print a plenty.

It was suggested a few times that 1964 was a high point in Garry's work in the documentary, but I can understand the logic of concentrating on just "image capture" when he had no access to a darkroom, and then later was running out of time towards the end of his life.

Cal