Gary Winogrand From A Subject's POV

McCurry? ... that chap who's famous for the one photo of an Afghan girl?


Beethoven? That Dude who's famous for a Symphony so called number Five?

Seriously, I hope your photographic culture isn't as shallow as you make it sound. Just Google McCurry.

To the OP, I also enjoyed the interview. And I like Winogrand. He's a part of the photographic culture. But let's not forget that he's very controversial. Shooting 100,000 rolls of film, half of them from the hip, and coming up with a few amazing keepers is only normal. Many have ventured to say, in the past, that even a monkey could have come up with such a ratio. There is a lot of discussion about this on the net, in which I have participated within the past 10 years as far as I remember.
Controversy, polarity within the public is very good to bring a dead person to the level of a legend.
Bruce Gilden is the best example. 50% love him, 50% hate him. With time, after his death, he will slowly but surely be heightened to a legendary status. But not without controversy, just like Winogrand.
And yes, I have a tendency to think that if you give a monkey 100,000 rolls of film to go through, a few Masterpieces will inevitably be born. Not thinking about Winogrand per se but it's true for street photography in general. Isn't "hip photography" just that, by the way? But that's another topic for another day...
 
Beethoven? That Dude who's famous for a Symphony so called number Five?

Seriously, I hope your photographic culture isn't as shallow as you make it sound. Just Google McCurry.

To the OP, I also enjoyed the interview. And I like Winogrand. He's a part of the photographic culture. But let's not forget that he's very controversial. Shooting 100,000 rolls of film, half of them from the hip, and coming up with a few amazing keepers is only normal. Many have ventured to say, in the past, that even a monkey could have come up with such a ratio. There is a lot of discussion about this on the net, in which I have participated within the past 10 years as far as I remember.
Controversy, polarity within the public is very good to bring a dead person to the level of a legend.
Bruce Gilden is the best example. 50% love him, 50% hate him. With time, after his death, he will slowly but surely be heightened to a legendary status. But not without controversy, just like Winogrand.
And yes, I have a tendency to think that if you give a monkey 100,000 rolls of film to go through, a few Masterpieces will inevitably be born. Not thinking about Winogrand per se but it's true for street photography in general. Isn't "hip photography" just that, by the way? But that's another topic for another day...

... ah! ... sorry, I thought you were into provocative comments
 
I have enjoyed and will doubtless continue to enjoy a book entitled:

Gary Winogrand - Edited by Leo Rubenfein (SFoma with Yale etc).

As for the link, terrific: thank you. As for the assorted imbalanced comments that have appeared in this thread, I would simply advise those people to make history, turn thought and vision and then perhaps (Perhaps!) make statements such as I can do that and better. Oh yes, don't forget to evidence it all for your peers...
 
None as far as I know. on the contrary, Garry always carefully (although quickly) composed his frames. And if you take any of his successfull images apart, it is clearly visible.

Right:

"Yet, interestingly, Winogrand maintained that he never, in effect, shot from the hip, i.e.: photographed without looking through the viewfinder. To do so, he said, would surrender too much control over the final image."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030131.htm
 
The next "Winogrand" will be wearing Google Glass and will be culling "selects" from the 100,000 images they take a month.

I think at some point, the odds begin to stack in favor of the high-volume shooter...at least for street photography (ie. walking the streets photographing everything within view).

I think a major difficulty is access to one's subjects.

BTW...I think it's all good.
 
Winogrand was a great street photographer, in terms of production.

He was the google streetview of his day. That is a compliment.
 
The next "Winogrand" will be wearing Google Glass and will be culling "selects" from the 100,000 images they take a month.

I think at some point, the odds begin to stack in favor of the high-volume shooter...at least for street photography (ie. walking the streets photographing everything within view).

I think a major difficulty is access to one's subjects.

BTW...I think it's all good.

Theres only one way to get really good at it and the only thing thats important is what we as photographers decide to show.

Winogrand was pretty much in line with this statement from Bresson:
"'Manufactured' or staged photography does not concern me. And if I make a judgment, it can only be on a psychological or sociological level. There are those who take photographs arranged beforehand and those who go out to discover the image and seize it. For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which - in visual terms - questions and decides simultaneously. In order to "give a meaning" to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression."-Henri Cartier-Bresson

So to try and compare Winogrand with say McCurry is nuts. They were very different photographers. And it shouldn't be one or the other becasue you can admire both. Trying to pick one over the other remineds me of a Beatles Stones kinda thing. I say why not both. Life's to short to be so narrow.
 
How many of his most famous (loved, discussed, etc) images were shot from the hip?

Probably none. He talked about training his vision in a similar way that Bresson did. There is to much visual consistency in his work to try and dismiss it as shooting for the hip.
 
That's simply a matter of style.
But look at McCurry's work: all in your face, even arranging the scene, the subjects are almost actors. And yet, his images are galaxies beyond ours and Winogrand's.

Tastes are indeed subjective. Case in point, I think McCurry is an awful photographer. The Céline Dion of photography if you will (since we're making comparisons). But, much like with Céline Dion, I understand what people like about the work.
 
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