Late Winogrand Shutter Madness

[reiki_]

Try to be as good without shooting as much. It won't happen with just the help of god.

 

[Ranchu]

Alright let me get this straight, Winogrand tosses these rolls aside rather than develop them, don't YOU think he knew what was on them? Now some corpse ****ing heirs and museum try to make these outtakes relevant so they can make some money off the poor dead b@stard. Now we all gotta have a kaffeklatch about it? Pfft.

Second, what makes anyone think Winogrand shot for us??? An artist doesn't need to pander to anyone else's sensibilities to be an artist. Maybe Winogrand was chasing his vision successfully in his own eyes. Who are you anyway?

 

[gb hill]

Second, what makes anyone think Winogrand shot for us??? An artist doesn't need to pander to anyone else's sensibilities to be an artist. Maybe Winogrand was chasing his vision successfully in his own eyes. Who are you anyway?

You're so right in your assessment of Winogrand. From all the interviews I've seen & articles read I can certainly say he didn't give a crap what anybody else thought about what he did & he shot for no one but himself.

 

[semilog]

I don't think that's quite the whole story.

He shot for himself, but it's pretty clear that he cared what at least certain of his friends thought. Meyerowitz, Papageorge, maybe Szarkowski.

 

[gb hill]

I don't think that's quite the whole story.

He shot for himself, but it's pretty clear that he cared what at least certain of his friends thought. Meyerowitz, Papageorge, maybe Szarkowski.

Yea I can agree with that.

 

[Dan Daniel]

You're so right in your assessment of Winogrand. From all the interviews I've seen & articles read I can certainly say he didn't give a crap what anybody else thought about what he did & he shot for no one but himself.

Oh please, spare me the hyper 'I'm my own man' BS. The guy was a photojournalist and he worked hard to get accepted in the New York art photography world. Sure, part of that involved striking an adolescent 'I don't care what anyone else thinks, I do this for me' pose, but that's what it was- a pose. And the thing about poses? They are meant to be seen. While giving interviews. While at openings. While teaching. While being driven around by assistants and acolytes.

Now Vivian Meier? Maybe she was the real 'man' of the era? Because her actions were in alignment with what might have been her attitude- I don't care what others think, I do this for me. Might, because we can't say to the best of my knowledge.

 

[gb hill]

Oh please, spare me the hyper 'I'm my own man' BS. The guy was a photojournalist and he worked hard to get accepted in the New York art photography world. Sure, part of that involved striking an adolescent 'I don't care what anyone else thinks, I do this for me' pose, but that's what it was- a pose. And the thing about poses? They are meant to be seen. While giving interviews. While at openings. While teaching. While being driven around by assistants and acolytes.

Now Vivian Meier? Maybe she was the real 'man' of the era? Because her actions were in alignment with what might have been her attitude- I don't care what others think, I do this for me. Might, because we can't say to the best of my knowledge.

If your correct then he did it well.😉

 

[tunalegs]

Second, what makes anyone think Winogrand shot for us???

What makes anyone think Winogrand would care what people think now that he's dead?

An artist doesn't need to pander to anyone else's sensibilities to be an artist.

I don't see anybody saying that an artist does have to do that. Nobody reasonable is saying that Winogrand was not an artist. But often times artists make work that isn't particularly interesting for any variety of reasons. That doesn't make them not an artist. It just makes their work uninteresting. Every photographer in the history of photography has made uninteresting work at some point.

Maybe Winogrand was chasing his vision successfully in his own eyes.

Maybe. Perhaps he was taking photos as some sort of giant work of conceptual performance art. It would explain why he wasn't interested in developing or printing much late in his career. To that end maybe the people who did develop his collection only added another layer of meaning to the concept and performance. It possibly may be the most brilliant and deep work of his career. It is certainly the largest.

When you think about it, a world famous photographer taking thousands of photos from the window of a moving car then throwing the used cassettes into a huge pile is a pretty interesting performance.

Who are you anyway?

As much of a human as Winogrand or anybody, and allowed to have my own thoughts and express them as I wish, subjective as my personal judgements may be. 🙂

 

[Ranchu]

It's just that you think it's cute to argue about it, it's really nothing to do with you.

 

[Ranchu]

Oh please, spare me the hyper 'I'm my own man' BS. The guy was a photojournalist and he worked hard to get accepted in the New York art photography world. Sure, part of that involved striking an adolescent 'I don't care what anyone else thinks, I do this for me' pose, but that's what it was- a pose. And the thing about poses? They are meant to be seen. While giving interviews. While at openings. While teaching. While being driven around by assistants and acolytes.

Project much? You sound like you've thought a lot about it.

 

[Dana B.]

Who among us haven't run out of ideas? I respect the good work Winogrand did. And wish I could do the same.

 

[skibeerr]

You should be so lucky as to leave this life with five photographs that are as good as any in Winogrand's best 500.

Hear Hear!

 

[mdarnton]

Well, it's clear from this thread that he was either a great photographer, or a bad one!

A lot of the respect that any artist gets is in relation to his time and where he fits in with what was going on then. If someone painted the Mona Lisa now, everyone would snore. Probably there are people out there doing it every day, and no one cares.

 

[clayne]

I don't really see how the original article was actually inaccurate. It lent power to his earlier stuff and threw out a couple possibilities for the decline of his later stuff. He wasn't even getting out of the car during his later years and not surprisingly the photographic results reflected that. I don't blame him as he had health concerns but part of being a good artist is knowing when to hang it up for a while.

 

[Dan Daniel]

... [P]art of being a good artist is knowing when to hang it up for a while.

I'm not certain I agree that it's the artist's responsibility to know that it's time to give it a rest. But I would say that part of being a good viewer is finding those parts of an artist's work that you consider 'successful' (yeah, yeah, I know, that's a whole fourteen other threads) and putting aside the dross. The idea that everything a good artist does is good is a mistake in my experience.

 

[clayne]

I'm not certain I agree that it's the artist's responsibility to know that it's time to give it a rest. But I would say that part of being a good viewer is finding those parts of an artist's work that you consider 'successful' (yeah, yeah, I know, that's a whole fourteen other threads) and putting aside the dross. The idea that everything a good artist does is good is a mistake in my experience.

If it weren't the artist's responsibility to know when to give it a rest, then self-editing wouldn't be something that's generally upheld as a good practice.

It's not my responsibility to edit Gary's work either for myself, or others. He already did his own self-editing but rather than continue the failing process of trying to make good photographs while never leaving an automobile he should have realized it was futile and stopped doing it. He had health issues, he got lazy, maybe he didn't care anymore. But he isn't infallible and criticizing his later stuff doesn't detract from the power of his earlier work.

Refusing to be critical of any of it is hero-worship.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Why the fixation on his decline and "the mountain of crap"? Look at his best work. That's a much more important mountain. Of course, its not for everyone.

If you give one man five darts and only three of them are in the bulls-eye, and you give Winogrand 50,000 darts and only five of them are in the bulls-eye, who is the better shooter?

 

[tunalegs]

Oh man I hate when people act like you can't critique something you like. You are allowed to think part of something is great, even if you don't think another part is at all good. People fall into the trap of thinking that things must be either or - black or white, good or bad. Most things aren't though. Most artists make good work and bad work. I mean even the Beatles made some really bad songs. But just because you point that out doesn't mean you think they're a bad band overall.

It's just that you think it's cute to argue about it, it's really nothing to do with you.

My taste has everything to do with me, I'm pretty sure.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I mean even the Beatles made some really bad songs. But just because you point that out doesn't mean you think they're a bad band overall.

OK, so if The Beatles takes out 1,000 songs and about 100 are extremely good, and only 500 are really bad...and The Winogrand Experience takes out 50,000 songs and only five are extremely good (40,000 are really bad), is The Winogrand Experience a good band?

 

[mugent]

I think Winograd had some great work, he may have had a mountain of crap, but to me, it' just proves he was a hoarder, didn't want to throw stuff away, maybe the only difference is that other photographers threw stuff away, so we don't know how much crap they shot?

He had his technique, and it worked for him, he got some incredible images.