Ralph Gibson - COOPH video

Very good video, I loved it. Interesting to know about the beginning, the hard work in the darkroom during the Navy time and the meeting with Dorothea Lange and her suggestion to find a personal point of departure and work on projects. Thanks for the link
robert
 
There are certainly more important things that formed his vision than which lens to use or the film vs digital debate. :rolleyes:

What I find most fascinating about him are 2 things:
- That he is sharing openly how he got inspired and what he is looking for. He's not holding anything back. There is no artist BS. He is dead honest.

- That he is still motivated to keep going after like close to 60 years of photography. This in itself looks very promising to me.
 
Thank you for posting one of the most instructional and inspirational peices that I have seen. Ralph Gibson is among those photographers at the very top of my list.
 
Thanks for posting this!

I have saved this video to my fave websites. I need to watch this often.

Maybe every day for a month or so.
 
How do you all understand his admonition to always have a "point of departure"? His fetching toothpaste example didn't make a lot of sense to me.

John
 
johnwolf said:
How do you all understand his admonition to always have a "point of departure"? His fetching toothpaste example didn't make a lot of sense to me.

John
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I have heard him telling this slightly differently before. And I agree the way he told it here is a little confusing.
The point is that just carrying your camera around (e.g. on the way fetching toothpaste) and hoping for a nice shot that comes along will yield only the occasional "nice" image. You will end up with a collection of unrelated grab shots.

If you do work on a project, you can define this yourself but you need do formulate this as a concrete idea, then you do have a purpose to carry your camera and you are on look out for subjects that fit your project or relate to your idea. You have a point of departure rather than just drifting around, taking chances that something interesting will appear in front of your lens and you happen to carry your camera.
 
just transcribing some quotes that stood out.

"And she [Dorothea Lange] said, 'Well, if you have your camera, and you're going down to the drugstore to buy toothpaste, because you're directed, you have an objective — going to buy toothpaste. You might then intersect something worth photographing. But if you just walk around the street looking for something to shoot, you will never achieve very much.' And so from this moment on, from 1970 until this morning, I am always working on a project with a specific point of departure."

"How do you recognize a Cartier-Bresson? How come you recognize a Robert Frank so quickly? And it's because their way of looking is something you recognize. You see how they are perceiving the world.

In order to have a visual signature, I believe it's important that the photographer wants one, very badly. He or she must want their photographs to look different from everybody else's."

"So the great, uh, film producer Samuel Goldwyn said, 'Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them.'"

"But how you do this, how you stay inspired, is really the number one question in the creative person's life."
 
Thanks, aizan. I misunderstood his toothpaste example. I think what he's saying is not so much about subject or project as it is about a way of perceiving and expressing.

His subject matter is very diverse, yet his body of work is integrated with a distinctive and consistent aesthetic.

John
 
yeah, his main point is that he's photographing with a clear purpose and puts a lot of thought into what he's doing.

his way of perceiving and interpreting the world, his way of relating to things, is the foundation for his visual signature (his way of expression).

his approach is all about intentionality. he says:

"I know what I think of the picture before I release it, because if you listen to what other people say, you're not gonna really know very much about your own work. You're gonna know what they think about it, but you're not gonna know why you do it."

"It's just been a long, very satisfying experience because nothing comes between me and what I want to photograph. I take all the credit...and all of the blame, but I do not say, 'I could have done this, I could have done that.'"

gibson is basically the photographic counterpart of neo-expressionists like julian schnabel. it's all about expressing the artist's (uniquely marketable) soul. :D like some of the neo-expressionists, he's known to be pretty macho. not all photographers work this way, of course.
 
"And she [Dorothea Lange] said, 'Well, if you have your camera, and you're going down to the drugstore to buy toothpaste, because you're directed, you have an objective — going to buy toothpaste. You might then intersect something worth photographing. But if you just walk around the street looking for something to shoot, you will never achieve very much."

This has resonance with the poet William Carlos Williams' exhortation to poets not to give up their day job. But it is not the only way and in the video itself there is clear evidence of Gibson doing the opposite and wandering about with his camera seeing what takes his fancy. I am sure I read him somewhere recently saying that when he's out with a camera he knows that he's going to get something worthwhile, but he does not know in advance what that might be.

I like the Lange idea very much however. I get some good shots when out with my wife, or on errands at her instruction. The necessity of keeping up with her, or getting back quickly with the missing ingredients for a cake must make me more selective, and I will only break off for something I simply must shoot.
 
Interesting about the artist obtaining a uniform signature look only by strongly wanting a uniform look. Elliott Erwitt's signature is so much more about content than look. The desire for a particular look seems a great mistake to me for many photographers. It might work for some for reasons other than the mere desire for it. Luigi Ghirri decried this desire with particular vehemence.
 
Towards the end he has something to say about learning the language. 50 years of learning the language of film and more recently the digital language that he likes.
Most of RGs images are high contrast, and mostly B&W. I read that he exposed for the high lights, the negative space of shadows almost becoming the positive space by having shape less form. Film could be considered easier to manage in terms of controlling highlights, whereas digital is a precipice in terms of when it's blown it's done for. I'd like to understand his workflow better.
 
icebear said:
I have heard him telling this slightly differently before. And I agree the way he told it here is a little confusing.
The point is that just carrying your camera around (e.g. on the way fetching toothpaste) and hoping for a nice shot that comes along will yield only the occasional "nice" image. You will end up with a collection of unrelated grab shots.

If you do work on a project, you can define this yourself but you need do formulate this as a concrete idea, then you do have a purpose to carry your camera and you are on look out for subjects that fit your project or relate to your idea. You have a point of departure rather than just drifting around, taking chances that something interesting will appear in front of your lens and you happen to carry your camera.
Click to expand...

Gibson was one of the first photographer's I really admired when my photographic interests began decades ago. Another was Lee Friedlander. Different styles and yet both do beautiful work. Interestingly I just watched a recent (actually 2014) video of Friedlander in which he said he has the opposite approach to his work. He always carries a camera. He photographs whatever interests him at random all the time and never works on projects. His projects spring from the photos he makes while just drifting around. Once he finds a theme, he builds on it to completion.

I love the work of both Gibson and Friedlander. Two great photographers, two different approaches. It's whatever works for the individual photographer.
 
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