Robert Frank's Nikkor

[sparrow6224]

I still get this queasy feeling reading it. Call me a cynic or blame it in having read 'Tin-Tin in Congo' at a tender age. I could be wrong of course.

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Well if you're up on Tin Tin au Congo I should just rest my case and sit down.

HOWEVER.... are you aware of this important turn of events? http://www.france24.com/en/20121206-tintin-congo-not-racist-belgian-court-rules

I'm a big Tin Tin fan, so of course it stands to reason I'd be on the wrong side here (I also believe Heart of Darkness is one of the great novels in English, and not "racist" though I don't yet have the support of the Belgian courts on that. I also love T. S. Eliot god help me....) Tin Tin au Tibet might show you that the boy redeemed himself, racially and post-Colonially, if you have the time....

This is a long and complex and to me very important argument and you are extremely good at presenting your end of it. I admire your prose a great deal, and your expertise. So we'll have to hash it out someday with the books in front of us and wi-fi available, face to face. But a few points:

First of all that is not the only quote (as I remember it) from Frank in the Galassi catalogue but I'll have to go over it later.

Second, it is not Cartier-Bresson's responsibility as an artist to be friendly, or even to wish to help people in distress whose picture he might take. Susan Sontag would never require this of another artist, this political commitment outside the boundaries of the work -- of a writer? a painter? Never. Photography stirs this deep resentment in people, it's odd -- as if when you take people's photographs you owe them something. But if I were to chat with a person and then use some gesture, language, the entire incident perhaps in a novel or a story, would I owe him anything?

I think to keep the matter short I'd just say that I find many later photographs of Cartier Bresson's that are directly and deeply human. His portraits of Camus, of Ghandi, of several others -- including the most human and touching portrait I ever saw of Marilyn Monroe -- show his humanity but that of course is not the realm of humanity that Frank and Sontag have in mind (Sontag, that is, going by our description -- I have the bloody book I should read it -- my problem is that much of the time she doesn't so much make a point as do a dramatic representation of making a point, an imitation in full costume....). A quick search of the web leads me to this. I love the faces....

 

[__--]

Reading through this thread, it seems to me that Cartier-Bresson is getting a bum rap. First, to correct one statement, he wasn't an aristocrat: he came from a rich, industrial family that was a member of the bourgeoisie. Then, I think it's completely false to say that he didn't have a point of view or a social conscience: even a cursory look at his body of work gives the lie to that.: look, for example at his book on Mexico. Interesting is the criticism he made in the 1930s, "The world is going to pieces and Adams and Weston are photographing rocks and trees...." (You can google that and get the context.) You might also want to keep in mind that the first book that he published, "The Decisive Moment," is one of the best photo books ever published: it's hard to find a collection of photographs in one book that are at the level of this book.

So he told Eggleston that "color is bullish*t:" all that reflects is that he liked to be provocative in his conversation. Ever hear of "irony?" Seems to me a sense of irony is what Eggleseton lacked in this encounter — or maybe he just wanted to show that he passed up a conversation with Cartier-Bresson to talk to a wild-looking woman — now that is in line with Eggleston liking to speak for effect.

EDIT: I was not aware that this forum censors words like "sh*t." How quaint, and irritating, in an age when the New Yorker routinely publishes articles with the word "f*ck" in them.

—Mitch/Chiang Mai
Looking for Baudelaire [WIP]

 

[telenous]

Reading through this thread, it seems to me that Cartier-Bresson is getting a bum rap. First, to correct one statement, he wasn't an aristocrat: he came from a rich, industrial family that was a member of the bourgeoisie. Then, I think it's completely false to say that he didn't have a point of view or a social conscience: even a cursory look at his body of work gives the lie to that.: look, for example at his book on Mexico. Interesting is the criticism he made in the 1930s, "The world is going to pieces and Adams and Weston are photographing rocks and trees...." (You can google that and get the context.) You might also want to keep in mind that the first book that he published, "The Decisive Moment," is one of the best photo books ever published: it's hard to find a collection of photographs in one book that are at the level of this book.

So he told Eggleston that "color is bull****:" all that reflects is that he liked to be provocative in his conversation. Ever hear of "irony?" Seems to me Eggleston a sense of irony is what Eggleseton lacked in this encounter — or maybe he just wanted to show that he passed up a conversation with Cartier-Bresson to talk to wild-looking woman — now that is in line with Eggleston liking to speak for effect.

—Mitch/Chiang Mai

Dissenting from a hagiographic view of a famous photographer is not the same as giving him a bum rap. To repeat, he was a formidable photographer, the work in the '30s (Mexico and Spain) the summit of his career and a high peak for photography in general. But it's hardly work you can call militant and the social conscience in it is not a foreground motivation. After all, why else would Capa advise him to move to reportage, be done with the surrealist label even as he kept his allegiances close to his little heart? Why did Cartier-Bresson take heed of that advice and admit that it opened a wider field of view for him? Anyway, the photos are out there, we all have eyes, judge for yourselves. Perhaps we'll just have to disagree.

As for the Eggleston-HCB encounter, I pretty much agree (I had a similar thought, believe it or not), though I think Eggleston is an old fox and didn't miss how this was an opportunity for some social theatre. And how convenient: One of them comes out as an insolent surrealist out to shock with his manners the bourgeoisie, the other as an incorrigible womanizer. Perfect! But theatrics or not, this does nothing to dispel the view of Cartier-Bresson as a little too intolerant to other artists' aesthetic predilections and priorities. Now someone will say 'so what'. To which all I can do, is throw my hands in the air. 🙂

Well if you're up on Tin Tin au Congo I should just rest my case and sit down.
...

Vince, thanks for your comment and likewise. I'll have to mull over a lot of the points you bring to the table, the defence against Sontag inclusive. Re: Tin-Tin, I had no clue about the Belgian court decision, very interesting, as is the fact that the British courts ruled very differently. The HCB photo in the end is genuinely very nice. A bit Robert Frank-ish, if you ask me. 🙂


Over and out, and my apologies to the OP for detracting repeatedly the thread.

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[sparrow6224]

Malland, quite right, I was using aristocrat incorrectly. He came, let us say for the sake of those who don't know quite how to interpret bourgeoisie, from a rich and privileged background. I think Robert Frank resented the collected hauteur of HCB's background, style, and (just possibly) worldview. Unfortunately holding this kind of thing against an artist always amounts to a false criticism, in my view, in relation to the art itself, which is not rich and privileged and haughty, but something else, a photograph, to be judged as such. And his were so frequently superb.

 

[sparrow6224]

My apologies, also, to the OP. Really it was all my fault.

 

[__--]

Malland, quite right, I was using aristocrat incorrectly. He came, let us say for the sake of those who don't know quite how to interpret bourgeoisie, from a rich and privileged background. I think Robert Frank resented the collected hauteur of HCB's background, style, and (just possibly) worldview. Unfortunately holding this kind of thing against an artist always amounts to a false criticism, in my view, in relation to the art itself, which is not rich and privileged and haughty, but something else, a photograph, to be judged as such. And his were so frequently superb.

Absolutely. Well stated. We should not be stuck in time-warp and place-warp of the Chinese cultural revolution. 😀

—Mitch/Chiang Mai
Looking for Baudelaire [WIP]

 

[35mmdelux]

I read Frank undertook The Americans with a "bag full of lenses." Not just one lens as HCB might have done in his America in Passing.

 

[thompsonks]

I was surprised to see Vince apologizing to me (as the OP). I'd only posted a note about a lens, and the thread developed in such interesting ways. I'm always impatient with talk about Frank's messiness or HCB's formalism (of course it's formalism – and gorgeous high-modern formalism at that), but all the rest was a seriously engaging 'read.'

BTW, I've also been re-reading Sontag and find I can learn a lot from her now that time has passed. The posturing, the self-agrandizing early-post-modern critical stance, and her apparent hostility to photography seem less irritating now, and I find her saying much I can learn from. Definitely worth the re-read.

 

[thompsonks]

OK, I got curious and tried it today:

Here's a 5cm Nikkor image @ f1.4 on contemporary Leica: Pleasant low contrast, with what folks call 'Leica glow'– except that here it's 'Nikkor Glow.'

(I have no idea why it posted twice.)

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Strairway by thompsonkirk, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Timestep]

Might well have been a conscious choice by Frank.
In 1956, the Leica M3 being unaffordable, the choice was the Zeiss Contax IIa, or Leica IIIf. I chose the Nikon S2 with 50mm F/2 Nikkor. I still use this camera today.

Had my choice been the IIIf ( unlikely ) or even the M3. I would have used the Nikkor lens in Leica screw-thread— and with adaptor on the M3. Leica lenses were not yet ready for prime time; 'till the Summicron series came along.

 

[Ansel]

I read Frank undertook The Americans with a "bag full of lenses." Not just one lens as HCB might have done in his America in Passing.

Yes, you can see some images are taken with a 50 mm lens, some with a 35 mm and others with a 28 mm... Not sure if he went any wider though.