Sadly Pertinent

upceci said:
Winogrand was really not interested in photography, he simply got a buzz from photographing women on the streets. The reason why he became such an idol has to do with the fact that his dead.
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Are you sure about this? What do you have to backup that he wasn't interested in photography? No interview shows this. Did you know him personally?

had he been alive, he'd be another Bruce Gilden, famous for sometime and then derided and forgotten - like all youtube celebrities.
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I'm pretty sure Bruce Gilden's work will be around awhile... especially with the backing of Magnum.
 
upceci said:
The idea of building a huge backlog and then printing is usually a way to rationalize lack of interest in printing. But this not a bad reflection on the photographer, editing and printing are the two worst aspects of photography, time consuming and boring, while shooting is always fun. Winogrand was really not interested in photography, he simply got a buzz from photographing women on the streets. The reason why he became such an idol has to do with the fact that his dead. had he been alive, he'd be another Bruce Gilden, famous for sometime and then derided and forgotten - like all youtube celebrities. The real lamentation for analogue is mostly a lamentation for a time when those with a camera and a darkroom actually mattered.
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What you suggest is a generalization and perhaps applies to others. I actually love equally all aspects of photography and pine away for the time that I can edit and print. Back in the seventies in art school I was trained to be a good printer.

I have struggled in the arts for decades and originally was a painter, and I know I have the discipline to defy your generalizations. Anyways not trying to be another Gary or Bruce: all I'm trying to be is me, but why do I feel oppressed?:bang:

Cal
 
jsrockit said:
Are you sure about this? What do you have to backup that he wasn't interested in photography? No interview shows this. Did you know him personally?



I'm pretty sure Bruce Gilden's work will be around awhile... especially with the backing of Magnum.
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What is a photographer? Isn't a photographer first and foremost someone who produces photographs? Winogrand was a producer of negatives... In one of his interviews he said, and i paraphrase that photography allows him to feel as if he did not exist, that pretty much sums up his need to compulsively shoot and forget about the results. However, Winogrand's honesty is admirable, he went out of his way to emphasize that he should not be taken seriously, but then the NY photography clique badly needed an American star photographer to balance all the European photography superstars, Winogrand made perfect sense... After all Robert Frank was European.
 
upceci said:
What is a photographer? Isn't a photographer first and foremost someone who produces photographs? Winogrand was a producer of negatives...
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Come on man, do you really think this way? We should all be so lucky to have as many prints as he does in museum and private collections.
 
Calzone said:
What you suggest is a generalization and perhaps applies to others. I actually love equally all aspects of photography and pine away for the time that I can edit and print. Back in the seventies in art school I was trained to be a good printer.

I have struggled in the arts for decades and originally was a painter, and I know I have the discipline to defy your generalizations. Anyways not trying to be another Gary or Bruce: all I'm trying to be is me, but why do I feel oppressed?:bang:

Cal
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Photography is a demanding activity. It requires time, patience, physical effort, money and many sacrifices. At least with digital some of those aspects have been trimmed but not much in the larger scheme of things. I see this analogue/digital debate as a dangerous distraction in a time when photography itself is struggling for relevance and importance... I guess when you said you're shooting film and not caring about printing, it struck me that you could do that with digital as well and far cheaply.
 
jsrockit said:
Come on man, do you really think this way? We should all be so lucky to have as many prints as he does in museum and private collections.
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There is more to the world of photography than pure talent. Ansel Adams needed Alfred Stieglitz and the Winogrand myth was created by John Szarkowski. There are very few photographers who have become famous by pure talent against all odds. Even Robert Frank needed Walker Evans.
 
Is it possible that Winogrand was sloppy and liked to proscratinate? That he liked being outside shooting better than he liked going through file drawers? Did he maybe find the task of sorting through all that stuff -- 2,500 undeveloped rolls -- kind of daunting? Wouldn't you? And, anyway, what's wrong with that? He did produce a rather staggering and very fine body of printed work. Do you think that maybe he had hoped to live past the age of 56? What would any of us leave behind in life if our number came up prematurely like that? Is Vermeer less of a painter because we only know of a small quantity of finished canvasses? Did Gary maybe prefer shooting to printing? Who knows?
 
upceci said:
There is more to the world of photography than pure talent. Ansel Adams needed Alfred Stieglitz and Winogrand was created by John Szarkowski. There are very few photographers who have become famous by pure talent against all odds. Even Robert Frank needed Walker Evans.
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That still doesn't make Winogrand only a maker of negatives.
 
upceci said:
Photography is a demanding activity. It requires time, patience, physical effort, money and many sacrifices. At least with digital some of those aspects have been trimmed but not much in the larger scheme of things. I see this analogue/digital debate as a dangerous distraction in a time when photography itself is struggling for relevance and importance... I guess when you said you're shooting film and not caring about printing, it struck me that you could do that with digital as well and far cheaply.
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Your assumption about digital is not the case either. Tomorrow I get delivery of a Leica Monochrome. Already bought an Epson 3880 to take advantage of a $250.00 rebate. This weekend I intend on buying a fully loaded 15 inch Mac Book Pro with Retina Screen. Just completed building out the room for my digital studio that involved about $1K in furniture. A NEC 721W with spectraview is about $1.5K, but that will have to wait.

Also no debate film verses digital: to me they are two separate mediums. And yes I know that photography is a demanding activity because I take what I do very seriously, but also know that the only person I need please is myself. No need to impress anyone else.

Cal
 
robklurfield said:
Is it possible that Winogrand was sloppy and liked to proscratinate? That he liked being outside shooting better than he liked going through file drawers? Did he maybe find the task of sorting through all that stuff -- 2,500 undeveloped rolls -- kind of daunting? Wouldn't you? And, anyway, what's wrong with that? He did produce a rather staggering and very fine body of printed work. Do you think that maybe he had hoped to live past the age of 56? What would any of us leave behind in life if our number came up prematurely like that? Is Vermeer less of a painter because we only know of a small quantity of finished canvasses? Did Gary maybe prefer shooting to printing? Who knows?
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Rob,

There's lots of ambiguous writing about Gary, and its really difficult to get any real clarity. Part of the legend and mystic is we really do not know definitively what Gary was thinking, especially towards the end of his life.

Not all photographers print their own work, and there are some that are known to be great printers as well as shooters, anyways the latter is my goal.

I know that I have upset people with my ways and my logic. This never was my intent. For me its art verses artifact: one is the act of creativity; and the other is the presentation of that creativity. Know that I do look at my negatives, evaluate them, and critically look for theme and content. I always was good in evaluating negatives and all I need is a good light table and sometimes an 8X lupe.

Since you went to art school I think you can see this separation of art and artifact.

I am 55, but I am rather good about taking care of my health. Eventually I will edit and print these negatives. Making prints I put off because I always envisioned printing big, and because of my training as an artist I want the quality.

Anyways I apologize for upsetting people with my creativity and personal logic that does not seem to make any sense to anyone else. Again all I'm trying to do is be me, and I'm very happy.

Cal
 
Cal, you certainly haven't upset me, although I have teased you more than once about your backlog. I am a slob and have a quite a backlog of my own.

I think you're right about the mystery (and mystique) surrounding Winogrand.

Good health is lucky thing, as even those who work at maintaining it can have their number come up at anytime without warning. Winogrand certainly didn't strike me as any kind of health nut, but does that matter when you get gall bladder cancer?

Even if you never work through your significant backlog, the process of living your life fully is as important -- more important, I think -- than leaving a whole stack of lovely framed prints behind. Truth be told, until I got the new printer, I had printed anything in at least six years.

I mostly have teased you about this Cal simply to encourage you post a little bit of that oeuvre on the site for all of us to see -- even if it's not edited yet.

The difference between me and Winogrand will be that, when I'm gone, my backlog will be smaller and rather less (very much less) viewed. But I don't care. I kind of get the sense that Gary didn't care either. The pull of shooting just have greatly exceed to desire to stop long enough to edit, print and all that other junk (showing, selling, schmoozing, agents, publishers, etc. that we amateurs miss out on).
 
+1 on that. But I often wonder, how many greats are out there waiting to be discovered.

Personally, I think the bane of the digital age so far is not in the quality of the work or the ability of it offer high IQ, but rather in the glut of it. There's so much out there. No different than in the golden age of film, in that most of it is junk and cheesy snapshots of cats, but now it is so easy to share in the public venues, that the size of the pile is ridiculous. And most of the pile is crap.

jsrockit said:
Not less talented, but it would be a shame to not have either be known.
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' I see this analogue/digital debate as a dangerous distraction in a time when photography itself is struggling for relevance and importance... ."

I have a hard time accepting that photography is struggling for relevance and importance when more pictures are being taken and shared now than at any point in recorded history. Yes, there is crap, but there is also a lot of fine work being produced. We are seeing the democratization of photography. Everybody can shoot and distribute their pictures easily.

News gathering has changed because of the ubiquity of cell phone cameras. Now, the news agencies can easily pick up photos and videos from a vast pool of people, not just news photographers.

I can get amazing candids on the subway by using an iPhone, all the while keeping a film camera around my neck as a decoy. ;-)

I read in an interview with Winogrand where he said that he liked to wait up to a year before processing and looking at his contact sheets, so that he could gain some emotional distance from the work. He felt that he needed to forget about the shot in order to make an objective determination of whether it was good. I can understand that argument. I like to be surprised by what I see on the contact sheet.

Shooting film is like sending myself a message to be read in the future.
 
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