Roger Hicks
Veteran
The point is that the almost-worship of the book that is common among some kinds of Americans is far from universally shared outside the USA. It's a good book. "One of the greatest of all time"? Possibly. Or possibly not. It's one kind of book about one place (admittedly a very big place). If it doesn't immediately grab you; well, there are plenty of other books I (and others) would call at least as good, and (I'd suggest) better, such as Bill Brandt's The English at Home (1936), W. Eugene Smith's Minamata, Willy Ronis's Paris, éternellement (2005), You Have Seen Their Faces (1937) by Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell...
Cheers,
R.
gns
Well-known
OK, matter of opinion. But, you could have simply suggested any of those titles rather than snub another.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
History always weeds out the riff-raff and over 50 years after it's publication it is still considered to be and just because one loves photography and the work of many photographers doesn't = worship just the appreciation of things that are special.
I also admire the work of Brandt. W.Eugene Smith, Margaret Bourke-White, Ralph Gibson, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Bresson, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Elliot Porter, Michael Johnson, Boogie, Bruce Davidson, Harry Callahan, Roy DeCarava, Arron Siskind, Ernst Haas, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Peter Witkin and hundreds of others. It still doesn't diminish the importance of that book in the history of photography anywhere in the world where they appreciate great work.
ChrisN
Striving
Would Magnum Stories fit in here?
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Roger Hicks
Veteran
That was precisely my point. It's place "in the history of photography anywhere in the world" is not, in fact, anything like as exalted in the eyes of non-Americans as in the eyes of Americans. To most non-Americans it's just another very good book of reportage, continuing a tradition that had begun mostly in France in the 1930s but also had antecedents in Russia and the United States (especially the FSA). Why do you think The Americans was first published in France in 1958 and not until the following year in the USA? And Margaret Bourke-White's You Have Seen Their Faces, published in 1937 (over 20 years before The Americans) was at least as important.
Cheers,
R.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
A lot of it had to do with McCarthyism residue in the US. In fact the book was labeled by some as communist propaganda. I almost didn't get released.
Back to the OP the way the Americans is paced and put together is a great lesson in how to put together a photo story and some explanation of that comes from the link I posted in #16.
Back to the OP the way the Americans is paced and put together is a great lesson in how to put together a photo story and some explanation of that comes from the link I posted in #16.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Ah... Yes. This is part of what I meant about the book being more than a little culturally specific, and why it is not quite so highly regarded outside the USA. In France, it was just another good photojournalism book: it didn't have the cultural baggage.
Cheers,
R.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
I would argue it is highly regarded anywhere because of some of the things Sarah Greenough talks about in the link because it was ground breaking in many ways. It changed photography. The list of photographers heavily influenced by that book would be to long to list here but Winogrand, Davidson and Meyerowitz and just 3. It was important in the world history of photography period.
Also wanted to add because that book and Frank (not American BTW) was important doesn't mean other work by other photographers wasn't import to. It's not an I love the Beatles and hate the Stones thing. You know you can like them both. I did. And I also love the work of all the photographers you mentioned to but that still doesn't change the importance of The Americans to the over all history of photography.
Also wanted to add because that book and Frank (not American BTW) was important doesn't mean other work by other photographers wasn't import to. It's not an I love the Beatles and hate the Stones thing. You know you can like them both. I did. And I also love the work of all the photographers you mentioned to but that still doesn't change the importance of The Americans to the over all history of photography.
ChrisLivsey
Veteran
I think a lot of the opinion you have about a book is at what point you personally first encounter it.
I can see if you had already encountered Koudelka (strangely omitted from this discussion?) Bruce Davidson and William Klein, to pluck out three, BEFORE you came across "The Americans" a degree of disappointment would be rational emotion. Placing them in context and time lines can lead to a different conclusion. Rarely are our encounters structured, unless you have an exceptional course and visually naive students.
The beauty of photography and its visual literature is that no one book is "the be all and end all" there are always discoveries to be made.
I was informed yesterday that this volume was on its way, more to discover:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/r.html?R.../dp/0714866776/ref=pe_385721_37038051_TE_dp_1
Roger Hicks
Veteran
No, it's not "I love the Beatles and hate the Stones". It's "they were both important but it's important not to overestimate either" -- and (I believe) The Americans is often overrated.
Likewise, I'd suggest that Sarah Greenough's view is, well, culturally specific.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Chris,
Very true, but "in time and place" it was STILL no more than another book in a well established tradition that already stretched back maybe 25 years. A good one, yes. A ground-breaking one, no. The Americans was, I maintain, excessively highly regarded by Americans because of its subject matter. Outside the USA it just doesn't receive the same praise.
Cheers,
R.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
But history has shown the importance of both the Beatles and the Stones. And you what you like and dislike is quite alright but it still doesn't change the fact they both had a huge influence on popular music.
And what she says about Frank is not just her opinion. I share it, as do many a lot more qualified, John Szarkowski being another. There are not many photographers that do street (I hate that term) or documentary work that hasn't been influenced by that body of work whether directly or indirectly. It changed photography. Now whether you like it or not is personal and thats fine but it doesn't reflect what is in the larger scope. That body of work influenced photography world wide. The reason for that influence has a lot more to do with the visuals and the way the book was put together than subject matter.
And back to the OP; none of this changes the fact that it is a great book to look at to see how to effectively put a body of work together.
ChrisLivsey
Veteran
It does above perhaps all else show that the ordering and editing of photographs is as much if not more important to the finished work, a photobook in this case, than individually powerful images.
For the OP this is the take home message, if you are constructing a "story" (inverted commas because arguably The Americans is a truthful story (discuss) ) you edit and sequence for that not just a display of your keepers based loosly around a theme.
cz23
-
I highly recommend Charles Harbutt's Travelogue.
The book has four sections that are structured around the epigraph, a line from the Book of Common Prayer:
"From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, the devil, good Lord, deliver us."
Not really journalism, but an engaging concept wonderfully executed. One of the best I've seen.
John
The book has four sections that are structured around the epigraph, a line from the Book of Common Prayer:
"From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, the devil, good Lord, deliver us."
Not really journalism, but an engaging concept wonderfully executed. One of the best I've seen.
John
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Highlights:
1 Yes, Szarkowski is certainly another American theoretician and curator.
2 This is where we disagree. It was ONE example in a long-running trend.
3 Very true. My sole intent was to stop people having excessive expectations.
"Indirect" influences? We're ALL influenced by other photographers and by the whole history of photography. I'd argue that "indirectly" means absolutely nothing in the 20th and 21st centuries, however. You mean that Frank was NOT influenced by those who had gone before?
Cheers,
R.
Dave Jenkins
Loose Canon
The Americans is the jaundiced view of one Swiss who had no concept of the greatness of America and consequently could see only the mundane, the banal, and the tawdry.
cz23
-
Are you being serious, Dave? In America the mundane, banal, and tawdry are hard to miss. As they are in the rest of the world. Not the whole story, of course, but certainly part of it. All editorial work is biased. That's what makes it editorial and not reportage.
I never understood why Frank's book is considered so damning of America.
John
airfrogusmc
Veteran
But few books and have had the kind of influence that book had and i never said Frank wasn't influenced by others. Theres a big reason that book is still in the conversation and will remain so.
And again it doesn't change the fact that book is a great example of how to put a book together visually.
Dave Jenkins
Loose Canon
Quite serious, John. My point is that the mundane, the banal, and the tawdry were all he could see. As an European sophisticate, he was totally blind to the many virtues of an America that had saved Europe from self-destruction twice in less than half a century.