which photographer would you want to talk with?

Ororaro said:
Of course!

I’m adding Leonard Nimoy, Kenny Rogers.
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If considering celebs, Paul McCartney recently released a book of his photo documentation of the Beatles' 1964 trip to the USA to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. I have the book and highly recommend if interested in the Fab Four. For the record, I have NO interest other than enjoying the book. I would love to have coffee with McCartney or simply listen to his stories.
 
There are some accounts here on RFF of meeting the great man. On Instagram I read a detailed account of Joel Meyerowitz when very young, and a mate, seeing HCB in New York and spending a little time with him. These things are often a gentle dance. The admirer savoring the moment, hoping to obtain some pearl to punctuate the exchange, fearing blowing it by saying something stupid, saying something stupid, it not mattering as the hero is preoccupied, his usual barber shop inexplicably closed at noon. The best of them try to meet expectations and generously remember their own youth and meet the admirer more than half way, but they’re older now, with hidden troubles, and don’t really know what to say. Brilliantly they resort to civility and ask polite questions, normal human discourse. A touching of souls, life-giving water, but which trickles also through fingers and is gone.
 
Maybe some color masters - Gruyaert, Leiter, and Manos. Get their advice on moving to color, something I’ve tried to do many times but have never been able to stick with.
 
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Richard G said:
Freakscene
Retro-grouch
Deardorff38
Jsrockit
Dogman
Tigerphil
Barnwulf (dec)
Orville Robertson
Robert Blu
Mlehrman
Steveh
Out to Lunch

And a few others not on RFF. And a few others on RFF. (Already spoken with Lynnb)
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I’m pretty easy to find :)

I spoke to Jim Barnes (Barnwulf) online a few times. He was a very plain talking guy, which I both like and appreciate. He knew what he liked, photographically, and knew how to find it for himself, but he self-admittedly found it hard to explain how he got there. The lack of capacity to describe this is not rare, but the awareness of the inability and the willingness to relate it was both uncommon and refreshing. From what I could tell Jim was unusually economical with film and had an unusually high hit rate.

I’d like to talk face-to-face with @Erik van Straten particularly if I could bring my laptop and we could each bring a pile of prints. I used to travel to Europe often, but not so much since our family grew and things got busier and harder to be away from for extended periods.

And one of these days I might try to chat over a McEbi with @Yokosuka_Mike

Marty
 
Doug A said:
WeeGee (Arthur Fellig). Many of his photographs were taken in my old neighborhood on the Lower East Side.
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Hah! I was just thinking of mentioning him.

Thinking a lot about Lee Miller again and Margaret Bourke-White again, mostly for their WWII work.
 
Freakscene said:
I’m pretty easy to find :)

I spoke to Jim Barnes (Barnwulf) online a few times. He was a very plain talking guy, which I both like and appreciate. He knew what he liked, photographically, and knew how to find it for himself, but he self-admittedly found it hard to explain how he got there. The lack of capacity to describe this is not rare, but the awareness of the inability and the willingness to relate it was both uncommon and refreshing. From what I could tell Jim was unusually economical with film and had an unusually high hit rate.

I’d like to talk face-to-face with @Erik van Straten particularly if I could bring my laptop and we could each bring a pile of prints. I used to travel to Europe often, but not so much since our family grew and things got busier and harder to be away from for extended periods.

And one of these days I might try to chat over a McEbi with @Yokosuka_Mike

Marty
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You are very welcome!
 
Freakscene said:
I’m pretty easy to find :)

I spoke to Jim Barnes (Barnwulf) online a few times. He was a very plain talking guy, which I both like and appreciate. He knew what he liked, photographically, and knew how to find it for himself, but he self-admittedly found it hard to explain how he got there. The lack of capacity to describe this is not rare, but the awareness of the inability and the willingness to relate it was both uncommon and refreshing. From what I could tell Jim was unusually economical with film and had an unusually high hit rate.

I’d like to talk face-to-face with @Erik van Straten particularly if I could bring my laptop and we could each bring a pile of prints. I used to travel to Europe often, but not so much since our family grew and things got busier and harder to be away from for extended periods.

And one of these days I might try to chat over a McEbi with @Yokosuka_Mike

Marty
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I had many DM exchanges with Jim. He was a true American gentleman. His father was not happy with his artistic interests. He worked as a medical photographer for a time. He was very generous and encouraging of me here. He could point out errors too which I appreciated. I agree his visual development was stronger than his verbal, in terms of enunciated ideas. But he developed a consistency of interest and output, related to shapes and tones, which was all his own and he noticed a similar interest in what I was trying to do.
 
Richard G said:
I had many DM exchanges with Jim. He was a true American gentleman. His father was not happy with his artistic interests. He worked as a medical photographer for a time. He was very generous and encouraging of me here. He could point out errors too which I appreciated. I agree his visual development was stronger than his verbal, in terms of enunciated ideas. But he developed a consistency of interest and output, related to shapes and tones, which was all his own and he noticed a similar interest in what I was trying to do.
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Jim told me that if you spend enough time looking for the kind of photos you want to make to get good at making them, you don’t have enough time to think about how to describe the process. And, he added in a comment I’ll always remember “and you might not ever know what exactly it is that makes them good except that you see that you can see that they are good”.

I have often wondered what happened to his archive.

Not every great photographer is also a teacher, or even able to articulate their vision. Roger Hicks told me that.
 
Skillsets for an artist and a teacher are very very different, as are for an artist and for a marketer / salesperson / etc. As an artist you're inline with your work, you live and breath inside your own world where your body of work comes from. (Even when it's bespoke piece or commercial or what ever and there's other peoples inputs there) And being able to articulate your vision, goals, methods is not in any way required to make the piece. This conflict of skillsets means that there are tons of succesfull and/or impactful artists who are not in any way best or even close to the best in their fields. And the best might be regonized after their passing (or during their life time if they're lucky), or forgotten in obscurity.

Which doesn't mean there ain't artists who can also teach, sell, write, describe their work and methods, etc. Just that those skills are not the ones which makes them artists.

There's tons of amazingly well versed, verbal members who I would love to sit down with a pint / whiskey, etc and discuss their ways, visions and passions with. But as most are so far away to make it impractical, I don't think I'll be having a meet-up anytime soon of ever 😅
 
Myrrys.eu said:
Skillsets for an artist and a teacher are very very different, as are for an artist and for a marketer / salesperson / etc. As an artist you're inline with your work, you live and breath inside your own world where your body of work comes from. (Even when it's bespoke piece or commercial or what ever and there's other peoples inputs there) And being able to articulate your vision, goals, methods is not in any way required to make the piece. This conflict of skillsets means that there are tons of succesfull and/or impactful artists who are not in any way best or even close to the best in their fields. And the best might be regonized after their passing (or during their life time if they're lucky), or forgotten in obscurity.

Which doesn't mean there ain't artists who can also teach, sell, write, describe their work and methods, etc. Just that those skills are not the ones which makes them artists.

There's tons of amazingly well versed, verbal members who I would love to sit down with a pint / whiskey, etc and discuss their ways, visions and passions with. But as most are so far away to make it impractical, I don't think I'll be having a meet-up anytime soon of ever 😅
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Maybe one day I’ll visit and you can help me perfect my pronunciation of perkele, the Finnish perfect universal curse.
 
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