Roger Hicks
Veteran
Parochial again. Who the hell is Herman Miller? And in my view, Brandt was a vastly more inventive and versatile photographer than Frank. Unless of course you're totally America-centric.
Cheers,
R.
Who? Never heard of them....
- Thread starter kbg32
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Cheers,
R.
lukitas
second hand noob
You have taught me something I didn't know. I was thinking about Henry at first😱
lukitas
second hand noob
+1, or 2 or 3.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Yeah, mistyped. Who cares? One can VERY EASILY live without ANY Rossellini.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
THE most? Oh, dear. Again, your choice is almost completely meanimgless outside the USA.
Cheers,
R.
lukitas
second hand noob
Not quite.
Of course, what I say may be limited to my personal experience.
I grew up in an aspiring petit-bourgeois, beatnik bordering on hippie, family, in the dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Culture was important to us, and american and english writers filled our bookshelves just as much as 'home-grown', french and german literature. The people I grew up with, the people I am familiar with, have at the very least an inkling of these worlds of the mind.
To be extremely simplistic, one could state that Europe has exported its' culture to America, and America has plastered the world with it.
I can assure you that Dashiel Hammet is at least as important in my upbringing as Simenon. And for every Kerouac, there is a Chatwin, or a Gilles Lapouge.
KM-25
Well-known
Mmmmm, I don't know about this, it seems you might be assuming some things here...
For example, you mention several times about someone not caring about history...did this person say that specifically after saying they did not know of the people you were talking about?
Also, I am a self taught pro, won quite a few awards, several magazine covers, two times in Life The Year in Pictures and out of all the people you mention, I knew of Weston and none of the others as of 10 years ago. I cared but I simply did not know who they were because they were not current like Nachtwey, the Turnley Bros, Allard, Harvey, etc. the latter are who influenced me at the time because that is who was currently in the spotlight.
You have to give a young person credit, there is so much knowledge influence beyond the textbook or classroom these days that they ultimately have to follow their internal compass post info barrage.
I love what I have learned of the people you mention, enjoy several of their more important books, but had I known of them 20 years ago, I doubt they would have influenced me or my work much as even in the late 80's, they were hardly current.
Give the guy some credit, the age of photogs who will make that kind of mark are looooong gone sir, never to return.
lam
Well-known
Dieter Rams
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
To be honest I don't think it's important for a student of photography to be able to drop names of dead photographers. I mean really, that anybody would think this is vital to taking pictures is silly.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
I am not "assuming" anything. Read the OP.
Pablito
coco frío
They may have been taught those photographers, it does not mean the information sunk in.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
I sincerely doubt this quite highly. If this was true, scarier still!
j j
Well-known
Be assured that Kerouac is extremely well known in Europe among those who read. Not exactly fashionable now like he was 20 and 30 years ago but by any reasonable measure he is well known and considered important. Even people who do not know the author's name know On The Road.
rodinal
film user
As non-American (understood as non-US-citizen and not-living-in-the-US) photo aficionado, I can inform you that Frank's work it's not everybody's cup of tea around this corner, but it matters a lot.
Also, Rossellini and Bertolucci (and Pasolini, de Sica, Fellini, etc) are very well known names for any cinema afcionado too...
KM-25
Well-known
Just read it again, no where in the text does it say that the person you refer to in the beginning of the post told they do not care....did they tell you they don't care or did you just assume they don't?
What you *did* write about someone caring or not is this, does not really refer to the young person you talked to now does it:
I don't know who Bravo is, but I am moving forward, that's for sure...
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
Indeed. We each have limited memory capacity and our choice of what we remember is not, in my opinion, open to the criticism of random acquaintances.
DominikDUK
Well-known
Since a few years Jack Kerouac and Steinbeck are on the required reading list for Austrian school children.Which I don't mind as long as they are read in the english class bu not they are required reading in the german class which I find kind off stupid they should be read in their original language. Also Bertolluci, De Sica, Fellini, Rosselini and Pasolini are only known to movie buffs the average moviegoer knows maybe three or four directors Bay, Spielbert, Scorsese and with some Luck Coppola. In the past there were film classes in some Austrian schools but they were stopped due to lack of funding and 99% of the movies shown in Cinemas are Megabudget Hollywood movies so it's no wonder that people are unaware of great directors that work outside of Hollywood. The same with Authors 90% of the books sold in Bookstores are written by Americans and now they don't even read european authors in school anymore. Again it's not the fault of the americans it's Europes fault that they seemed to have stopped to promote eureopean culture.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
No, it was just THE MOST that I was querying. Important, yes. THE MOST important, no.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Known, important and interesting, yes. THE MOST important: very, very far from it.
Cheers,
R.
Last edited:
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Carrying your own little bit of America around with you in your head!
As I have said in other posts above, no-one denies the importance of Kerouac or Frank. It's just that there are plenty of European (and indeed South American, Indian and other) writers and photographers who are at least as interesting as either Kerouac or Frank but are unknown to those many Americans who are unaware of anything that happens outside the USA. Among photographers, Willy Ronis and Raghu Rai spring immediately to mind. One of my favourite columnists is Khushwant Singh, though given that he is now 98 years old I suppose he can't last much longer. Then there's Shashi Tharoor, a staggering polymath ( http://tharoor.in/about-shashi/ )
Cheers,
R.
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