View Full Version : Was HCB Really "All That"???
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 19:03
Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, near Paris, France, the eldest of five children. His father was a wealthy textile manufacturer whose Cartier-Bresson thread was a staple of French sewing kits. (Wikipedia)
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Here's my take on HCB. Dude was born way wealthy in France. Of course, he didn't actually have to do anything useful for a living so he studied art. Gave him a good handle on composition - sorta like David Lynch and other film directors who first study painting and art. Due to his family wealth, did the kinda "cool" (but unuseful things) trust fund babies get to do - get "involved" with "art movements", hook up with "intellectuals", read Heart of Darkness - jaunts off to Africa for a while...
He then - for much of his life, walked around France and other places and took a ton of pics with his Leica. Yeah! I'd love to do that! He was credited as the first "Street Photographer" but was he really the first "digital photographer"? Shooting pic, after pic, after pic - hundreds of feet of film - never bothering with the tedious "grunt work" of developing the negatives and making prints (which is 1/2 of the art when you "make" a picture). Never. Even amateurs do this. Should we be crediting his printer as much as him? Would A.A. ever outsource this critical part of the work flow? Are his more compelling pieces a function of "even the blind monkey stumbles upon the occasional banana" - shooting pic after pic until a cool one come out, like a digital "photographer"? If I took some photos I like off the galleries in this very forum - black and white stuff, and slapped them into a book and called it an HCB collection, would people gush that it's "brilliant" because the think it's HCB? Is his work really that good or is it a function of the "Halo Effect"? Does some of his "genius" result because they're old black and white pics of a different time, a different culture, a different era - French men with thick handle bar mustaches wearing derbies and trench coats posting bill boards in Paris? Looks cool now, but during its era was it really all "that"? Or is 2/3's of its appeal (and that of all his work) attributable to the nostalgia effect and we like old black and whites pics taken during another time, another place? We like catch-phrases, and HCB came up with a doozey - right up there with "hold the pickles, hold the lettuce" in "the decisive moment". Did he play into our love of bumper sticker/T-shirt catch phrases? He does have a cool French designer name. It can even be initialized - HCB, like "BK" for Burger King. Do you see the marketing forces at work here?
Are we "expected" - as amateur photographers, to like certain "names" in photography - so we "do"? Are we like kids who allege to like "Frank Zappa" "music" because - ya know, all real cool people like Frank Zappa even though we all know he kinda sucked and his music is unlistenable (but - shhhh, don't admit it because people won't think you're cool...) Back to "the decisive moment" - is it really all that profound? Yeah - miss that kid blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, blew "the decisive moment". Of course you want to capture the image at the "exact" point in time when it has max impact. Is he overstating the obvious but (again) it makes for a good catch-phrase?
Do you really like, appreciate, understand HCB? Or is it hype, marketing, and mythology? Do you nod along like you did when someone says they dig Zappa - because, ya know, you're kinda expected to? And, saying he isn't "all that" sorta taboo, a sacrilege? Thou shall not take the name of HCB in vain! Was HCB really "all that"?
Brennotdan
04-30-2008, 19:12
yea boyee!
antiquark
04-30-2008, 19:20
Was HCB really "all that"?
Yes.
As far as whipping off hundreds of pictures, I understand HCB photographed Gandhi and his funeral with only 5 rolls of film. I think I saw that in an interview with Charlie Rose.
back alley
04-30-2008, 19:21
zappa was a genius easily...
adams is considered a god but i can't stand most of his calender art.
karsh was a portrait genius too but it was mostly butterfly lighting and boring to me.
hcb is a genius no matter if he printed his own stuff or not. he was not the first street shooter btw, lots of larger format guys shooting before him.
f/stopblues
04-30-2008, 19:34
I very much enjoy looking at his photos. I don't really care if they're a result of "accuracy by volume" or that he had nothing better to do. I don't believe merit should have anything to do with the final result of a piece of art. Same as my indifference on the format (35mm, MF, LF, digi, fabrication). A good photo stands on its own, and I believe his body of work, indeed, stands on its own.
Of course, enjoying it is subjective, so YMMV!
Finally a photography thread discussing HCB. About time.
The problem with HCB is not how much good he was but rather the large amount of bad photographers...
Berliner
04-30-2008, 19:51
The fact that he took most of his photos with a 50mm lens... Never cropped his images...., never had Photoshop to tweak his negative, and yet has thousands of images that WERE printable, let alone (subjectively) meaningful, is really amazing. He's not MY favorite, but, he IS known for the decisive moment...he just’ clicked the shutter' as he stated... I wish I could 'click' the shutter, and send the cartridge to Wal-Mart and get something like he got.
Yes, he was a trust fund baby. Yes, he got to do what most of us can only dream of doing. He was a lucky dude...obviously, but a great artist/genius none the less...
I appreciate him, but do not understand him—I don’t think it is possible to ‘understand’ his work. I am not sure HE did. I don't think it's marketing, as he was famous WELL before he was dead, and well before marketing was SUCH the deciding factor it is now. I think he was all that and more....But what do I know...my photo instructor taught me that if I could take well composed images with a 50mm lens without having to crop, then I could call myself a photographer...
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 20:03
I say you allege to like the work of HCB mainly because you're expected to like HCB. His work has taken on a mythology, has a halo effect. Much of its appeal has to do with the film (black and white) and era (France, decades ago) it was shot and the fact he shot with a Leica. I think if I plucked some interesting black and white stuff from RFF, you would praise it because you thought it was HCB. I think "the decisive moment" is overstating something painfully obvious.
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 20:06
The fact that he took most of his photos with a 50mm lens... Never cropped his images...., never had Photoshop to tweak his negative, and yet has thousands of images that WERE printable, let alone (subjectively) meaningful, is really amazing. He's not MY favorite, but, he IS known for the decisive moment...he just’ clicked the shutter' as he stated... I wish I could 'click' the shutter, and send the cartridge to Wal-Mart and get something like he got.
Yes, he was a trust fund baby. Yes, he got to do what most of us can only dream of doing. He was a lucky dude...obviously, but a great artist/genius none the less...
I appreciate him, but do not understand him—I don’t think it is possible to ‘understand’ his work. I am not sure HE did. I don't think it's marketing, as he was famous WELL before he was dead, and well before marketing was SUCH the deciding factor it is now. I think he was all that and more....But what do I know...my photo instructor taught me that if I could take well composed images with a 50mm lens without having to crop, then I could call myself a photographer...
I'm not saying he sucked. He had a good eye for composition because of his art background, he developed a good sense of timing. But if you got to run a round France leading a life of leasure, and 24/7, that's all you did all day, snapped away, would your portfolio be as good as his?
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 20:21
Serious questions. Reconsider. How much is talent? How much is mythology, "halo effect", inadvertent "catch-phrases", expectation, nostalgia, style? Does his work really effect you? Would you praise it if it didn't have his moniker attached? Would you even recognize it? Is it really any better than any competent amatuer? Would your work be as good if you traveled the globe and took pictures with a Leica and Tri-X film and had a great printer print them? He shot only with a 50mm. Big deal. Any owner of a fixed lens camera shoots only with the lens on the camera. Again - mythology. Is the "decisive moment" really profound? Or is it a catch-phrase?
Is it the "Jackson Pollock Effect"(tm). People say it's great, genius! A buzz is created. Everyone goes with the flow... You like it and think its "genius" before you even look at it.
CK Dexter Haven
04-30-2008, 20:28
I've never understood the hoopla.
For a guy who spent a lifetime as a photographer, traveling the world with access to virtually everything/everyone, i can only find a handful of his images that do anything for me. I'm not criticizing him. But, i don't think his body of work is nearly as great as his acclaim. Not even close.
Personally, i think Doisneau, Erwitt, Boubat, Levitt, Duncan, Claxton, etc. were all better. There are guys on Flickr who are better. But, hey, that's life.
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 20:30
Don't fall for the "propoganda" Nick.
Like it or leave it. Make up your own mind.
Hey - I'm just asking "intellectually honest" questions. Get it? I didn't say I liked it or hated it. I'm not bashing HCB. Get what I'm saying here.
The questions I've posed would apply to all great artists. Be intellectually honest. Are you really moved by his work? How much is it a function of someones reputation of "genius" preceding them?
Citizen Kane - best movie EVER. Brilliant! Genius! Why Orsen Wells boy genius... blah, blah, blah. So you watch the film. It's okay. Seen better. But it's brilliant! Genius! Incredible! You're a lover of cine-E-mah! You're expected to say you Citizen Kane is brilliant, genius, incredible! Say it sucks? Like Terminator II better? You're kicked out of the Cinema Snob club. You'll be looked down upon. Thought an idiot...
Does this apply to HCB?
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 20:31
I've never understood the hoopla.
For a guy who spent a lifetime as a photographer, traveling the world with access to virtually everything/everyone, i can only find a handful of his images that do anything for me. I'm not criticizing him. But, i don't think his body of work is nearly as great as his acclaim. Not even close.
Personally, i think Doisneau, Erwitt, Boubat, Levitt, Duncan, Claxton, etc. were all better. There are guys on Flickr who are better. But, hey, that's life.
Congratulation. You are intellectually honest. You understand RFF-style photography. Welcome to the club.
NickTrop
04-30-2008, 20:36
It applies to everyone and everything, again, make up your own mind.
Are you making up your own mind? Or was your mind made up before you even saw his work?
Like HCB fine, a great talent he took some mighty fine pictures, but not the greatest photographer to walk the face of the Earth. As for Zappa he was a genius and I will always enjoy his music, don't have to pretend.
I was close to taking a year off and wandering, but I got married instead and now my family would be in a world of hurt if I just took off. I know Gauguin and others have done that, but guess I missed the train this time. Could be worse, home is Tokyo and it is a good place to take photos.
As a European I was aware of his work before getting seriously into photography. I don't think he's a genius or a god, though he has made a few photos that could be called great.
In fact, HCB has done me more harm than good. I had a big important exhibition open the day his death was announced in the press. Someone had the bright idea to bring all the French dailies to my show with "HCB DIES" on the front page of every one.
Everybody stood around drinking my wine and talking HCB, I didn't sell a print.
ROFL!!! Man, that's a tough one!
larmarv916
04-30-2008, 20:59
Ok Nick...I think your asking some honest questions. But for what it's worth the one of the main issues that irks you and many people, and to me a great extent is that the "Hype" around these people like HCB, Adams, Weston, Brassai, not to metion the most over rated media hyped shooter..."Annie L." Is that these people for the most part have been the cash cow that has given many people a free ride in the gallery and publishing work of many years. Also let's do not forget the self proclaimed "Art / Photo Intelletcual's "
Also when photography was just getting on it's legs....which commerically only began with Magnum....Started by mostly HBC and Robert Capa.....was nothing more than a platform for cashing in and using photos to create hyoe for the publishing industry !!!
Follow the money......Adams basicly was the only photographer to benefit from the Sierra Club. Why well lets see he was president what...7 times. Do not forget Adams had a long commerical with Polaroid and Dr Land that did not put him into poverty. The Hype machine I think is real demon that is building up people all for the reason they are making lots of money for other people. It's hard for me to decide who is worse the Hype merchants or people enable them to keep pull this crap on the world.
No matter how you feal about anyone work.....at the end of the day. Most..Not all photogrpahers who are not trying to sell their "soul" to the devil for fame or money are really only trying to share a vision of something they find interesting or beautiful.
To many people want to go with the flow just so they can be accepted and in the end....on a creative level that is the kiss of death. Once you have a foundation pushing to make you legacy a profitable one there is no honest apperciation for your work. HCB more than anyone would be outright ashamed to have people worshiping his work. He was his own harshest critic.
Best Regards......Laurance
One does not have to destroy one's family to take off. You can take the year "off" in Tokyo. It is all about state of mind, not about the time or money you have.
Oh in that respect I agree completely, need to get on that. But I would choose SBSP over HCB, as for Rossellini, really enjoyed her cosmetic ads and Blue Velvet:)
WoolenMammoth
04-30-2008, 21:53
If you are an artist hard at work on your own trip how can you be bothered to really a) get particularly consumed by another artist's work but really b) bother to care for half an instant of what other people think of some other artist. I mean, really, who cares but beyond that, if you are out creating how can you have time...
I have the people that inspire me, hcb isnt on my list and looking at where and what he shot, I cant really relate to what he did. Maybe someday, after more life experience I will. France really isnt on my shortlist... But for now, who cares. The only thing I care less about than his work, precisely a billion times less, is what anyone else thinks about the guy, there is not enough time in the day to keep on top of the film that Im generating here, developing, scanning it and editing it, Im always behind, hundreds of rolls behind...
This board used to be relaxing to read. Perhaps my perspective is changing.
I will say that usually when I see a HCB photograph Im usually inspired to look at Willy Ronis. Which one is better? Who cares. really.
Lastly, if being rich had any impact on art, every idiot out there with a porsche and a noctilux would be the best photographer ever... Didnt HCB *work* for Magnum?
Ah not that Rossellini, not that I don't love her work with David Lynch,
but her father, Roberto Rossellini.
“One can’t live without Rossellini,” a character declares in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1964 film “Before the Revolution.”
I was just joshing, but I didn't get the reference to Before the Revolution. Strange but I'd been thinking of Bernardo lately because we are in the midst of a butter shortage in Japan.
If you are an artist hard at work on your own trip how can you be bothered to really a) get particularly consumed by another artist's work but really b) bother to care for half an instant of what other people think of some other artist. I mean, really, who cares but beyond that, if you are out creating how can you have time...
I have the people that inspire me, hcb isnt on my list and looking at where and what he shot, I cant really relate to what he did. Maybe someday, after more life experience I will. France really isnt on my shortlist... But for now, who cares. The only thing I care less about than his work, precisely a billion times less, is what anyone else thinks about the guy, there is not enough time in the day to keep on top of the film that Im generating here, developing, scanning it and editing it, Im always behind, hundreds of rolls behind...
This board used to be relaxing to read. Perhaps my perspective is changing.
I will say that usually when I see a HCB photograph Im usually inspired to look at Willy Ronis. Which one is better? Who cares. really.
Lastly, if being rich had any impact on art, every idiot out there with a porsche and a noctilux would be the best photographer ever... Didnt HCB *work* for Magnum?
While I agree with you, mostly, I have to stop you at the "rich", "Noctilux" and "idiot" links you are creating. The Notcilux is a lifetime lens that only costs you 100$ a week for a year. Any average worker in a western country can do it. And when you calculate its resale value, you soon realize you can use it for free during years, less the interest en vogue. And if its value goes up you gain. If it goes down, you lose a Grand or two. Big deal.
No, really, a noctilux comes down to being a much cheaper then a summilux and even a summicron.
Okay... back to HCB.
Fred, sorry. You say "few could afford to set aside $100 each week on a lens" but you seem to forget they allocate that kinda money on other things. Cut off all the Big Macs, the Cokes, the extra beers, the pretty Nike shoes, the extra soft toilet papers instead of the regular rough ones, cut that useless cell phone, add a bit of will and there you are with 100$ saved each week.
Come on.
larmarv916
04-30-2008, 22:52
[quote=nikonhswebmaster;810535]The HYPE is that she not very good, that somehow she must be awful.
Sorry but let face it she really is the poster child hype. If I stuck in front of anyone of the Rolling Stone subjects and the same point in time. Most likley you would have produced the same generic images ....actually you probably would have done better. Her entire existance has been built on snaps of the prime "hype" media "darlings.....who are the very roots of hype.
She look at this " MC" shoot for Vanity Fair.....All a very shrewd media scam and she was pulling the trigger for another mega dose of hype.
Also Iam not a fan of Sontaq...on any level. You like the feelings of that shot. Thats fine. I have seen many better images of the pain of impending death.
Annie is as over rated and many really famous photogrpahers are unknow or underated. Don't for one moment think that she could even hold a flash bulb for someone like Dorothea Lange, Eisenstaedt, Horst, Hass, or Rene Burri.
The shooting images of famous faces have been done by many other and much better. Contrived and Generic is a better definition of Annie. It's like the people who think an actor getting a star on hollywoods walk of fame is anything real. You write a check to the chamber of commerce and you get a star...complete with local news coverage.
This may all seem harsh but when you a lacky of hype that is your legacy.
Best Regards....Laurance
manfromh
04-30-2008, 23:51
I skipped the second page of this thread, so there might be something I missed.
Anyway, Yes I do like HCB's images, but not all of them. Last year his book "The Decisive Moment" was scanned and posted on the internet. I "browsed" through it and was suprised at how many of his images were just okay. Nothing special for me. If you do a google image search on his name, you will see his better photos. Bad ones are just hidden away somewhere.
I have this video on my computer called "Contacts". HCB talks about his work while his contact sheets are shown on screen. There was one image there which I loved, but hadnt seen before anywhere.
I have this video on my computer called "Contacts". HCB talks about his work while his contact sheets are shown on screen. There was one image there which I loved, but hadnt seen before anywhere.
Oh so you also know that he took numbers of frames of the same scene which makes the "decisive moment" sound like some commercial for Concorde.
HCB was the type of guy who would sleep with the enemy. Becaused of people like him, a lot of people think that esotericism plays a part in photography. How many times did you hear or read "I wonder if HCB ever took a bad photograph" or "How can I learn how to see like he did".... But the best one has to be "He wrapped his camera in a tissue and pretended to blow is nose when taking a shot", yes yes and he also took a whole roll of the same shot, but that isn't a good catch phrase.
There's a journalist called Amy Goodman, she claims to be anti corporate, anti emperialism etc, yet she wrote two books and at least one of them was published by Hyperion which is a division of Disney.
I much prefer someone like Winogrand who had his feet on earth, he was aware that he shot thousands of frames and ackowledged to people around him that most of the stuff he took didn't really made it, lately I've been enjoying taking loads of photographs without too much care as well.
HCB = HexaChloroBenzene
I fist saw Cartier-Bresson's photos before I was cognitive of his position in photography, and I liked them. Just started this photography pursuit three years ago, so in what was basically a crash course process, I learned about Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gordon Parks, Julia Margaret Cameron, David Octavius Hill, and the likes pretty much at the same time, and I am still learning.
After reading this thread, now I have the political angle on all of this; and in the end; somewhat irrelevant; I still appreciate Adams and Cartier-Bresson.
Anyway, Erwitt is one of my favorites. He likes dogs, I like dogs.
Also, I am in Tokyo; I am not married; I spend most of my leisurely time taking photos; and I have yet to reach the level of all the folks listed above…far from it.
bobbyrab
05-01-2008, 02:41
I thought the earlier analogy with Citizen Kane was very appropriate. Citizen Kane brought a number of technical and artistic innovations to film making, and has had an big influence on many film directors, right through to the present day, it's certainly one of the most influential films ever made. Perhaps HCB doesn't ring your bell, but if you look at the body of work he produced, it pretty much lays the foundation for most of what the great photojournalists have been doing ever since. I know there where a great many of his contemporaries who where doing great things as well, but I don't think any of them had quite the breadth of work, or have been so influential over the years as he has been. An example, and one that's used quite often on this forum, is the shot of the face on the billboard/poster, juxtaposed with the pedestrian/shopper walking underneath, well that's HCB, but he did it better, there was always some visual connection between the image and the subject, but more importantly he did it first. have a look at his shots of the London Stock exchange where he makes the bodies and legs look like a wallpaper pattern, brilliant. I've gone back to images of his that I didn't get initially, to find they now make sense to me, sometime due to being exposed to the work of a later photographer influenced by HCB. Photography has moved on, but it has roots, and a great many lead to him.
mfunnell
05-01-2008, 03:11
Oh so you also know that he took numbers of frames of the same scene which makes the "decisive moment" sound like some commercial for Concorde.Hey, who says you can't take multiple frames of a subject before spotting the decisive moment and capturing it? In reportage, in particular, I thought one principle was to make sure you had a shot before worrying about getting a good, great or decisive one. Not that I've done it for a living, but the approach always made sense to me.
...Mike
Hey, who says you can't take multiple frames of a subject before spotting the decisive moment and capturing it?
You are correct, only half way though :)
What does "decisive moment mean"? Is it a good shot, an expression, a fleeting moment?
If so why giving complicated names to simple things, personally I find "decisive moment" to sound esoteric and makes it sound as if Bresson had a special gift, a bit like a guru (con artist) does.
Absolutely right to take multiple frames to get the right shot!
mfunnell
05-01-2008, 03:34
The questions I've posed would apply to all great artists. Be intellectually honest. Are you really moved by his work? How much is it a function of someones reputation of "genius" preceding them?In HCB's case: some of his stuff I like a lot, some less so and some I probably wouldn't have looked at twice if not for the name. One of the things I've tried to do with his work (and others, and not just photography) is to work out why I like what I like and why others like things I don't care much for. So I can say "I see what he's doing, though its not to my taste". And see things that might, or might not, inform the things I want to do for myself. And so on.
The "big name" thing helps when trying to understand things that aren't to my taste but are well worth understanding. If I don't like something it doesn't seem worth trying to understand it if its just crap - which it might well be. If lots of other people like it then its probably not crap (though it might be) so it becomes worthwhile trying to understand it. And why I don't care for it . After all, I might change my mind.
...Mike
mfunnell
05-01-2008, 04:01
What does "decisive moment mean"? Is it a good shot, an expression, a fleeting moment?I'd like to say something like "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it" except I suspect I might not, which may well be a problem :( How can I photograph it if I don't recognise it?
For myself, I tend to be quite simple-minded about it (to the small extent I think about it at all). Something like "when all the key elements in the scene come into the right arrangement". This can be very simple-minded indeed. In a sporting scene "when the player catches the ball" might do it. Or, say, when someone walks into the right spot by a sign. Or when the geometry just looks right (or, at least, how I want it). Maybe there's something super-complex in the concept but, for now, I'm happy enough with my own "Idiot's Guide" simplification. YMMV.
...Mike
Rick Waldroup
05-01-2008, 04:17
Nick lost me when he started comparing HCB to digital photographers. I really do not understand why some people think that digital photographers just rattle off shots like they are using a machine gun. I shot film, in different formats, for over 25 years. But mostly using 35mm cameras. And I shot a lot of B&W film. When I went completely digital a few years back, my shooting habits did not suddenly change overnight. I still pretty much shoot the way I always have.
For what it is worth, HCB is one of my favorite photographers.
Andrew Sowerby
05-01-2008, 04:32
The only thing I care less about than his work, precisely a billion times less, is what anyone else thinks about the guy ...
... and I care about why people like or dislike HBC even less!
I don't think Adams would have been half of what he is made out to be if it wasn't for Beaumont Newhall.
Critics and writers often do that - instill their prejudices with absolute abandon until there is nothing left. What is history anyway? For those of us that lived through certain times, there is our truth in what we know and experienced. For those of us that wish to write what those truths might be, there is our prejudices.
I hope I'm being clear.....
Follow the money......Adams basicly was the only photographer to benefit from the Sierra Club. Why well lets see he was president what...7 times. Do not forget Adams had a long commerical with Polaroid and Dr Land that did not put him into poverty. The Hype machine I think is real demon that is building up people all for the reason they are making lots of money for other people. It's hard for me to decide who is worse the Hype merchants or people enable them to keep pull this crap on the world.
Best Regards......Laurance
personally i think that both zappa and hcb didnt do anything extremely original. in music i think the residents are much more original than zappa and they started abut at same time and from later bands legendary pink dots and skinny puppy made much much more interesting music. also in photography i respect atget and to some level capa and i found almost all of their work beautiful but i could easily live without hcb... i love things that shows personal signature of author and zappa and hcb dont show that to me... they are too sterile and very unspontaneous...
Some people just have no taste.
Ha! Agreed.
this thread reminds me of a moment on the weekend after a friendly kick around with the fella's. afterwards, as we were aoncuming the post match "beverage" on the sidelines and quietly admiring each others "beverage container" (read beer belly) the subject of david beckham arose...
much grumbling ensued and the end consensus was that beckham was a bum. usually i take no notice of said conclusion re; mr beckham as it almost 99.9 percent of the time ends in the same fashion. however this time i couldn't help but notice the absurdity of it all. a group of mostly dishevelled, largely out of shape, slightly overweight "backyard footballers" standing about declaring that a man who was twice fifa's footballer of the year, made 58 appearances as captain of the english national team, was the first british footballer to play 100 european championship matches, signed to manchester united at 17 years old was a bum. certainly not "all that".
sheesh, hcb stinks and lebovitz is over-rated. equally absurd...
The only way to find out if HCB really deserves his reputation is to try and take a single photo which is as well composed and structured as one of his photos and that also on the street and without staging and cropping and manipulating the pic later on.
The same way, try to take a single black and white landscape shot using Ansel Adam's methods and equipment and then find out if you could do better.
He had an excellent eye for a mixture of composition and subject matter, something very few photographers managed to do successfully. He also managed to make a photo with a 50mm lens look like it was taken with a 35.
In short, he is one of many great photographers.
I have proof that HCB did not use 50m lenses only.
a good shot is a good shot...full stop !
doisneau , atget, hcb , ronis all roamed the streets...whether HCB did lab work himself is irrelevant i think
Harry Lime
05-01-2008, 07:14
Citizen Kane - best movie EVER. Brilliant! Genius! Why Orsen Wells boy genius... blah, blah, blah. So you watch the film. It's okay. Seen better. But it's brilliant! Genius! Incredible! You're a lover of cine-E-mah! You're expected to say you Citizen Kane is brilliant, genius, incredible! Say it sucks? Like Terminator II better? You're kicked out of the Cinema Snob club. You'll be looked down upon. Thought an idiot...
Does this apply to HCB?
Sometimes a certain amount of knowledge and insight is needed to understand something that otherwise does not seem all that impressive or important.
I'd like to say something like "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it" except I suspect I might not, which may well be a problem :( How can I photograph it if I don't recognise it?
For myself, I tend to be quite simple-minded about it (to the small extent I think about it at all). Something like "when all the key elements in the scene come into the right arrangement". This can be very simple-minded indeed. In a sporting scene "when the player catches the ball" might do it. Or, say, when someone walks into the right spot by a sign. Or when the geometry just looks right (or, at least, how I want it). Maybe there's something super-complex in the concept but, for now, I'm happy enough with my own "Idiot's Guide" simplification. YMMV.
...Mike
It's OK, and that simply translates to a well composed picture, which sounds like something anyone can do or learn how to do, not some magic superpower rhetoric!
Charlie Lemay
05-01-2008, 07:41
Koudelka obviously stands on HCB's shoulders, but IMO Koudelka is way taller.
I have been around many SERIOUS [want-to-be] artists, and often I just want to say -- "I admire how very hard you try, but you do not understand what this is about, consider another profession."
So, how did you came to the conclusion that you have the insight and qualifications to decide before hand who "understands it and who does not"?
That was an incredibly arrogant statement to make. For instance, if you "really understood it", do you think you would be making such an outrageous statement?
I would say that is not a skill someone can learn, you can perfect it, but it is a gift.
It is magic, in that since it cannot be learned, its origins remain mysterious.
Everyone can learn to ride a bicycle, but everyone cannot learn to be Lance Armstrong.
I have been around many SERIOUS [want-to-be] artists, and often I just want to say -- "I admire how very hard you try, but you do not understand what this is about, consider another profession."
Students often ask "if I do more work can I raise my grade to an A?" "No, more work will just be more, you are not an A student in this field." Everyone cannot learn everything.
You've got a point, I will maintain that it can learned by anyone, whether one succeeds or not is a different matter. Some time ago I got into computer programming; C, Python, BASH, whatever; just for the hell of it, everything made sense on paper but I have never been able to get my head around writing or modifying a software, though I am very comfortable using command line interfaces.
But the more simple it is the easiest it should be to learn, even though one needs the gift, and lot of people refer to "decisive moment" nowadays, which will people understand the easiest? "Decisive moment" or well composed picture?
One thing for sure you get an "F" in reading.
I said "I want," not that "I do." One thing you learn as time goes by when teaching is you cannot predict the moment of "Ah ha." Many artists spend a lot of time, not getting it and suddenly do. I would never have the arrogance to say so-and-so sucks as many have on this thread. The point is it is easy to be critical, not easy to be positive.
But I still stand on my statement that you have what you have, you are not going to learn creativity. But it might be there all along, hidden from sight, even to the person that possesses it.
I agree that not everyone is equal but that does not mean we create a ten step guide to weeding the lesser ones out.
"Picnic on the River Marne" was shot with a 35mm Elmar.
He also carried a 90. But the collapsible 50 was his mainstay, with the cap in his hand.
The cap in the left hand, was kind of his crutch. Taking it off was part of his photo process.
Thanks, especially his indoor shots of many famous people that he photographed were taken with a wide angle lens.
I also just posted a clip of him working and he is carrying three cameras, but its hard to judge which lenses his using. Click here http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=58458
http://www.pitoresco.com.br/espelho/destaques/cartier-bresson/00.jpg
This is an odd thread. Frankly Nick, comparing HCB to digital photographers is like comparing Interpol to Joy Division. Most progression in the arts is based upon previous work and it's the ability to create in a relative vacuum that to me shows originality. Interpol (and all those other 80's bands) just knocked off and built on Joy Divisions original sound. There's a reason his work has stood up over time, and perhaps a lot of it has to do with the time/place context in which he worked. You're comparing apples to oranges. I like HCB, but not sure he'd be my favorite from the time period (Capa earns that). But Nick, you seem to be bitter and angry over HCB's success. If you think you can do better, go ahead.
You can often guess, since he so seldom cropped, the lens used.
Sadly there are not many photos of him with equipment, and when they exist, he is usually holding someone else's camera.
here is the famous photo of his lens cap -- in the palm of his hand. It is important to remember he was not this old, during most of his career!
You mentioned that he "seldom cropped", from what I have read he never cropped and was pretty adamant about it.
No, he definitely cropped occasionally, e.g., the famous shot of the man leaping over a puddle behind Gare Saint-Lazare. I think 1 RFF member was using a shot of the original negative as his/her icon.
You mentioned that he "seldom cropped", from what I have read he never cropped and was pretty adamant about it.
jespin00
05-01-2008, 09:47
Congratulation. You are intellectually honest. You understand RFF-style photography. Welcome to the club.
Now NickTrop, I see you congratulating someone for being intellectually honest. And to also have understood the "RFF-style photography" (whatever that means, im sure you'll give us a rant eventually)
Notice he shares the same opinion as yourself.
Were there not people here on this thread who have been intellectually honest as well? Wasn't that all you were looking for when you started this thread? Was it ego? I look at your display picture and I see someone whose just angry with no clear direction or output, so why not pick on an artist like Henri Cartier Bresson. I mean, why not! It'll stir things up! If we can do it to George W. Bush, Charles Bukowski, Picasso, Van Gogh, Jack Kerouac and the girl nextdoor, we could do it for anybody!
So you post, and then you sit and wait. You cause a hurricane of a thread and you sit. You reply, playing as if the least ignorant person on this thread, this forum, this life
is yourself and oh, of course, CK Dexter Haven. But I wonder, why should I even care? He's just a guy with a laptop talking to another guy with a laptop. But this whole talk about congratulating someone for being honest.... SO intellectually honest you'll invite him in a metaphorical club has got me urked.
You talk about the "Halo Effect", marketing, Frank Zappa.
From the looks of it, you're no better than the Frank Zappa fans after all.
Now I've been reading the this whole thread from Page 1 to this Page and i'm excited to see what Nick Trop will say(which will inevitably leave to more pages). Now people are going to bitch because HBC came from a well off family and were given more opportunities to take photos, especially around the world. Any case, given that privilege who here in this forum would turn that down? Some people have money, some people don't, yet we all seem to inevitably die?
His type photography dealt with living. So while you guys reply to this thread, I'll be out taking photos.
williams473
05-01-2008, 10:25
Generally people or things that aren't all they are cracked up to be are shown to be farces in time, like the pogo stick :) In this case Cartier-Bresson's work has stood the test of time, and will continue to do so. His work is part of the collection of great Western Art photography and isn't going anywhere. So people can tear him down and wonder why it is a guy can get so much acclaim, but it's for a reason. Time has shown that. If someone doesn't connect with his work - who cares? Henri certainly doesn't, being 6 feet under and all.
In reply to the original post, what trollish bull****! Whether or not one likes Henri Cartier-Bresson's work, why disrespect him as a photographer and as a human being? Pierre Assouline's biography of HCB provides a lot of insight about this man and life that he lead. HCB's life was not always rosey.
jan normandale
05-01-2008, 10:29
This is a pretty good thread and a lot of people I like are here, Nick, antiq, Fred, Rich, Steamer, Keith, Christoph, Harry L. I also think that most of the artists here that are being slammed are good. As bobbyrab said in this thread, sometimes you come back and what never made sense does make sense or as Fred/Nikon said an “ah ha” moment.
I know many of these names but have not delved into their work for various reasons however I will. I know some will not be for me others will. I also know that in 5 years some of the ones I like won’t interest me and ones I dismissed I’ll probably find interesting.
Trying to “get it” by knocking someone down who has a big reputation won’t provide an insight to make better photographs. I’ve seen people spend tons of money on equipment and they make better photos technically however the still “don’t get it” I’ve seen people pick up pinholes, jump to busted cameras, grab a Leica , move to a folder and then use a disposable. They consistently get shots that show they have a perception and skill many don’t.
We all recognize those people. Just go through RFF’s galleries you can see the ones who are consistent. They may miss the ball on occasion but they are consistent shooters who know what and how to shoot when the see it. HCB and Leibowitz annoy me on a personal level however I would carry their camera equipment for a day if I had the chance. Some people can change things and when it’s over people look back and say “what’s the big deal, anyone could do that”. Imagine what the world was before the Cubists existed. Now people incorporate this in their work and no one even thinks about it. But the “first guy” is not always the one to get the fame. Picasso was famous for appropriation of other artists ideas. This dilutes and muddies the water over time so lay people don’t understand what is happening, however people in the mainstream or academics do.
Most of the names thrown out in this thread deserve to be here for different reasons but they do deserve their reputation and to be recognized.
BTW Fred..on the NYFA, that sucks. Better luck next year
williams473
05-01-2008, 10:53
Funny how people can also accuse a photographer like Leibowitz of being a "sellout" or whatever, and yet the only work they see of these artists is in mainstream publications - so maybe she's not selling out - maybe your taste in photography is just owned by one or two publishers. Like Leibowitz never did anything other than Rolling Stone. Like she doesn't have boxes of prints from her life we've never seen. Gimme a break.
And this kind of post uncovers another pet peev of mine - How many artists complain about how hard it is to make a living as an artist, but then tear the ones who WORK hard enough to make it to shreds? It honestly hurts the insulter more than the insulted, but it still amazes me.
Al Patterson
05-01-2008, 11:12
But I actually LIKE Zappa. HCB, well I don't "get" his stuff, but the catch phrase "the decisive moment", THAT was brilliant.
Al Patterson
05-01-2008, 11:18
Hey - I'm just asking "intellectually honest" questions. Get it? I didn't say I liked it or hated it. I'm not bashing HCB. Get what I'm saying here.
The questions I've posed would apply to all great artists. Be intellectually honest. Are you really moved by his work? How much is it a function of someones reputation of "genius" preceding them?
Citizen Kane - best movie EVER. Brilliant! Genius! Why Orsen Wells boy genius... blah, blah, blah. So you watch the film. It's okay. Seen better. But it's brilliant! Genius! Incredible! You're a lover of cine-E-mah! You're expected to say you Citizen Kane is brilliant, genius, incredible! Say it sucks? Like Terminator II better? You're kicked out of the Cinema Snob club. You'll be looked down upon. Thought an idiot...
Does this apply to HCB?
Maybe.
I liked Citizen Kane a lot. It IS a great film. But, if I just want to watch a film I like, it would be "Blade Runner". Ridley Scoot is a true genius. After all, he did do the "1984" Apple commercial...
Dave Wilkinson
05-01-2008, 11:21
Was HCB really 'all that ' ???
- he must have been, Nick!....he did it all without a Yashica 'Electro' GT :D
Dunno about Citizen Kane, but that Battleship Potemkin thing was really cheesy. I mean, that stroller-down-the-steps thing is really overdone, cliche and not as nice as in The Untouchables anyway.
Al Patterson
05-01-2008, 11:36
Sorry Ned. "Any average worker in a western country can do it"
Average take home pay in the US, for a blue collar worker, is about $500 a week, few could afford to set aside $100 each week on a lens.
Sure they can. All they need to do is stop buying gas and food...
;)
BigSteveG
05-01-2008, 12:04
HCB is far from my favorite photog. I do like some of his images. He did contrubute to the medium in a great and meaningful way by promoting the "street" genre.
Chriscrawfordphoto
05-01-2008, 12:04
He was not doing anything you cannot do. Take a year off and shoot photos, do nothing else. Anyone can do it.
Sure, Fred, anyone can do it. Why don't you send me $20,000 so I can feed myself and my son and keep my apartment while I take a year off. Most people don't have the money to do that. Not even close.
bobbyrab
05-01-2008, 12:28
With regards Annie Liebovitz, part of her talent is having a personality and reputation that gives her access to some of the worlds most popular entertainers, politicians, and cultural Icons as subjects for her portraits. They seem to be very willing to do her bidding in order to get the images and even if you don't rate her as a photographer, you have to take your hat off to her for achieving what she has, I can't think of anyone else who has engineered that kind of access for themselves. Much as I like her work, I prefer the work of Jane Bowen who usually has ten minutes with an Olympus and a 50mm lens, and on a good day a window. Horses for courses.
So just to clarify, denouncing something simply because of the 'hype' it may attract, whether intentional or not, is considered "intellectually honest"?
Florian1234
05-01-2008, 13:06
Well, for me he certainly made some great photos.
But surely there's a myth around him. On the other hand - doesn't this make it more fascinating? You don't know exactly how he worked out with a certain photo that you like. Thus it is even maybe a bit harder to try yourself to shoot this kind of style.
If you see his contacts (we had that topic a while ago, I think) which one usually does not, because a contact is the "secret" of the photog., then you might get better into how he worked.
In the end I would say: Do your own thing, but you can - of course - admire the work of others, among them also HCB.
For me personally: I like his work, and I like some parts of his character. Certainly not all parts. :D
As for the "hype" thing: I think on the one hand side there's this "past is more interesting" factor, yes. But there are a lot of people out there (also posting here) who do amazing shots right now, also "street"-style or reportage. But there are tons of more rather "boring" shots, too. It is, generally speaking, the fact that the societies change in how they look at photos. This look will change as it changes.
Hope this makes sense. :D
jan normandale
05-01-2008, 13:23
Maybe it is the clean water in Canada, but does this guy make sense, and remain clear headed, time after time?
Fred, there are two official languages in Canada. Some of the members there speak French. Their ability with the other language is akin to your success with Spanish.
I hope this isn't too much of a digression... but in regards to the trust fund baby comments. Charles Darwin came from a privileged family and was able to spend his life on a boat researching whatever he felt like, and he had countless hours on the boat to sit and write, or philosophize about the world and science. I don't think his discoveries are at all diminished because he had the time and resources to do what others did not.
WoolenMammoth
05-01-2008, 15:27
again, coming from money is the biggest nonsequitor possible. If it were the case every lawyer and doctor that bought their status leica to go with all thier other status objects would by that logic be an amazing photographer by proxy of the fact that they have the time to use it. Every message board dealing with rangefinders and leicas would be overflowing with talent from all the rich people with cameras... There couldnt be a more pedestrian way to look at life if you tried. Money buys you time, money does not buy talent and time does not sharpen talent. You are either born with it or you are not. The end.
Ive worked with both very wealthy artists and very very poor artists and functionally, the only difference between both groups was who was buying dinner for whom and not much more.
Its a shame that being a rich, privelaged photographer in addition to creating talent doesnt also stop bullets, Sean Flynn would still be alive today.
Chriscrawfordphoto
05-01-2008, 16:14
again, coming from money is the biggest nonsequitor possible. If it were the case every lawyer and doctor that bought their status leica to go with all thier other status objects would by that logic be an amazing photographer by proxy of the fact that they have the time to use it. Every message board dealing with rangefinders and leicas would be overflowing with talent from all the rich people with cameras... There couldnt be a more pedestrian way to look at life if you tried. Money buys you time, money does not buy talent and time does not sharpen talent. You are either born with it or you are not. The end.
Ive worked with both very wealthy artists and very very poor artists and functionally, the only difference between both groups was who was buying dinner for whom and not much more.
Its a shame that being a rich, privelaged photographer in addition to creating talent doesnt also stop bullets, Sean Flynn would still be alive today.
Having money opens doors for an artist that remain slammed tighly shut to an artist who hasn't got money. I've seen it many, many times here in the midwest and even more so in Santa Fe when I lived there., though maybe it is different in New York City. Almost all of the artists in Santa Fe had family wealth behind them, and it certainly didn't make them better artists than people who didn't have that wealth, but it sure made it easier for them to get their work into galleries, etc. People who control the art world simply do not respect the poor, and often don't even see them as people. Not that such attitudes are exclusive to wealthy people in the art world...they'e found among the powerful everywhere.
Al Patterson
05-01-2008, 16:33
Do you have a huge welfare class in Santa Fe?
I've been to Santa Fe. It's pretty expensive, so I'd bet the welfare class lives over in Espanola, or down in Albuquerque.
HCB kinda leaves me cold. W. Eugene Smith, Bill Pierce, Peter Stackpole and Ralph Gibson are much more interesting to me.
antiquark
05-01-2008, 18:07
For everyone's interest, here's an online HCB photobook. The scan quality is poor, but still you can see the artistry.
http://www.e-photobooks.com/cartier-bresson/decisive-moment.html
WoolenMammoth
05-01-2008, 18:08
No one makes comments about the leisure of the rich unless they feel trapped in their many responsibilities, and of course feel like they have no down-time of their own.
I bring this up for exactly the opposite reason. People use "the leisure of the rich" to qualify HCB (and so many other's) work as the product of privelage, as opposed to the product of the talent that an artist is born with. Every time someone wants to knock HCB one of the first things I see someone bring up is that he came from a wealthy family and it grinds against my tolerance like nothing else.
Unless Im mistaken, the discussion is not about how you get into galleries, its all politics no matter where you go. People were discussing wether or not the guys photography is worth looking at or not or making some qualification about the talent he had. It is doubtful that if the people knocking the guy were given a year's grant to go and photograph about that they would come back 12 months later with stuff worth looking at in the first place. If they have the talent, the work is likely already filed away in a binder already...
And I say all this and Im not even really a fan of HCB, nothing he's shot that I have seen has really resonated with me at all. Its just a lousy ground to be taken seriously in a debate. If you dont like his photgraphy, high five, you are awesome, but come up with some concrete reason why his photography sucks. The fact that he was some rich guy certainly does not come across in the body of work that I have seen, which in many ways isnt so distinguishable from many of the other magnum photographers who were hanging around paris at the time.
Its fully awesome if you dont like the guy. Hooray. Who cares. But to qualify his wealth is really pedestrian, right up there with talking about his race, or skin color or any of the other ridiculous crap that have nothing to do with the creative process that people always want to inject in there to take a stab at someone. Rich or poor, that guy would have taken the exact same photographs the same way that banker with a lousy P&S takes the same lousy pictures when he gets his $12k leica setup. My photography did not improve after investing $20K into rangefinders and nobody elses does either. Its just a hammer, you have to decide what nails you are going to hit with it... Money really has no impact on when you are inspired to depress the shutter release, with what force to agitate a developer tank or with what crop to print your photograph.
Imagine you work hard all your life to achieve something and then some bitter guy tries to scathingly take it all away from you because you had money. As an artist, that kind of thing is really appalling to me.
In rock and roll, we have to deal with the phrase "sell out" and now that my generation is getting older we have this new disease apparently, "punk rock guilt". Whatever, the output is either good or its not and thats the end of it.
The work is good or its not, make up your mind. If its good or bad because the artist was rich or poor, thats a weird bit of baggage to be carrying around with you through life.
What is this a popularity contest? I like this one or the other one better than Cartier-Bresson, nyah nyah. Personal taste aside, Cartier-Bresson was a Monster, one of the Big Ones, as influential as Picasso or Matisse or Duchamp. Contemporary photojounalism would not be the same without him, contemporary photography book design would not be the same without him. Contemporary THINKING about photography would not be the same without him. As far as my personal taste is concerned, which is as irrelevant as anyone else's Cartier-Bresson's images are full of life, they cut to the chase, get at the essence, in a way that Smith and especially Salgado don't. To those who argue that his images are cold or distant, take a look at the photographs from India or China. His photographs of suffering, of life and death, of the human condition resonate with truth without the sentimentality sometimes found in Smith and often in Salgado. But who cares? That's my taste, which you can argue with all you like. You can't argue with his place in history or the influence he has had on generations of photographers. Acknowledge his place and let him R.I.P.
le vrai rdu
05-01-2008, 18:23
on peut épiloguer longtemps sur HBC, le fait est simple, il avait l'oeil , c'est suffisant
Now Nick you know good & well if HCB carried a Yashica instead if a Leica you would be all over the Yashica forum praising the man!:D
Different strokes for different folks. I get cranked by HCB. While he is not my favorite, his work enspires me. Annie L. rocks IMO. She knows how to take a portrait. Capa, R. Gibson, for instance doesn't appeal to me, but thats not to say they aren't great photographers. They certainly are. Many called Bill Egglestons work "just snapshots" but to me that shot of the tricycle is a work of art. I do agree with you on Zappa. Never been a big fan. More into Alice Cooper myself. Oh yea Patti Smith is a hellova good rocker & outstanding photographer too.
http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2008/03/patti-smith-polaroids.html
No, he definitely cropped occasionally, e.g., the famous shot of the man leaping over a puddle behind Gare Saint-Lazare. I think 1 RFF member was using a shot of the original negative as his/her icon.
I'm certainly surprised, but it seems he only had an intrusive fence cropped from the left.
Its ironic that the definitive "decisive moment" photo is cropped!
HCB was all that and a lot more.
Vic
NickTrop
05-01-2008, 18:46
In HCB's case: some of his stuff I like a lot, some less so and some I probably wouldn't have looked at twice if not for the name.
...Mike
Congratulations. Your are intellectually honest, and understand RF-style photography. Welcome to the club.
williams473
05-01-2008, 19:07
Nick,
I have an honest question - can you define what "RF-style" photography is? Do you mean if one is "intellectually honest" and carries a rangefinder camera, one somehow qualifies for some kind of club membership? I'm just not understanding what club we're talking about here. I shoot with all sorts of cameras (actually rangefinders are my least favorite, I just enjoy this forum) but don't see how either of those facts somehow make my opinion any more valid or in line with some group. It seems obvious to me from this thread that there is no main stream opinion here on this site at all, although we do seem to talk about Cartier Bresson a lot :)
jan normandale
05-01-2008, 20:18
on peut épiloguer longtemps sur HBC, le fait est simple, il avait l'oeil , c'est suffisant
what made Wayne Gretzky one of the greatest hockey players ever was not his ability to know where the puck was; but where it was going to be. I think HCB was like that. He didn't just "avait l'oeil" he knew what was going to unfold in front of him and he was set up for it when it happened. C'est significatif.
mike kim
05-01-2008, 21:35
Dunno about Citizen Kane, but that Battleship Potemkin thing was really cheesy. I mean, that stroller-down-the-steps thing is really overdone, cliche and not as nice as in The Untouchables anyway.
The scene in The Untouchables (1987) is a homage to The Battleship Potemkin (1925). The film was revolutionary at the time mostly because of Eisenstein's theory of montage and film editing, still studied today in film universities around the world along with D.W. Griffith's films. Personally, I find these films boring, but one cannot deny their influence on modern cinema.
I love HCB's work. His work is a lot more than pretty compositions (I don't think there is anything here on RFF that compares to his best). He had an incredible quickness of eye and spirit to be able to capture moments that speak so eloquently of the human condition. His art was rigorous and and restrained and betrays a beautiful depth of thinking and humor. He considered himself a surrealist. It's part of photographic history and was tremendously influential. If only our work could matter so much. It's a little bazaar to compare Lascaux to Picasso in the history of photography...but Winogrand definitely emerges from the HCB tradition. I'll bet you Winogrand would not speak ill of his work.
However, Nick, your question is moot. Art history has judged HCB and he has been anointed. There's no need to explain it or justify it. History has deemed his work significant and worthy, and it will continue to no matter what you say here.
I'm certainly surprised, but it seems he only had an intrusive fence cropped from the left.
Its ironic that the definitive "decisive moment" photo is cropped!
5893058932
Yammerman
05-02-2008, 01:10
My reading of this thread coincided with the arrival of The Man, the Image and the World a retrospective on HCB’s work. I hadn’t even opened it when I started reading this stuff and I began to wonder if I was in for a disappointment of perhaps my absorbing of hype would see me through. The only real picture I could remember was the jumping pool image which I’d always thought was stunning. The discussion increased my anticipation a fair amount so thanks for that.
So last night I finally thumbed through the images and for me the hits are exceptional and the misses not so bad. It seems to me he was that and then some. It surprising that it should be a question. After thumbing through the whole book, with some of he images I felt I could feel him thinking (not explained that too well). The humour and playfulness he gets across just by clicking the shutter at the right time means for me he doesn’t have too many equals.
Its ironic that the definitive "decisive moment" photo is cropped!
Where's the irony? The "decisive moment" and cropping concern different dimensions. First, the dimension of time, second, the dimension of space.
The scene in The Untouchables (1987) is a homage to The Battleship Potemkin (1925). The film was revolutionary at the time mostly because of Eisenstein's theory of montage and film editing, still studied today in film universities around the world along with D.W. Griffith's films. Personally, I find these films boring, but one cannot deny their influence on modern cinema.
OK, guess I should've placed a smiley there. Just was sarcastic to HCB-is-overrated consensus here, you know :)
Where's the irony? The "decisive moment" and cropping concern different dimensions. First, the dimension of time, second, the dimension of space.
Where is this written? Have you passed a degree in "decisive moments"? How do you know?
Or could it be something that is left to your own imagination, desire, wishful thinking.....
Where is this written? Have you passed a degree in "decisive moments"? How do you know?
Or could it be something that is left to your own imagination, desire, wishful thinking.....
Just common sense. I didn't mean to upset you, I'm sorry. :o
BTW, "a degree in decisive moments", that was kind of funny. I've had quite a lot of them in my life, so maybe you could say I have passed a degree! :D
BTW, "a degree in decisive moments", that was kind of funny. I've had quite a lot of them in my life, so maybe you could say I have passed a degree! :D
Again, what you might see or think as "decisive moment", others might call "non-decisive moment", but fairy nuff :)
Spider67
05-02-2008, 03:29
There's a series of books named "Bluff your way through....." giving people some hinmts how to behave, what to say in ordfer to pretend expertise in various fields like the occult etc.
If they wrote a book on photography it would contain a chapter like "Pleasing the purist crowd" it would read somehow like that:
"Never forget to mention HCB. Actually you could well pass for an expert using only this particular name. Sneer at those who call him Henri Cartier Bresson. Look down at those who don't know him. All you have to know HCB invented street photography and used a Leica. This provides a good grip whenever another photographer is mentioned who does street photography or uses a Leica you can always add or finish by saysing "..but she/he's no HCB". Be sure to know about the decisive moment, easy to remember as it's the moment seen on any of HCB's photographs. I you are really daring or reckless in your wish to excel you could drop in a conversation that HCB himself never used the term "decisive moment" in his writings"
So yes there's a certain value in thinking about great photographers as humans and not as gods.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 04:39
I've listened to "Hot Rats" hundreds of times. If that isn't a work of near-genius, I don't know what is.
"Willy the Pimp" is especially good, and so is "Peaches in Regalia".
williams473
05-02-2008, 04:49
Thanks for the person who posted the image of the hand holding the Cartier-Bresson negative that we've been talking about - there's no real "irony" that one of his most famous images is "cropped." In fact, it wasn't cropped to leave out any signifcant visual information of the recorded image. The fact is, Cartier-Bresson himself, in "Just About Love" which someone posted a link to here a month or so ago, said that it's funny, but he wasn't even looking through his camera when he made that image. He had the camera shoved through a gap in the boards of a fence, and you can see in the actual negative the board of the fence is what "crops" out the left side of the negative - it wasn't an decision on the part of Cartier-Bresson to leave out any visiable information after the fact, because the boards of the fence would just print out as a black line with a blurry edge because the camera was right up against it. In the same conversation he still stood by his opinion that if you don't have what you want in the viewfinder when you take the picture, why are you taking the picture? If you don't have it in, don't shoot - move.
In this case, he is as befuddled as anyone that one of his most famous images was made basically shooting from the hip, but even so, it wasn't cropped in the sense that he eliminated significant visual information from the frame. Cartier Bresson is my all time favorite, so I just wanted to clarify.
NickTrop
05-02-2008, 05:01
As for the "cropped" image discussed here. HCB didn't make his own prints. So how do we know he cropped or didn't crop any of his images? Did HCB even know if his images were cropped? He outsourced that part of the creative process of photography. Too much grunt work, I guess, for the rich Frenchman - too tedious. He just wanted to run around exotic locales and France and take pictures.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 05:06
http://www.lyseo.edu.ouka.fi/kuvataide/albums/album02/cartier_bresson_gestapo_120.sized.jpg
Holy Cow, now this is a great photo. I don't care who took it. If I never heard the name HCB I would stop in my tracks and look at this photo.
How much of it is talent, and how many great photos depended on "being there" at a historical moment, I don't know, but to me a great photo stuns you for a moment.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 05:22
Now this photo is also very good. You also had to "be there" to take it. Would HCB have made a better photo if he were in the same spot?
Hey, I envy a "rich Frenchman" who can wander around the world and witness important historical events taking photos.
Where can i sign up?
http://www.lyseo.edu.ouka.fi/kuvataide/albums/album02/hine.sized.jpg
He just wanted to run around exotic locales and France and take pictures.
And now, what's wrong with that and how's that inartistic? If you have idea that breathing Dektol fumes in red light is creative, fine - many people think like that. But again, many don't.
williams473
05-02-2008, 05:31
I think Nick just enjoys trying to upset people. Lots of short, general statements clearly out of touch. He takes a great photographer who he knows a lot of people admire and insults him. I'm not upset - his tactis are obvious.
BUT, to answer your question Nick, if you had spent any time in a darkroom you would know how any photographer who ever got their hands wet can tell his images are full frame and not cropped.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 05:36
How many people condemned to "dull care"* and lives/jobs of drudgery would turn into geniuses if freed to pursue a life of art and introspection?**
* Thanx and a tip of the Hatlo hat to Winsor McCay ("if I could only put down this valise")
** OK, maybe not so many, but a few. If you want to look at the "art" of the masses, take a gander at the tens of thousands of Flickr Disneyland albums taken with Canon Rebels.
.
It seems that HCB is the one we love to loath. First of all, let me tell you that I’m not a big fan of HCB; at least, I prefer Doisneau, Ronis, Koudelka, Salgado or Lange.
Now, one shoudl remind some facts in order to make fair criticism of HCB's work:
- He started to shoot in the 1930’s and was one of the most brilliant photographers of his time.
- Because of that, he has been copied and copied again, and now his pictures belong to our common photographical knowledge.
- Obviously, triggering the shutter button is something anybody can do; does that imply that anybody can be HCB? Of course no! Anybody can hold brushes; does that mean anybody can be Van Gogh?
- Any informed amateur can copy HCB now. Does that mean any amateur could have been HCB? Of course no! Any good painter can reproduce the Sunflowers by Van Gogh (as a matter of fact, nowadays in China, there are professional painters who can copy the Sunflowers in 15minutes); does that mean any good painter could have been Van Gogh?
If you want to play the game "Was HCB all that?”, change the name and put instead “Is Koudelka is all that”, “Was Winogrand is all that” etc. Anybody in RFF could make a Koudelka or a Winogrand, and as a matter of fact a lot of photographers here make the same … but they make a Koudelka, a Winogrand, a HCB AFTER Koudelka, Winogrand or HCB. Afterwards, it’s easy to say: “oh I could have done the same? The puddle picture? The bicycle picture? Well I could have done that.” But these are just empty words …
How much of it is talent, and how many great photos depended on "being there" at a historical moment, I don't know, but to me a great photo stuns you for a moment.
I totally agree with Valdemar: a great photographer is someone who is where the event is. And it’s the most difficult thing to achieve: forcing one's way, anticipating the action, foreseeing the good frame etc. That’s what turns someone who can shoot into a photographer.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 05:56
I've never made art, so I don't know.
All my work has been photography and writing (now mostly writing) for financial compensation.
Posting comments on forums is the closest thing to "art" that I do. I take photos that please me but rarely post them, except on one other forum.
I agree, though, that the images of the masses in the form of monstrous gluts of endless photostreams is art in itself, I guess, the same way that the public expresses itself and it's highest aspirations by, say, for example, electing George Bush twice.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 05:58
The first one to do something actually creates the visual language.
Yes, lots of people can "shoot" now but who created the mental paradigms that even allow you to comprehend what an image is?
It seems that HCB is the one we love to loath. First of all, let me tell you that I’m not a big fan of HCB; at least, I prefer Doisneau, Ronis, Koudelka, Salgado or Lange.
Now, one shoudl remind some facts in order to make fair criticism of HCB's work:
- He started to shoot in the 1930’s and was one of the most brilliant photographers of his time.
- Because of that, he has been copied and copied again, and now his pictures belong to our common photographical knowledge.
- Obviously, triggering the shutter button is something anybody can do; does that imply that anybody can be HCB? Of course no! Anybody can hold brushes; does that mean anybody can be Van Gogh?
- Any informed amateur can copy HCB now. Does that mean any amateur could have been HCB? Of course no! Any good painter can reproduce the Sunflowers by Van Gogh (as a matter of fact, nowadays in China, there are professional painters who can copy the Sunflowers in 15minutes); does that mean any good painter could have been Van Gogh?
If you want to play the game "Was HCB all that?”, change the name and put instead “Is Koudelka is all that”, “Was Winogrand is all that” etc. Anybody in RFF could make a Koudelka or a Winogrand, and as a matter of fact a lot of photographers here make the same … but they make a Koudelka, a Winogrand, a HCB AFTER Koudelka, Winogrand or HCB. Afterwards, it’s easy to say: “oh I could have done the same? The puddle picture? The bicycle picture? Well I could have done that.” But these are just empty words …
I totally agree with Valdemar: a great photographer is someone who is where the event is. And it’s the most difficult thing to achieve: forcing one's way, anticipating the action, foreseeing the good frame etc. That’s what turns someone who can shoot into a photographer.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 06:03
Here's the future of photography.
Everyone will record everything, from every angle, in a continuous stream. Everything will be infinitely retrievable, an electronic Akashic Record.
Good photographers will turn into good archivists/editors.
Rewind to the day you met your wife and just pick which images you like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/WearableWirelessWebcamSteveMannVisualFilter1994Dec ember13th.png/450px-WearableWirelessWebcamSteveMannVisualFilter1994Dec ember13th.png
About the rich Frenchman argument: why all rich kids are not HCB? If there was an obvious link between wealth and talent, then all rich kids (or a major part of them) should be great artists? It’s not the case. Weegee was poor, HCB was rich; Salgado was rich, Doisneau was poor ... they all are outstanding photographers, and being rich is not what made them master photographers. Besides, IMHO, being rich makes it less easy to be an artist: when you are a “bourgeois”, you are expected to have a “serious” job … being an artist is just considered as a debasement for rich people.
About the cropping thing, it’s a well known fact that HCB’s pictures were often marginally cropped. Besides, it’s true he did not make his own prints, but let me tell you that he was/is not the only one (Salgado for instance works with different pro labs in Paris that I know). What is important is not who makes the print, but who thinks it.
There's a series of books named "Bluff your way through....." giving people some hinmts how to behave, what to say in ordfer to pretend expertise in various fields like the occult etc.
If they wrote a book on photography it would contain a chapter like "Pleasing the purist crowd" it would read somehow like that:
"Never forget to mention HCB. Actually you could well pass for an expert using only this particular name. Sneer at those who call him Henri Cartier Bresson. Look down at those who don't know him. All you have to know HCB invented street photography and used a Leica. This provides a good grip whenever another photographer is mentioned who does street photography or uses a Leica you can always add or finish by saysing "..but she/he's no HCB". Be sure to know about the decisive moment, easy to remember as it's the moment seen on any of HCB's photographs. I you are really daring or reckless in your wish to excel you could drop in a conversation that HCB himself never used the term "decisive moment" in his writings"
So yes there's a certain value in thinking about great photographers as humans and not as gods.
What a refreshing read =)
Do you kids have any fun being this sour on the photography/art world?
Personally I like to go to MoMA look at the photographs, have a bite to eat in their swell new cafeteria, and look at the girls. You guys just have this photography thing all wrong.
If you are worried about rich photographers, and money, spend less, worry less.
That's what I do as well. I think photography is a very humble and modest pursuit and the job of photographer is to observe and record.
5893058932
I know that he had to stick the lens through a fence and also the part cropped is basically black - he did not crop any visible part of the picture which had detail.
I don't think it diminishes from the impact of that photo... It was not as a bad as i thought. :)
Good photographers will turn into good archivists/editors.
]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/WearableWirelessWebcamSteveMannVisualFilter1994Dec ember13th.png/450px-WearableWirelessWebcamSteveMannVisualFilter1994Dec ember13th.png[/img]
30 years from now......
"MV's true contribution was his ability to show us decisive moments, not just the single dimensionality of HCB et al. His ability as an editor to select the simultaneous moments occurring in front of and behind a person wearing an omnisensor dramatically altered the consciousness of many editors and ..................... Some could argue his work was the final nail in the coffin of people's interest in 'single' moment imagery.";)
I know that he had to stick the lens through a fence and also the part cropped is basically black - he did not crop any visible part of the picture which had detail.
I don't think it diminishes from the impact of that photo... It was not as a bad as i thought. :)
Sure.
But look at the final print, it's printed with a black frame around, as if it was full frame!
Sure.
But look at the final print, it's printed with a black frame around, as if it was full frame!
But you have agree that even the left side was black so the frame on that side would be black as well.
He knew there would be a fence blocking part of the lens yet he still went for it!
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 07:32
I agree, I like to go to Leica gallery, MoMa, exhibits.
NOTHING has the visceral impact of seeing an original print up close. You haven't seen a photograph until you've seen it "in the flesh".
Frequently, I'll see something that I thought was so-so from images in books or the web, but when I see the real print, I "get it".
There's a whole generation of "photographers" who have NO (ZERO, NONE) experience with actual prints. They've only seen tiny third and fourth generation copies on tiny, crummy screens. Even their own photographs. They judge everything from cell-phone screens.
And if you go to museums, you can SHOOT the girls. And even get their phone numbers.
Do you kids have any fun being this sour on the photography/art world?
Personally I like to go to MoMA look at the photographs, have a bite to eat in their swell new cafeteria, and look at the girls. You guys just have this photography thing all wrong.
If you are worried about rich photographers, and money, spend less, worry less.
You are looking at web images of it, when it was published it was printed on an all black page. You cannot trust what people do to web images.
As they say, "buy the book."
Fred I've got the book "The man, the image and the world", this very photograph is printed the same!
But you have agree that even the left side was black so the frame on that side would be black as well.
He knew there would be a fence blocking part of the lens yet he still went for it!
Oh come on.... How much do you need? How about the bottom part, there's no black fence there.
A few thoughts:
What seems obvious today because we have seen it a lot, and it have been very influential to lots of other may well have been revolutionary in its time.
Question is: even with no time/money/gear limitation, would you be able to do what HCB have done BEFORE HCB have done it. Have a look at what the PJ was in the 30's.
Also
When not in the right mood, I can systematically miss picture after picture of a good situation over a film. I find it incredibely furstrating, but also, it teaches me that you may need luck in photography, but you need an eye to grasp that luck.
For one, I love HCB's work. I like others too but he is still one of the very few that I really feel in resonance with their work. Last discovery of mine was Irving Penn (best portraits I've seen so far), Koudelka, Michael Kenna etc. Really nothing to do with all the fuss around him. From what I heard from him, I don't really think I like it's personality. It's no idol reallly...
About films, well, I like Citizen Kane, but have you tried "the third man"? Fantastic photography!!
One last thing. Long before having discovered HCB, I had a towel marked "Cartier-Bresson". Although the towel was not bad at all, I am happy that little Henri decided not to stay in the family business...:D
Oh come on.... How much do you need? How about the bottom part, there's no black fence there.
The negative size is bigger than a 35mm frame so the bottom part is of a different frame which was not exposed or this was first shot of the roll.
The only way you can diminish the power of that image is if you proof that it was staged.
The negative size is bigger than a 35mm frame so the bottom part is of a different frame which was not exposed or this was first shot of the roll.
I'd be curious to know how you came to that conclusion :)
The only way you can diminish the power of that image is if you proof that it was staged.
Look, his pictures had some impact on me. The fact is that some of his pictures are cropped, he took a lot of frames of the same scene and he shot loads of rolls. Now some people really believe that he could do in in 1 single shot every time and that his pictures weren't manipulated, yet they were/are.
What would be the point of diminishing the pictures?
A few thoughts:
About films, well, I like Citizen Kane, but have you tried "the third man"? Fantastic photography!!
A great film directed by Carol Reed, many folks think Orson Wells was the director.
The "Decive Moment" was one of the few books on photography that my local library had when I was getting into photography. Aaron Siskind and Ernst Haas were the others, as well as photo annuals from the late 50's and early 60's. I was trying to absorb and see as much imagery as I could to understand what the medium could and couldn't do. HC-B influenced many generations of photographers. Whether you like him or not is a moot point. With all due respect, the examples of his work posted here do not do the man's work justice. He was so much more than "The Deecisive Moment". If you ever heard him speak, his main influences were surrealism. He had a very graphic, compositional sense.
When I look at his work, I see Frank, Friedlander, Klein, Winogrand, Ray-Jones, to name a few. He was an "honest" photographer who used a minimum of equipment to make his vision. He was an admitted poor painter and sketcher. That was his first love that he returned to later in life.
I'm not a tremendous fan, but in thinking he was overrated, I believe is wrong. His work may look dated, but he deserves his place in history and contributed much. Unlike Adams, HC-B was no showman. He let his work do his talking.
M. Valdemar
05-02-2008, 08:39
What I really like best are funny monkey pictures. All the big photo/news agencies used to send them out on the wires every couple of weeks.
I'd be curious to know how you came to that conclusion :)
Look, his pictures had some impact on me. The fact is that some of his pictures are cropped, he took a lot of frames of the same scene and he shot loads of rolls. Now some people really believe that he could do in in 1 single shot every time and that his pictures weren't manipulated, yet they were/are.
What would be the point of diminishing the pictures?
See the series "contact" showing short films (13 min) of the contact prints of great photogs, commented by them. IIRC, HCB is the first one. Really instructive. I think William Klein did the film...
I'm fairly certain varjag was making a joke.
Originally Posted by varjag
Dunno about Citizen Kane, but that Battleship Potemkin thing was really cheesy. I mean, that stroller-down-the-steps thing is really overdone, cliche and not as nice as in The Untouchables anyway.
The scene in The Untouchables (1987) is a homage to The Battleship Potemkin (1925). The film was revolutionary at the time mostly because of Eisenstein's theory of montage and film editing, still studied today in film universities around the world along with D.W. Griffith's films. Personally, I find these films boring, but one cannot deny their influence on modern cinema.
I've read that he "preferred" the 50mm, and that he "didn't like" to crop. His book in French was called "Grab shots".
Can you tell us who these people are, and how they came to believe such a "myth"?
There is an interview with Charlie Rose where he clearly states that he didn't crop his pictures, and that cropping is something you can't do because of "geometry", whatever.
If you've never seen written "he could do it in one shot", then you're in for a treat.
I think someone has told you a fairy tale.
Correct, his name is Henri Cartier-Bresson!
I'm shocked, shocked, to hear that. And coming from an artist, no less. :eek:
So the guy exaggerated his exploits & helped foster his own myth, big freakin' deal.
There is an interview with Charlie Rose where he clearly states that he didn't crop his pictures, and that cropping is something you can't do because of "geometry", whatever.
If you've never seen written "he could do it in one shot", then you're in for a treat.
Correct, his name is Henri Cartier-Bresson!
I'm shocked, shocked, to hear that. And coming from an artist, no less. :eek:
I'm shocked that there are foreign troops in Iraq.
michaelging
05-02-2008, 10:09
You look at the cave drawings in France and say I could have done better. Its all about the context of the time the image was drawn or photographed. HCB and others were the top people of their time, many of the photos he shot have stood the test of time and are still great photographs and some have not. Trying to compare one place and time over another is not a fair comparison. I too believe that I read that he used only a 50mm lens and did not crop his photos. He is what he is, and you can look at and enjoy his photos for what they tell you , or not.
Al Patterson
05-02-2008, 11:06
NOTHING has the visceral impact of seeing an original print up close. You haven't seen a photograph until you've seen it "in the flesh".
True enough. Last year I made it down to Roanoke to see the O. Winston Link Museum. I've seen postcards of his work and a few books, but even the small prints on the wall just had a life to them you just don't get on the Web or in a book.
Al Patterson
05-02-2008, 11:12
I'm shocked, shocked, to hear that. And coming from an artist, no less. :eek:
So the guy exaggerated his exploits & helped foster his own myth, big freakin' deal.
So if his greatest talent was self-promotion, so what?
Kind of like Andy Warhol and Madonna. It works for them, so why knock it?
Pherdinand
05-02-2008, 11:13
Nick, you're wrong.
Printing is not that critical for his kind of photography.
It is for Ansel Adams type of over-perfectioned black and white landscapes, but not for 35mm street shots.
Besides, nobody discredited his printer.
Is the sound mixer of a pink floyd concert getting half of the applause? not really, no. But he shows up on an album.
Are the musicians that are relying on technicians worse than the ones who do it all?
Pherdinand
05-02-2008, 11:15
And, BK stands for british knights. Not for burger king.
:P
Pherdinand
05-02-2008, 11:17
Sorry for the previous comments - i think they are useless. I wrote them before i realized that you don't understand Frank Zappa.
jan normandale
05-02-2008, 11:49
.....
NOTHING has the visceral impact of seeing an original print up close. You haven't seen a photograph until you've seen it "in the flesh".
Frequently, I'll see something that I thought was so-so from images in books or the web, but when I see the real print, I "get it".
I used to think Rembrandt was an over-rated technical painter who was something that art school teachers pushed. I had folio sized books of art including his. He was forgettable.
Then I went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and saw "Night Watch". I ate crow and recanted on the spot. You "have to be there" is all I can say. So, for these photographers you have to see the originals. It is different. No book or screen really delivers the reality.
But HCB's greatest talent wasn't self-promotion, it was his photography, regardless of one's personal opinion of that photography. Like many creative types (Picasso, Whistler, Frank Lloyd Wright, or any # of Renaissance artists come to mind) he probably had a huge ego & built up his own myth, but that doesn't take away from his achievements. Nor does the fact that many of his fans seemed to have bought into the hype excessively.
As far as Warhol & Madonna, I'm not a huge fan of either, but the fact that they were/are skilled @ self-promotion doesn't necessarily mean they had/have less talent than contemporaries who lacked/lack that skill. Which is kind of the way I feel about both Annie Leibovitz & her archrival, David LaChapelle.
So if his greatest talent was self-promotion, so what?
Kind of like Andy Warhol and Madonna. It works for them, so why knock it?
> know that he had to stick the lens through a fence and also the part cropped is basically black - he did not crop any visible part of the picture which had detail.
I don't think it diminishes from the impact of that photo... It was not as a bad as i thought. <
The photograph of the man jumping over the puddle was taken in 1932, using probably a Leica I -- crummy viewfinder by later standards, no rangefinder. I don't think that, using such a camera, you could assert that you would never crop. Later, with improved viewfinders, when you had years and decades of learning your lenses, you could make a decision in your work to not crop. But with a Leica in 1932, early in your career, it wasn't always easy to predict exactly what would be on the negative.
A while ago someone posted this HCB (http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxZoom_VPage&VBID=2K1HZO6DM3HFM&IT=ImageZoom01&PN=23&STM=T&DTTM=Image&SP=Album&IID=2S5RYD17SBT4&SAKL=T&SGBT=T&DT=Image) photo on DPC (http://www.dpchallenge.com/) and it got really bad votes and comments. As soon as the 'HCB' name wasn't attached to a photo the regular punters of the site, who consist of rather high quality photographers, didn't rate it at all. Someone did reckognise it and a mass edit of comments followed.
antiquark
05-02-2008, 19:17
Haha, sounds like a similar story to the infamous HCB "DeleteMe" thread. The comments that follow are hilarious:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrerabelo/70458366
Matthew Allen
05-02-2008, 19:19
A while ago someone posted this HCB (http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxZoom_VPage&VBID=2K1HZO6DM3HFM&IT=ImageZoom01&PN=23&STM=T&DTTM=Image&SP=Album&IID=2S5RYD17SBT4&SAKL=T&SGBT=T&DT=Image) photo on DPC (http://www.dpchallenge.com/) and it got really bad votes and comments. As soon as the 'HCB' name wasn't attached to a photo the regular punters of the site, who consist of rather high quality photographers, didn't rate it at all. Someone did reckognise it and a mass edit of comments followed.
I assume you've all seen this - probably the single funniest TOP post ever - but it bears reposting:
http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-photographers-on-internet.html
Matthew
white.elephant
05-02-2008, 21:39
I say you allege to like the work of HCB mainly because you're expected to like HCB. His work has taken on a mythology, has a halo effect. Much of its appeal has to do with the film (black and white) and era (France, decades ago) it was shot and the fact he shot with a Leica. I think if I plucked some interesting black and white stuff from RFF, you would praise it because you thought it was HCB. I think "the decisive moment" is overstating something painfully obvious.
Look, I have no way to defend what I'm about to say, but . . .
I never studied the History of Photography. My long-held passion for photography recently rekindled (six months ago or so). In March, the Bravo cable network had a week-long series of specials on photographers. Newton, Mapplethorpe (sp?) and HCB, among others. Now I knew of HCB, but I can't say I ever closely looked at his work. I mainly knew the well-known landscape photographers. Street photographers had never captured my attention. I say all this as a way of stating that, until I saw that HCB special on Bravo, I was fairly unaware of HCB and his reputation.
I saw the special and came away impressed with the man. His photos were nice, sure, but the man and his thought process impressed me.
The next time I went into a Borders, I looked for a book of his work. I found a big one, sat down in a chair, and looked through it.
Page after page after page after page of brilliant images. Uncropped, as others in this thread have mentioned. Images that leapt off the page. One after another. Holy smoke.
Look, his reputation meant nothing to me. Nada. But after looking through this volume of work, I don't care what equipment he had or how much money his family had or how many rolls of film he had to shoot to get those images, they moved me greatly. Made me care about 'street photography' in a way I never thought of before. Made me want to try it.
Was he a great artist? Look, if you watch the Charlie Rose episode (you can find it on You Tube), cartier-Bresson himself denies he is a great artist.
But did he take many, many amazing images? In this man's opinion, absolutely.
M. Valdemar
05-03-2008, 05:40
So you think Borders is a public library? Buy the book, Mr. Cheap Charlie.
jan normandale
05-03-2008, 06:01
So you think Borders is a public library? Buy the book, Mr. Cheap Charlie.
Nice comment. I guess you have never, ever in your entire life looked at a book or magazine and put it down and walked out. C'mon this is just a photography forum. Isn't it?
It's definitely OT and it's personal. Have a coffee.
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 06:19
Look...,
But did he take many, many amazing images? In this man's opinion, absolutely.
You're allowed to like HCB. My intent wasn't to diss the guy. My questions were, hey - the guy got to do what few (if any) can do, run around and take a ton of pictures with black and white film loaded into his Leica. If you were in a position to do that for your entire life, wouldn't you have a pretty nice portfolio at the end of the day (life) too? If you were born in to wealth and got to fish out on a lake every day of your life you'd be a pretty damned good fisherman over time, and catch quite a few big ones. If that were the case, would you deserve icon status as a fisherman?
Many popular artists develop a "halo effect" and a mythology around them and you're "expected" to hold them in icon status if you're interested in painting, music, art, photography - etc. How much of his appeal is because you're genuinely moved by his work, and how much is it because it's a requisite expectation if you're "in to" a particular art form? Are you being intellectually honest?
People talk about "the decisive moment" like it's something deep. Nice catch-phrase, but is it really all that meaningful? Isn't this overstating something obvious? Sartre it ain't imo.
|
M. Valdemar
05-03-2008, 06:39
I guess jokes need smiley faces and disclaimers these days.
I guess jokes need smiley faces and disclaimers these days.
In case you didn't know, you always sound sarcastic. So yes, smileys would be helpful in your case, I guess.
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 07:01
Short answer:
HCB wasn't "all that". He was "some of it"; the important parts.
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 07:20
His work should stand for itself.
You either like it or you don't.
Why so many knock him for being a "rich kid" I"ll never understand.
Exactly. Also, the "rich kid" part (while I myself can't possibly relate to one --yet :wink wink:--) just underscores the knocker's insecurities (among possibly other things). You'd have to take that silly argument further to say that "rich kid"s are expected to have their works perceived as great works just because they're "rich kid"s.
Anybody who's been aware of the current "mortgage crisis" can see that what most of them touch turn into ***-***, and expect the government to bail them out at the proletariat's expense.
The whole class-ification is pointless, inane and completely missing the point they're missing.
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 07:22
I can't type "p00-p00"? F@rk.
You're allowed to like HCB. My intent wasn't to diss the guy. My questions were, hey - the guy got to do what few (if any) can do, run around and take a ton of pictures with black and white film loaded into his Leica. If you were in a position to do that for your entire life, wouldn't you have a pretty nice portfolio at the end of the day (life) too? If you were born in to wealth and got to fish out on a lake every day of your life you'd be a pretty damned good fisherman over time, and catch quite a few big ones. If that were the case, would you deserve icon status as a fisherman?
Many popular artists develop a "halo effect" and a mythology around them and you're "expected" to hold them in icon status if you're interested in painting, music, art, photography - etc. How much of his appeal is because you're genuinely moved by his work, and how much is it because it's a requisite expectation if you're "in to" a particular art form? Are you being intellectually honest?
People talk about "the decisive moment" like it's something deep. Nice catch-phrase, but is it really all that meaningful? Isn't this overstating something obvious? Sartre it ain't imo.
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Well, you finally had to mention Sartre in your post. That was a total give away.
Ironically, you're trying to be cool for throwing rocks at a photography icon. You think just because everyone loves HCB, then by arguing that he was not "all that" (which is a meaningless phrase invented by bubble-headed teenage girls with no vocubalry) you could feel like a rebel and someone who thinks outside the herd.
I also don't understand why everyone feel the need to post here justifying that HCB was really "all that".
Al Patterson
05-03-2008, 07:27
I can't type "p00-p00"? F@rk.
You just gotta love the word filter here...
My intent wasn't to diss the guy.
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I guess "diss" was a "joke" then....
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=811157&postcount=13
.......yawn.........
The main result of this thread is to show how many different opinions there can be on a subject.
HCB was not the first and only spoiled brat born into humanity. And a lot of them probably had a lot less influence. Both Ansel Adams and Edward Weston lived in Carmel, CA, which is not exactly a low-income burg.
True enough, with enough shutter clicking, one is bound to come up with some worthwhile pictures. Getting them published may be another story. But it's probably also true that in his time there weren't many around doing what he did. And I doubt that 'large-format' guys could be called street photgraphers, if indeed that's what HCB was. So Brassai, et. al, worked in a somewhat different melieu.
He was notoriously publicity-shy, claiming that he didn't want to be recognized. Yet he largely stayed away from telephoto lenses, which don't work terribly well on Leicas anyway. He was quoted as saying that the 90mm lens was the lens that "shortened the foreground", so he wasn't spying on anyone.
Whose "favorite photographer" he was or wasn't is probably totally beside the point.
I assume you've all seen this - probably the single funniest TOP post ever - but it bears reposting:
http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-photographers-on-internet.html
Matthew
Hilarious!!
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 08:36
Oy. V. G.
Dude was born way wealthy in France. Of course, he didn't actually have to do anything useful for a living so he studied art. Gave him a good handle on composition - sorta like David Lynch and other film directors who first study painting and art. Due to his family wealth, did the kinda "cool" (but unuseful things) trust fund babies get to do - get "involved" with "art movements", hook up with "intellectuals", read Heart of Darkness - jaunts off to Africa for a while...
Your "wealthy Dude" also spent 3 years in a POW camp and joined the French Resistance afterwards. His photos that impressed me most were taken at the end of WWII.
ASCII? holy smoke you went the complicated route!!
Why have you deleted your post Mr Pitxu?
WoolenMammoth
05-03-2008, 09:16
If you were in a position to do that for your entire life, wouldn't you have a pretty nice portfolio at the end of the day (life) too?
by proxy of having taken a ton of photos? uh, no. If you arent born with the talent to capture amazing moments, you certainly arent going to develop that through use. People get technically proficient through use, and often that developed technical proficiency tends to allow the poetic moments to flow with less friction, but taking one million photos does not unlock poetic prowess. You are born with it or you arent. If there was ever a time to realize this it is now, where most people have digital cameras and shoot 800 times what any photographer would have shot 15 years ago and all we have is 800 times the drivel.
If you were born in to wealth and got to fish out on a lake every day of your life you'd be a pretty damned good fisherman over time, and catch quite a few big ones. If that were the case, would you deserve icon status as a fisherman?
Im not too sure you could make a more naive statement than that. Fishing actually is a really good comparison with photography. When I was a kid, I fished every day in my neighborhood after school, I probably went to the lake on more than 1000 occasions as a kid growing up. I was the guy in the neighborhood that NEVER caught a fish. Some people just do not have it...
Havent you met many wealthy people? Most people with a ton of money dont do much of anything. They pay people to fish for them. When most of the people I have worked with made incredible success and walked into million dollar incomes, thats when the personal assistants came into the picture, thats when they stopped doing many things for themselves and thats when their creative output really really really dropped off because they werent as hungry anymore, they had "made it". The only way to look at the rich guy who fishes every day is to applaud his drive to get up every day and repeat the mundane cycle of going to the lake and fishing.
The *ONLY* thing money buys you is time. And most people with it squander that time away being non productive. I simply do not understand the mindset for crucifying someone that CAN do something actually DOING something. Its really not a very sophisticated way to look at the world, where only the strugglers have the right for achievement, earned because of how hard they struggled. Simpleminded.
Make a list of all the uber wealthy that achieve great heights as artists. Its not a very long list. Most people make their money and stop achieving or the context of their achievements change intensely. If rich guy decides to dedicate his life to fishing and becomes the most awesome angler the world has ever seen, thats amazing. How dare you discredit the work that goes into that simply because the guy was able to do it?
Its damn arrogant of you to make the suggestion that your achievements are worth more because of your income than the achievements of someone in a higher economic bracket. If you are both amazing photographers, who cares? The pictures are amazing or they arent. Yeah, its a bummer you have a day job but if you cant take a good picture now, you arent going to do it with a seven figure income either. We are not talking about formula one racing here, or flying private jets or some other activity open basically to the wealthy elite only, this is a discussion about photography and the playing field is pretty damn level if you can muster up a few dollars for a camera.
Artists create good art because they are born into being a good artist. Money has nothing to do with anything here. And again, knocking a rich guy for being productive is about the most simpleminded jealous thing I can think of, where you really have to look at the wealthy artist and say "thank you for doing something" when they could have spent all of their days lounging in a pool, being served drinks doing absolutely *nothing* like most people in that world do (when it comes to creative output). Ive been there. Money ruins everything. But then you have some amazing artists with some cash and they have to take criticism for it. Its pretty boggling...
Mammoth,
I'd prefer to be a millionaire then to be poor and have the "drive". Drive for what, success? Nobody succesful is poor... so there's something wrong with your analogy, IMO.
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 10:32
Its damn arrogant of you to make the suggestion that your achievements are worth more because of your income than the achievements of someone in a higher economic bracket.
Calm down. Yeesh. Read what I'm saying. I'm not bashing HCB or the rich. I'm only asking questions that pertain to HCB and lots of other artist who achieve "icon" status. Is it really that they're "all that", or is it some combination of talent and a confluence of other circumstantial issues without which they would not have achieved "icon status". And if it wasn't this "confluence of circumstantial issues" - being born wealthy which enabled him to roam around and talk lots of pictures; the era, medium, and equipment used - all those things I've outlines which are almost random accidents of birth, would the "icon status" have been achieved at all? Or, would his photos been forgotten along with him as they probably have been with lots of other forgotten photographers. How much is attributable to talent? How much is truly deserved? Do you legitimately like his work? Or is "HCB" a name you bat around and are only familiar with that pick of they guy in mid-air over the puddle? Are you being intellectually honest in your admiration? Or is it "other factors" - like there's certain names in various medium you're "expected" to be familiar and heap praise on because its sacrilege not to in that community.
As far as what I quoted by you, I never said or implied that. Period. I'm not "bashing" the rich (though I do think we should eat them.)
Al Patterson
05-03-2008, 10:40
mAs far as what I quoted by you, I never said or implied that. Period. I'm not "bashing" the rich (though I do think we should eat them.)
Nah, the rich will end up eating the poor. Think "Soylent Green".
There is someting to say for timing. If Bill Gates had finished school, we might be using a decendant of CP/M instead of Windows which grew out of MS/DOS.
Being rich did allow HCB plenty of time to hone his style without having to worry whether he was going to eat tomoorow. Being one of the first photographers in his genre certainly helped.
Recall something else Cartier-Bresson gave us ... He was a man confortable with money, who knew how to use it as a tool, and his business and money senses were crucial in setting up the Magnum photo cooperative. Certainly Magnum was the result of four strong-willed colleagues and friends working together (Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Chim and George Rodger) but each brought his own strength that ensured the idea succeeded where many similar schemes of artists tank.
There's also a myth that Cartier-Bresson was some lone wolf, stalking the streets in reclusive solitude. In the early-to-mid-1930s in Paris, he was close friends with Chim and Capa (two very poor artists who also scraped together enough money for Leicas and who, because of their poverty and youth, had no real personal commitments and so could spend all their time learning to photograph). Cartier-Bresson, Capa, and Chim spent a considerable amount of time photographing Paris together and critiquing each others work. It was Capa who urged Cartier-Bresson to do more photojournalism, to tell a narrative, rather than stick with abstract surrealism. And Cartier-Bresson has said that he was deeply influenced by Chim's humanity, sensitivity and artistry. And of course Capa and Chim were inluenced by Cartier-Bresson's sense of composition and his partience in waiting for the right moment to unfold.
I think that if these three had not met and spent countless hours together at Paris cafes in the early 1930s, there's a fair chance we would not have heard of any of them (or they individually would be as obscure as Chim -- David Seymor -- is today).
Boy are you confused between success and wealth. There are many (perhaps sadly) successful [read famous] artists who are not wealthy.
I have one friend who has a bibliography a mile long, reviewed in the New York Times, Artforum, you name it, and she can barely get by in New York.
it is amazing the myths "civilians" have about well known artists and photographers.
Your friend, I really question his success. Or his ability to be a succesful succesful person. And if you gave him good money, would his mile-long bibliography suddenly vanish?
Fred, you fight very hard to always contradict or teach me things. First, you we're strong about DOF marks becoming invalid on a 35mm format lens as soon as it would be used on a M8 from a film M (yeah yeah, remember?). Then you debated the fact that person with an average income wouldn't be able to save up 100$ a week (which is possible. It's all a matter of saving and spending wisely) and now you seem to say that a rich person cannot be a succesful artist.
Whatever, man.
jan normandale
05-03-2008, 14:11
The vast majority of the posters on the RFF may not be Bill Gates but they have enough disposable income to buy $5000 digital cameras and $3000 lenses, like they are throw-a-way cameras.
Do you think so? I'd be surprised. Perhaps a few members might be in that league, I'm not.
Anyway I think I've said all I can here. TTYL
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 14:42
I keep wondering how "poor" you are. And why.
I'm a "Dean" at an accredited career college the last two years. Before that I scraped by as an adjunct teaching - college algebra, project management methodologies, digital photography/Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, digital video and editing, Quark, (then) Macromedia Director, Flash, Dreamweaver, intro to advance MS Office, Visual Basic, 3DSM, Adobe After Effects, business ethics, technical writing, and composition courses at several schools. Before that I started a company that went bust. Before that I was between jobs during the "jobless recovery", before that I was Director of Project Management and reported to C-level management in a public company.
Been broke, made six figures, broke again, scraped by (adjuncting - what they're paid is a disgrace), made an "okay" living.
Never been rich, though. That's okay. Wouldn't trade my looks for their dollars - I'm damned good looking, "tengo todas las chicas", and go by the moniker,
"Nick Hot Body" The Italian Heart Throb
... fwiw I'm a smart sumbich. Genius-level at abstract reasoning, as tested. Also problem solving. And I'm a wee bit full of myself. Which is okay.
Never said I was "poor" but I have been.
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Al Patterson
05-03-2008, 15:18
I keep wondering how "poor" you are. And why.
The vast majority of the posters on the RFF may not be Bill Gates but they have enough disposable income to buy $5000 digital cameras and $3000 lenses, like they are throw-a-way cameras.
My guess is the vast majority have far more income that HCB's family had in 1920s France, even if they were the thread kings of France.
I must be poor then. I'd have to trade my car for an M8, or use those evil plastic cards...
Now I can buy a $300 or a $150 lens without much pain, but I doubt I even have $3,000 worth of cameras.
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 15:29
I must be poor then. I'd have to trade my car for an M8, or use those evil plastic cards...
Now I can buy a $300 or a $150 lens without much pain, but I doubt I even have $3,000 worth of cameras.
With you there, pal. A $3000 lens doesn't top the GSN, or the lenses on a fixed lens rangefinder. Only way I'd pay that is if a night with a few of Spitzer's babes came with the lens.
mfunnell
05-03-2008, 15:37
Only way I'd pay that is if a night with a few of Spitzer's babes came with the lens.They seemed awfully overpriced to me. More evidence for Lord Kelvin's dictum? (Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only for race horses and fancy women.)
...Mike
Matthew Allen
05-03-2008, 15:41
Wouldn't trade my looks for their dollars - I'm damned good looking,
Modest too.:D
Matthew
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 15:41
the 1917 photo in Paris. It may be one out of a thousand, but we associate it with HCB.
Pardon my pedantry, and I just noticed your comment there; but it's 1930-something, not 1917.
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 15:43
Nobody succesful is poor...
Tell that to Oscar Wilde.
Al Patterson
05-03-2008, 15:43
With you there, pal. A $3000 lens doesn't top the GSN, or the lenses on a fixed lens rangefinder. Only way I'd pay that is if a night with a few of Spitzer's babes came with the lens.
Yeah, $3,000 buys a lot of GSNs and $250 hookers...
(Note, I'm being sarcastic here, I am NOT advocating buying GSNs...)
Al Patterson
05-03-2008, 15:46
Mammoth,
I'd prefer to be a millionaire then to be poor and have the "drive". Drive for what, success? Nobody succesful is poor... so there's something wrong with your analogy, IMO.
There are famous artists who were poor (in a finacial sense) all their lives. They weren't considered successful until after they died.
Gabriel M.A.
05-03-2008, 15:47
The vast majority of the posters on the RFF may not be Bill Gates but they have enough disposable income to buy $5000 digital cameras and $3000 lenses, like they are throw-a-way cameras.
My guess is the vast majority have far more income that HCB's family had in 1920s France, even if they were the thread kings of France.
Emm. If you know something I don't know about some inheritance somebody forgot to tell me about, I'd reeeeally like to know. I have this Rollei lens in my sights, you see, and still having to pay rent...well...
::making motion of having a telephone by my ear::
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 16:00
LOL - you have to be rich to be successful. Hilarious. With logic like that, you should apply for a political talk show on AM radio. Hey - not for nuffin but I was a helluva successful teacher back when I scraped by, without benefits, during my adjuncting days. Didn't make crap though.
mfunnell
05-03-2008, 16:02
I have been thinking of trying to borrow against sales after my demise, but so far no luck on that from Citibank.All is timing. You should have tried that before defaults nailed the sub-prime market. Up 'till then they were building CDOs from much shakier underlying assets :eek:
...Mike
Al Patterson
05-03-2008, 16:18
Boy Al I don't know quite how to put this, but the when the artists are dead they are famous, but not successful -- they don't collect any money in the afterlife. And if only they could... :)
I have been thinking of trying to borrow against sales after my demise, but so far no luck on that from Citibank.
Right you are, I should have said "famous", not "successful". You can see why I'm not writing to earn my pay. ;)
Now maybe their children ended up with the money, as you say Citi doesn't have any ATMs in the afterlife...
I was thinking of Vincent VanGogh when I wrote the earlier post. He didn't sell many paintings during his life, but boy would I like to have inherited ONE of his paintings. He was never "successful", but he certainly is famous now.
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 16:19
Ah printing degrees? :rolleyes:
Nope. The school where I work, I happen to be very proud of. Guess what? Everyone there wants to teach, not "just teach graduate students" and write research papers. The instructors mostly have advanced degrees but are or were working professionals. We review student grades, arrange tutoring proactively, call students who's attendance is slipping. We work our asses off for student success rates. I'm in the class 3-5 times a week doing faculty evals. I'm not above helping studnets who are struggling, especially with math. We prepare students for the work place intensively - not just hand them a degree and wave bye-byes. We review and work with them on their resumes, we do mock interviews with actual clients and business partners. We help them get survival jobs if they need them. And the jobs we get students are with major companies and are good entry-level jobs. And we're placing over 90% in-field at our campus. The "lazy" could care less about their students regionally accredited schools don't do anything like that. We have to place a minimum of 70% in-field to maintain accreditation.
I've taught at regionally accredited schools. Guess what? I'd rather be where I'm at. They're lazy and the tenure model sucks. The inmates run the asylum there. It's all about the tenured profs, students "pay the bills" and they could (arrogantly) care less about them. They're the ones who should have the spotlight on them. They're not worth what they charge. I just hired a math instructor who adjuncts at a major university. He said he was hired there by email. I interviewed him once over the phone, once in person, and had him do two sample teaches before I made him an offer, and had several candidates lined up so I could pick "the best".
We have some amazing success stories that come out of the school I work at - homeless people or dirt poor a few years prior. Got them survival jobs, worked our asses off to get their skills up to par, pass the math classes, get their writing skills where they need to be, got them into jobs paying 40, 50K a year.
One guy couldn't get to school because he couldn't afford bus fare. We got him an interview for a pt job, spent five hours working on his resume, one of the chairs gave him the tie off his shirt for his interview because he didn't have a tie, and another faculty member gave him a pretty decent Trek bike so he could get to school and to work until he had enough money to save for a car.
Don't you dare call that "printing degrees". You're just showing your ignorance. The state grants you the right to issue degrees and you have the DOE auditing you, along with the accrediting body, several time a year. You better have your S together or they'll shut you down.
I'll refrain from stooping to insults...
In this day and age when formaldehyde-preserved animals and dung-spattered pictures are presented as "art", even by reputable museums, NickTrop's annoyance with hype and propaganda is understandable. With Henri Cartier-Bresson, however, he really, really chose the wrong target. Even worse, if he had bothered to study his subject just a little, he could have spared himself--and us--his rhetorical questions, as these reveal a total ignorance of HCB's life and achievements, and indeed of photographic history. As other correspondents have noted, it's immaterial whether Cartier-Bresson was wealthy or not. He certainly did not "hook up with intellectuals" due to his family wealth, he belonged in this intellectual milieu because of his own intellectual quality. It is preposterous to say that his pictures have succeeded because "they're old black and white pics of a different time, a different culture, a different era". To quote from the International Center of Photography's Encyclopedia of Photography: "Cartier-Bresson's first photography exhibition was held at the Gallery Julien Levy in New York in 1932, and his first reportage appeared in France in Vu in the same year." I.e., his pictures were new then, when standards were much higher than now, they belonged to that time, culture and era, and they were exhibited and celebrated because of their quality, not because of their quaintness. He was also included by Beaumont Newhall in a photo exhibition at the MoMA in NYC in 1937, and again in 1946, this time solo. Somebody else among many others who recognized his talent was Lincoln Kirstein, another "rich kid" who sponsored Walker Evans, and who also brought the great choreographer, George Balanchine, to America. Even though wealthy, Kirstein was an extremely talented man himself and not the type to be impressed by any "halo effect". As for Cartier-Bresson himself, far from promoting himself as an artist, he said, in an interview that appeared in The New York Review of Books: "There are no more craftsmen. Now everybody is an 'artist.' What rubbish! Photography--it's an artisan's thing. You know, something physical." NickTrop is of course free to like HCB or not, but my advice to him would be, if you are tone deaf, do not bother to go to a Mozart concert, much less criticize the performance afterwards.
NickTrop
05-03-2008, 20:22
In this day and age when formaldehyde-preserved animals and dung-spattered pictures are presented as "art", even by reputable museums, NickTrop's annoyance with hype and propaganda is understandable. With Henri Cartier-Bresson, however, he really, really chose the wrong target. Even worse, if he had bothered to study his subject just a little, he could have spared himself--and us--his rhetorical questions, as these reveal a total ignorance of HCB's life and achievements, and indeed of photographic history. As other correspondents have noted, it's immaterial whether Cartier-Bresson was wealthy or not. He certainly did not "hook up with intellectuals" due to his family wealth, he belonged in this intellectual milieu because of his own intellectual quality. It is preposterous to say that his pictures have succeeded because "they're old black and white pics of a different time, a different culture, a different era". To quote from the International Center of Photography's Encyclopedia of Photography: "Cartier-Bresson's first photography exhibition was held at the Gallery Julien Levy in New York in 1932, and his first reportage appeared in France in Vu in the same year." I.e., his pictures were new then, when standards were much higher than now, they belonged to that time, culture and era, and they were exhibited and celebrated because of their quality, not because of their quaintness. He was also included by Beaumont Newhall in a photo exhibition at the MoMA in NYC in 1937, and again in 1946, this time solo. Somebody else among many others who recognized his talent was Lincoln Kirstein, another "rich kid" who sponsored Walker Evans, and who also brought the great choreographer, George Balanchine, to America. Even though wealthy, Kirstein was an extremely talented man himself and not the type to be impressed by any "halo effect". As for Cartier-Bresson himself, far from promoting himself as an artist, he said, in an interview that appeared in The New York Review of Books: "There are no more craftsmen. Now everybody is an 'artist.' What rubbish! Photography--it's an artisan's thing. You know, something physical." NickTrop is of course free to like HCB or not, but my advice to him would be, if you are tone deaf, do not bother to go to a Mozart concert, much less criticize the performance afterwards.
LOL -I didn't criticize anyone. And I didn't say whether I liked his work or not, really. I just asked a few "Cavutos" (if you get the reference/joke), if you don't get the reference, replace it with the word "questions".
rolleistef
05-04-2008, 00:41
What is important with Cartier-Bresson is neither whether he was good or bad, neither he printed his photos himself (which he did, he had a Leica enlarger that made a black framing around his photos).
He's important because he thought photography, and we much owe to himself for his theoretical work.
"He was rich, he didn't have anything to do". So what. Is that a crime to study art? (someone wade a mistake on Wiki, he was born in St-Rémy-les-Chevreuse, not Chanteloup-les-vignes, which isn't exactly the same train station).
Of course he shot thousands of rolls. But who didn't? Can the Photo of the Century be obtained just by taking one or two pictures at the same time?
Moreover, he was greatly influenced by the Surréaliste, with which he was closely linked (André Breton, Paul Eluard, Soupaud etc). His motto, "taking photos is linking both the eyes, the heart and the head" is an emanation of their work about subconscious.
And to finish, I think what's interesting with him is his work, that's all. If they made a Posthume Exhibition after the war, that meant he already was acknowledged as a great artist.
rolleistef
05-04-2008, 00:48
and the real aim of Mr Nick Trop may have not been to discuss if HCB was a great photographer or not but rather to debate about Him and bring more knowledge, go back to the basis, think about it.. That's called in French a stone in the pond and is a very common university practice, for example when there first were studies about the History of Women. Somebody also lately stated that Bach didn't wrote his famous Solo Cello Suites etc.
Was it the case? If not, the result is the same anyway.
HCB was my beginning. As a kid I got the Decisive moment and being young and impressionable spent hours deconstucting his images trying to understand why I responded to them so strongly. Didn't know he was famous or anything. Just knew the man was doing something I never saw before.
Something I wanted to be able to do.
The downside here is that I tried to shoot like HCB and it took years to get over that, both his decisive moments and his geometry.
But besides his images, that he helped create Magnum, a photographer run agency was very important.
I do find the question of 'was he a genius?' spurious. HCB was an important photographer whose work set a benchmark for many photographers. Trying to figure out if he was better than Ansel Adams or Gene Smith or whomever is really a dumb thing to do. It is so American to set up competitions and "Best of " and top 10s. Let's just be thankful that there were all of these photographers out there trying to advance photography.
NickTrop
05-05-2008, 09:43
Nick no insult meant, I was just following your lead in putting quotes around "dean," which implies you are really not a dean.
I actually have no idea what you do or where you teach, but putting quotes around dean would obviously make me believe you were making fun of the school.
You make jokes about everything, what else was I to think? I can only work with the material that is given to me.
My bad. Didn't get the joke initially. I get defensive - tiz true, when people give career colleges a bad rap. At least where I work, we're VERY student focused and work are behinds off to help them achieve success.
NickTrop
05-05-2008, 09:58
and the real aim of Mr Nick Trop may have not been to discuss if HCB was a great photographer or not but rather to debate about Him and bring more knowledge, go back to the basis, think about it.. That's called in French a stone in the pond and is a very common university practice, for example when there first were studies about the History of Women. Somebody also lately stated that Bach didn't wrote his famous Solo Cello Suites etc.
Was it the case? If not, the result is the same anyway.
Glad somebody get it around here ;) As for the undercurrent of "anger" referenced in the second post, you make more waves when you throw the stone into the pond - hard.
rolleistef
05-05-2008, 10:44
(chanting) we got them, we got them, they all ran in the roaaad-signnn...
Maybe it is the clean water in Canada, but does this guy make sense, and remain clear headed, time after time?
its the good BEER in Canada he he!
To answer the original post, HCB is one of those people for me; over the years, I have seen a number of photos that I have really been impressed by...many of these, I found out periodically, are his. I became his fan before I knew of him, if that makes sense.
Al Patterson
05-06-2008, 13:10
its the good BEER in Canada he he!
To answer the original post, HCB is one of those people for me; over the years, I have seen a number of photos that I have really been impressed by...many of these, I found out periodically, are his. I became his fan before I knew of him, if that makes sense.
I wonder how many of us have formed our opinions from seeing his work online and never having seen an actual print on the wall? I'll admit that I don't get why he's "All That", but I've only seen his work online.
As you know we have a linguistically challenged individual as president in the US, he represents a widespread anti-intellectual stance among voters. We have a long history of anti-intellectualism in this country.
George Wallace resurrected anti "pointy-heads" politics in the US, and we have lived with it ever since. We are truly in a Renaissance of anti-intelectual thought, as the puritans wrote in the 1600s "The more learned and witty you be, the more fit to act for Satan will you be"
You enlightened me! I don't know why but I hadn't made the link between political anti-intellectualism and the puritan tradition. That's precious. Thanks.
rolleistef
05-06-2008, 14:05
Who were the guys on the Mayflower? Why had they been outcast from Britain? Google "Cartwright" for the answer...
I like the association between "Renaissance" and "anti-intellectualism" btw ;)
larmarv916
05-06-2008, 16:22
From the bigger perspective, think of the HCB question like this.
Just for the heck of it lets look at the early 1930's.....we have two groups of people who came on the scene in this period of time and then both groups are still casting a shadow over the photograpy world today. All due to the fact that these groups were the first to gain commerical and artistic dominance. In europe we have Braassai, Doisneau, HCB, Capa, Kertesz, Sander, Eisenstaedt, Atget, Horst, R.Peter sen....Most of the bigest players were in Paris.
These guys came from Hungary, France, Germany, UK and USA, Most were all caught up some aspect of the Surrealism Fade of that time. Dali was all the rage and then some. But European taste went in a different direction from the american photographic fascination with Natural images.
Europe was at the time more interested in Street Photograpy for the most part. It seems that European artistic photography is still leaning that way today. To me that is just fine.
The USA had Weston, the F64 group, Steichen, Adams , Strand, D.Lange, M.White and many others. Who came on the scene in the 30's and 40's were almost trapped in a market where unless they were shooting to record the depression, then the only other real work was shooting the war. Most american photographers were pressed into service to do so.
So the history of differnt development paths of photograpy in the USA and Europe have been a result of how the gallery and publishers could curbe and twist development of photographers from the benefit of business of the "marketing" merchants.
That said HCB and all of the people that we now see as "idols" of photography for the intellectual art flunkies to worship. these guys did not try to emulate anyone !! As there was not photo Gods to copy ??
America's classical photography period produced one style of imagery and that imagery is still haunting the world today.....Eruope had a more divers creative system of rivers. HCB was just one guy that know what he wanted to shoot and at the time in many cases...No one else was there to document. I do not rermember Weston or Adams at Ghandi's funeral or charging around the world. So it is no wonder that many americans just do not get or understand many of the early european master of photogrpahy.
Not good or bad just different. Best Regards.....Laurance
From the bigger perspective, think of the HCB question like this.
Just for the heck of it lets look at the early 1930's.....we have two groups of people who came on the scene in this period of time and then both groups are still casting a shadow over the photograpy world today. All due to the fact that these groups were the first to gain commerical and artistic dominance. In europe we have Braassai, Doisneau, HCB, Capa, Kertesz, Sander, Eisenstaedt, Atget, Horst, R.Peter sen....Most of the bigest players were in Paris.
These guys came from Hungary, France, Germany, UK and USA, Most were all caught up some aspect of the Surrealism Fade of that time. Dali was all the rage and then some. But European taste went in a different direction from the american photographic fascination with Natural images.
Europe was at the time more interested in Street Photograpy for the most part. It seems that European artistic photography is still leaning that way today. To me that is just fine.
The USA had Weston, the F64 group, Steichen, Adams , Strand, D.Lange, M.White and many others. Who came on the scene in the 30's and 40's were almost trapped in a market where unless they were shooting to record the depression, then the only other real work was shooting the war. Most american photographers were pressed into service to do so.
So the history of differnt development paths of photograpy in the USA and Europe have been a result of how the gallery and publishers could curbe and twist development of photographers from the benefit of business of the "marketing" merchants.
That said HCB and all of the people that we now see as "idols" of photography for the intellectual art flunkies to worship. these guys did not try to emulate anyone !! As there was not photo Gods to copy ??
America's classical photography period produced one style of imagery and that imagery is still haunting the world today.....Eruope had a more divers creative system of rivers. HCB was just one guy that know what he wanted to shoot and at the time in many cases...No one else was there to document. I do not rermember Weston or Adams at Ghandi's funeral or charging around the world. So it is no wonder that many americans just do not get or understand many of the early european master of photogrpahy.
Not good or bad just different. Best Regards.....Laurance
Excellent read.
larmarv916
05-07-2008, 00:19
Ok...here we go again. You must just love to take things out of context. The whole thrust is that the americans and we taking different paths of creative development based on the historical conditions each was surrounded by. Second the first generation of commerically successful photographers then became the role models for which still exert excessive infulence on the marketplace today.
As they are the still considered by most historians and the publishers and gallery and the auction busines owners the masters of photography......and are the most lucrative sources of income for most of these commerically money hungry members of society.
Again out of context HCB did not feel the need to come to america to work with the most interesting photographers. His stop in america was only to support his interest in putting together a body of work that was his personal view of America. The European movement was again always moving in a direction didcated by it's own artistic desire. Marget Bourke-White as strickly a hired gun and was and is not in the class of HCB or most others. Her motivation was only driven by a sense of commerical one upmanship not an inner flame of artistic vision. Eisenstaedt had this same inner vision. MBW was not shy about her deisre to be famous. Did she do some excellent work sure but was never considered an original and best know for here work for Life shooting Aviation combat stories.
Iam oh so glad that you chose to take the bait and throw up Eugene Smith as your partron sait. Eugene Smith was as mentioned did his best work as a Navy phtographer. And was not a figure of historical importance in the time frame the was under discussion in my previous posting.
How strange again you are outside the topic and time frame under discussion. It was not until his later emergence after Korea that he became a important figure in the photographic world. The guy was great but not involved or important in the 1920' and 1930's which was the context of discussion.
It's a shame that you are not aware of the "American Classical Period" but no matter. The subject of discussion is not if you like whcih photo of Ghandi.....but rather that the infulence of early commerically successful photographers , like impressionistic painters still define and act as the standard of judgement for what is considered "excellence" for todays photographers. That was also implied in the original Thread that started some 11 pages ago.
Magnum was the source that Life went to when it wanted imagery that is now why some many issues of LIFE that are sought as collectable ars HCB, Eisenstaedt, issues. The biggest point you are working over time at missing is that European masters that came primarly from Paris and the period of the 1920's and 1930's were and are the original seed of a different school of photograpy. Different from and worlds away from the school of american scenic photogrpahy. You again are trying to make a inaccurte comparison between people who were original masters of respective schools of photogrpahy and those that followed and copied thier mentiors some 30 years later.
So that would be like comparing "Da Vinici" and "Warhol"...because they were both artists & painters !!
Also Adams, Stieglitz, Strand, and Weston, and the whole F64 gang is still the most sought after Amerian work at the gallerys and the auction houses. I think you need to contact Christies. If you still not sure of the effects that these early masters take a look at the auction of the entire Adams Print collection offered recently. I personally like Smith very much but.....it is clear that his legacy will be minimal at best. Why? He was not part of the original early masters who set the stage and stylistic molds for the rest to follow.
If he had been a commerical success in the 1920' or 1930's then his name would be mentioned in the same breath as Stteglitz, Strand, HCB, Brassai, Eisenstaedt. The context of my post had nothing to do with your personal perferences. Surpirse. But different direction of creative development Europe and America took during the same period. Also how commerical success twists the development of photographers past and present.
The context is the development period of 1920's and 1930's and infulence of dominance of people of HCB and others over us now some 80-90 years later. Not about who was our perosnal favorites of "all time".
Regards......Laurance
Spider67
05-07-2008, 01:25
Anti intellectualism is not a purely American matter. It's just that you can see anti intellectualism popularized by American popular culture. In Austria we have very often a reaction like "Do I have to know that ?!"when you mention "Oh Kurt Vonnegut just died". It has also become quite fashionable to say "The kids shouldn´t learn Shakespeare in school teach them how to prepare their documents for the IRS.....Interestingly those teachers who were committed and taught Shakespeare were the same who gave good insight in practical questions.
To me Nicks question was a valid one. I remembered how every artist/painter/author/photographer can be made somhow "uninteresting": just declare him a classic! It's as if you cut her/him out of the stream of development. There the classics spend their existence standing isolated like monuments.
larmarv916
05-07-2008, 06:09
Hello Spider.....I agree with you view very much.
Just to clarify my post:
Anti intellectualism is not a purely American matter. Obviously. I underline a very particular link between "political" anti-intellectualism in the USA and the "puritan" tradition. If you take other examples, Italy or France, you'll have to make a different approach to political anti-intellectualism (you cannot derive it from puritanism or even a religious tradition, but from counter-revolution populism, in the case of France) ... and unfortunately, French citizens and Italian citizens are more and more anti-intellectual ... their vote speaks for them.
Marc
PS: in France, now, if you defend human rights you're immediately considered an intellectual living in rich areas ... "les intellectuels de Saint-Germain-des près ..." Next we have barbarism and everybody's happy about that.
Ok...here we go again. You must just love to take things out of context. The whole thrust is that the americans and we taking different paths of creative development based on the historical conditions each was surrounded by. Second the first generation of commerically successful photographers then became the role models for which still exert excessive infulence on the marketplace today.
As they are the still considered by most historians and the publishers and gallery and the auction busines owners the masters of photography......and are the most lucrative sources of income for most of these commerically money hungry members of society.
Again out of context HCB did not feel the need to come to america to work with the most interesting photographers. His stop in america was only to support his interest in putting together a body of work that was his personal view of America. The European movement was again always moving in a direction didcated by it's own artistic desire. Marget Bourke-White as strickly a hired gun and was and is not in the class of HCB or most others. Her motivation was only driven by a sense of commerical one upmanship not an inner flame of artistic vision. Eisenstaedt had this same inner vision. MBW was not shy about her deisre to be famous. Did she do some excellent work sure but was never considered an original and best know for here work for Life shooting Aviation combat stories.
Iam oh so glad that you chose to take the bait and throw up Eugene Smith as your partron sait. Eugene Smith was as mentioned did his best work as a Navy phtographer. And was not a figure of historical importance in the time frame the was under discussion in my previous posting.
How strange again you are outside the topic and time frame under discussion. It was not until his later emergence after Korea that he became a important figure in the photographic world. The guy was great but not involved or important in the 1920' and 1930's which was the context of discussion.
It's a shame that you are not aware of the "American Classical Period" but no matter. The subject of discussion is not if you like whcih photo of Ghandi.....but rather that the infulence of early commerically successful photographers , like impressionistic painters still define and act as the standard of judgement for what is considered "excellence" for todays photographers. That was also implied in the original Thread that started some 11 pages ago.
Magnum was the source that Life went to when it wanted imagery that is now why some many issues of LIFE that are sought as collectable ars HCB, Eisenstaedt, issues. The biggest point you are working over time at missing is that European masters that came primarly from Paris and the period of the 1920's and 1930's were and are the original seed of a different school of photograpy. Different from and worlds away from the school of american scenic photogrpahy. You again are trying to make a inaccurte comparison between people who were original masters of respective schools of photogrpahy and those that followed and copied thier mentiors some 30 years later.
So that would be like comparing "Da Vinici" and "Warhol"...because they were both artists & painters !!
Also Adams, Stieglitz, Strand, and Weston, and the whole F64 gang is still the most sought after Amerian work at the gallerys and the auction houses. I think you need to contact Christies. If you still not sure of the effects that these early masters take a look at the auction of the entire Adams Print collection offered recently. I personally like Smith very much but.....it is clear that his legacy will be minimal at best. Why? He was not part of the original early masters who set the stage and stylistic molds for the rest to follow.
If he had been a commerical success in the 1920' or 1930's then his name would be mentioned in the same breath as Stteglitz, Strand, HCB, Brassai, Eisenstaedt. The context of my post had nothing to do with your personal perferences. Surpirse. But different direction of creative development Europe and America took during the same period. Also how commerical success twists the development of photographers past and present.
The context is the development period of 1920's and 1930's and infulence of dominance of people of HCB and others over us now some 80-90 years later. Not about who was our perosnal favorites of "all time".
Regards......Laurance
Eugene Smith perfected the photo-essay method of photography and coverage of a "story" by photographs - and not just any photographs but stunning photographs meticulously printed. He did not care about photographing for news, his main interest was telling a story and his photo essays are the standard even today for documentary photographers. He also cared for people that he photographed, unlike HCB who's main concern was the beauty of the composition... He was also a complete photographer, he shot, edited and printed his own work.
I know this is not the subject of the thread and your posts to say who's better but it is always preferable to get one's facts right.
Smith is a true giant in documentary photography and his true successor is Salgado.
Smith is a true giant in documentary photography and his true successor is Salgado.
Ehm, and how many contemporary documentary photographers other than Salgado you know? On what scale and metric Salgado work is better and more important than say, Jim Nachtwey?
Not to say that Salgado is not a top photographer, but the whole idea of comparing them like high school cheerleaders is ridiculous. Beyond certain level of social (or artistic) contribution talking about importance gets pretty meaningless, and there are dozens of working photographers in that league.
photophorous
05-07-2008, 13:58
I keep writing paragraph after paragraph trying to put into words how I feel about this topic and it all keeps coming back to this. If the man took those photos he's famous for taking, then he deserves whatever fame comes of it, whether you like his photos or not. This is art. There is no simple checklist to decide what's good. And none of us have any authority to decide other people's opinions for them. He's famous because people like his work. That doesn't make him better than someone you might prefer, but it might make him more popular. I've never been one to care too much about popular opinion, and I would assume that is true of most of the B&W film shooting, camera porn looking, EBL measuring folks on RFF. So, what are we trying to figure out?
Paul
PS. Picasso sucks.
Not to say that Salgado is not a top photographer, but the whole idea of comparing them like high school cheerleaders is ridiculous. Beyond certain level of social (or artistic) contribution talking about importance gets pretty meaningless, and there are dozens of working photographers in that league.
I do agree with you. (Though I'm not sure that they are "dozens" of photographers in the Salgado's or Smith's or Nachtwey's league. But my knowledge is very limited, so I can't argue). Comparing and, even worse, ranking those photographers seems a silly venture.
We are like dwarves trying to measure giants with our thumbs.
Marc
myoptic3
05-07-2008, 15:11
Obviously there is something undefineble and magical about the best of Bresson's work. Jeez, just look at the photos! The mysterious thing is how he managed to compose some of his best shots by utilizing every centimeter of the frame, and this w/ a RF camera. Not sure how he did that. No one cares about his life. It's the photos, get it? Well, either you do, or you don't.
Picasso sucks.
here I see no smile so I assume here is a successor of younger newer anti-intellectual generation, something like a new mentality, developed by our local media, television. I couldn't say that Simpsons (animated series) is much worser than Picasso but I see this as a magnificent art piece of American culture. Yeah, animated series can be art too. People will appreciate Simpsons after 200-300 years. That new TV world is soon emerging to internet which is full of such words as ROFL, WTF and you still get quality time :) LOL ROFL MAO
larmarv916
05-08-2008, 13:07
Well...the acution list is interesting but NOT conclusive of a Trend. ther have been numerious time when people like Steichen,Weston, Adams and others from the early masters group, have established new records of acution purchase prices during the last 50+ years. Maybe these items you listed were purchased by only american buyers or not. Which again was the context of the remark. Sure there will be prints that sell of amazing amounts of money, like a recording artist who has 1 hit or is a fade for short time and thenifades in to the background.
The early Master mentioned my oringal post have a really long trackrecord of success which is why they exert so much infulence in the future.
.....But, the original point of the "my" original post was pointing out the reason "why" european and american early master photgraphers of the 20's and 30"s went different paths for creative development and also today exert overwhelming infuence in the market and development of photographers today. As a adjunct to understand why many people do not understand or apperciate HCB.
Also just as many europeans do not understand the most american artists and photographers. So there are a lot of people who do not get influence some american photogrpahers.....the flip side to the HCB question that startd the this thread.
Remeber that when Capa reached out to help HCB...his advice was "tell them your a photojournalist" otherwise you be trapped with the labe as that "little surrealist photographer" Which is what he did....iin reality he keep on shooting what was of interest to him. Not the art directors of Life and many other publications were in love with the images that he chose to create.....Sure they offerend him a chance to do things he wanted, but only if it fit his self defined artistic desire.
Everyone has some early master that still infulences our own work today.....inspiration mentor. For myself I never looked at photography as the origin of my creative drive. Only as a way to save something I wanted to draw or paint. My own images today still do not reach my artisitc goals. Missing the mark...but closer than many years ago. Do I want to make imiatation images like modern "want-2 be" members of the long dead F64 club....No. Nor do I want to imitate HCB, Brassai, Doisneau, Hass and may others.....No But I still have to deal with the gallery and publishing industry that is asking for image that remind them of Weston, Adams, HCB, Brassai, Dosineau and many other early masters. HCB would be amazed or embarssed by the excessive imitation or gushing the Art fulnkies exhibit over his work. the greater issue...he never wanted to be anyone favorite photographer.
Regards.....Laurance
That has always been only the actual " topic ".
If memory serves, Cindy Sherman sold her Untitled stills series for a million bucks to a museum that escapes my mind...to add to list posted above.
This thread is great. There's a couple of year's worth of entries to Pseud's Corner here at the very least. I haven't read such splendidly sweeping and ill-informed generalisations or pure puffery in many a long day. My thanks to those who have taken the time to make sensible contributions and indeed to those who have provided, as usual, so many unintended laughs.
Regards,
Bill
there are posts I agree to here, and ones I do not, and in-between there are many i sort of...one way or another.
What I think though is not effective, is trying to "quantify" HCB in terms of other photographers, in terms of popularity, price, amount of photos etc. I think in the end, it all comes down to a "feeling"... one may like his work, one may not, one may like most, or just little, bt in the end, the reason he became famous has as much to do with his talent as it does with his network, his right-time-at-the-right-place etc. There is so much more to his fame than just numbers.
bobbyrab
05-10-2008, 16:50
I look at this site at least once a day to divert me from the boredom of admin and editing, and this has been by far the most interesting thread for quite some time, we're actually discussing the heart of photography and not some lens or camera bollocks that goes round and round until you're dizzy. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had more of these discussions but moved on from the great classic photographers that established what the vast majority of us here copy to the best of our ability, to what the current generation of great photographers are doing now, I love HCB, smith, sanders, Adams, frank, etc, but it's done and dusted, shouldn't we look at the bigger picture of where photography is now, and where it's moving to. Let's move on from the usual suspects, there’s a whole generation of photographers out there pushing things forwards, but this site seems to be mired in photographers from the 20's-60's. Let's assume we all have a reasonable knowledge of the history of photography, if you prefer Capa to HCB, who cares, historians will decide a pecking order. Bring us your up and coming, current movers and shakers, but more threads like this please. The aesthetic of range finders and their relevance to contemporary photography. PS I may regret this post tomorrow, it's almost two in the morning, I've had a few drinks and I'm a bit the worse for wear........Robert
crawdiddy
05-10-2008, 20:53
What an interesting thread!
I had avoided reading it for awhile, and now i just read the whole thing.
First of all, Nick's lack of modesty aside, I applaud him for his original post. Whether he's a troll, or casting stones in a pond, it was an interesting discussion. We don't all have the same taste. We don't all get HCB, and I include myself in this group also. Nothing says we all have to agree. Personally, I think Mozart is overrated. The film Amadeus, (and by the way, I think it was a very good film), gave him an instant status boost. Granted, he had a way with melody. I just think he's now overvalued somewhat. It seems almost blasphemous to say anything about Mozart other than to rave about him. And it's not that I'm anti-intellectual (in spite of Fred's opinion), or that I reject the classics. I certainly don't think Shakespeare is overrated.
On the other hand, I do think Frank Zappa was a genius. M.Valdemar (Vol de Mort?) mentioned Hot Rats (Peaches en Regalia, Son of Mr. Green Genes), and I agree it's one of his best, most-listenable records. (One Size Fits All is another.) But Nick has a point when he says some of Zappa's music is unlistenable. I think "challenging" is a more neutral way of saying it. Some of it may have been made just for FZ himself, inaccessible to most others. That's OK. I don't plan on re-reading Ulysses either, although I can still admire it.
I will also agree that photography and art need to be viewed in person, rather than evaluated based on digital images, or reproductions. There's a lot more "there" than what appears in a thumbnail.
But anyhoo, I appreciate Nick's post. There's no doubt HCB has been hyped, and I think it's possible he's been overhyped. (He certainly gets his share of recognition on this forum.) Annie Liebowitz-- also overhyped, although you may have to tip your hat to her, and possibly disrobe completely, in fact. But I'm sure she's crying all the way to the bank.
So Nick-- get out there and go after some chicas (chicas = girls, in case you're Spanish-challenged).
NickTrop
05-11-2008, 06:48
bobbyrab, crawdaddy - at risk of look a jerk for bumping my own thread, thank you very much gents...
imajypsee
05-11-2008, 10:40
. . .Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had more of these discussions but moved on from the great classic photographers that established what the vast majority of us here copy to the best of our ability, to what the current generation of great photographers are doing now, I love HCB, smith, sanders, Adams, frank, etc, but it's done and dusted, shouldn't we look at the bigger picture of where photography is now, and where it's moving to. Let's move on from the usual suspects, there’s a whole generation of photographers out there pushing things forwards, but this site seems to be mired in photographers from the 20's-60's. Let's assume we all have a reasonable knowledge of the history of photography, if you prefer Capa to HCB, who cares, historians will decide a pecking order. Bring us your up and coming, current movers and shakers, but more threads like this please. The aesthetic of range finders and their relevance to contemporary photography. PS I may regret this post tomorrow, it's almost two in the morning, I've had a few drinks and I'm a bit the worse for wear........Robert
Absolutely right on the money, for me. I haven't read the bulk of this thread, only because I don't have the energy to do so. I think, Robert, that you've hit on at least three topics that might be worthy of separate threads.
1. who are the new and up and coming photogs that we like?
2. what are WE doing that is in the "now" and not mired in the "past"? (for me, see next topic for a thread)
3. what are/ is the aesthetic(s) of range finders and their relevance to contemporary photography ? (a query I find very personal as I struggle to fit the rangefinder "eye" into my repertoire of modes of photography)
Mary in SW Florida, USA
Finally I got to the end of it (so I think).
You see, I'm not an artist (don't want to be either, no "ah ah") I'm just trying to one day, to do the One (just one) picture that make me proud with myself (not yet either), but doesn't matter what equipment I use it comes out as trash.. so I just keep trying with more hardware along the life for sure.
HCB just provide me (ain't learn it yet) a way on how to "Look", like with so many, he just show his own way... that can't be bad! Salgado shows is own way and that can be bad either... how One does it can rise more or less concerns so to speak... bad it isn't bad either.
HCB made Street Photography so important that today people fight for it or against it, and these are photographers or artists alike. So, besides His own objectives he must have achieve something... He made The difference.
and to sum up on the other topics...
All poor are artists but only the rich are successful....
Thanks Nik and Fred, I did learn something today... and that is not bad either...
and to sum up on the other topics...
All poor are artists but only the rich are successful....
Really?
Weegee? Doisneau? etc... or in painting, Picasso? etc etc
Well I must have missed something then ...
le vrai rdu
05-12-2008, 12:42
albert camus, picture n°10
I saw it in Pau last automn, excellent :)
larmarv916
05-12-2008, 15:29
Thankyou..."migtex" as well "bobbyrab" and"imajypsee" for your really excellent imput and adding the poster style HCB thumbnail. migtex's....."He made the difference" (HCB) Is another fudemental note of factual turth.
Maybe what is being voiced by the above mentioned authors is that an even larger question is......where is photography going NOW?? Also I apperciate someone else asking the question......How can we escape the past or replacing the last generation of master with a new group of "CLONE" masters that they themselves were only imitating people like HCB, and others???
These are all great questions and constructive paths of discussion. And with out getting bogged down in the "my favorite" photographer muck.
Look at the majority of large formatt photographers on the loose today. The vast majority are ALL shooting subjects and compositions that are oainful recreations of 192o's and the long dead F64 gang. Which for some reason many large formatt shooters seem addicted to.
I have a favorite joke that now days if you cant present at least 10 or so respectable images then you should be restricted to shooting only digital. Think of all the yet unborn rolls of film that could be save a life of shame. Now of course that joke undlines the need to have a reason or plan on what you trying to accomplish.
I might suggest we all might want to consider having a "review" of recent work just to get feedback on the effect our images produce....maybe like a show and tell. get up in front of the class and you get 10 min to show and explain what you shooting. Who knows what the benefits could be.
One last parting comment with all of the different "movements" in photography during the last 100 years......it serve to give serious consideration to the ideas expressed by our 3 members.
Best Regards.......Laurance
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