Garry Winogrand and Eugene Meatyard

Garry Winogrand was one of the first photographers I learned about in my studies. I have always been amazed when I hear the stories of how much he shot. He used a Leica with a wide angle lens and pre-focused before shooting. I think this is interesting and worth mentioning because it allowed him to concentrate on composition and shutter or aperture priority, although looking at his work most of it seems to have a lot of depth of field. No doubt the wide lens played into this but I would guess he was shooting at fairly small apertures most of the time.

This is one of Winogrands shots from the 60's. I assume he was pretty familiar with the area and probably had recognized places with good design elements and utilized them. This image almost seems too well composed to have been completely spontaneous. Not that I think he posed these people just that he was aware of this spot and knew how he could use the elements to make this photograph. I would be very suprised if somehow I was to learn this was the first time Winogrand had shot at this intersection. This gives insight as to why a photographer would find interesting things to shoot in places he has been to many many times. The place looks the same, for a while, but the things that happen there will always be different and remain interesting to someone who realizes this and is persistent.

The image below has always been one of my favorite shots by Gary. I included it to show that he had great vision in many situations. He did some work at the Stock Yards in Ft.Worth I also find interesting. His biggest influence on me has been to realize that the thing that happens is many times more important than the place, but if you can get the two to work together you have a chance of getting something special.

 

Eugene Meatyard I had never heard of until this assignment. My first thought was Crewdson meets Whitkin meets Rejlander. He did a wide variety of work: staged images of people wearing grotesque masks, the one of the children are especially odd with the over sized hands they sometimes wear. It's like hes making a statement on how the innocence of youth can morph into something truly monstrous in adulthood. I wonder what Hitler was like as a 5 year old. I have no clue if that was his intent but that is what went through my mind initially as I started looking at his work. 

Meatyard also did some work with multiple exposures that reminds me of some of Rejlanders early work. Nothing as elaborate as Two Ways of Life perhaps but still interesting. Reading a bit about him I found out he was a happily married man with children which makes the nature of his work a bit more interesting. You would expect the maladjusted loner type to be making such imagery but by most accounts I read he was a pretty happy guy. I have seen no mention as to how he died, only that he died in 1972 just before his 47th birthday. Below is one of his multiple exposures. He seems to have moved the tripod at some point during the exposures combining his panning/soft focus style with the multiple exposure, unless I am mistaken as to how he did this.

Above is one of Meatyards panned images. Really it is less of a traditional pan per se and more of a motion blur movement going up and to the right. This reminds me somewhat of a photographer I have become interested in named Carmelo Bongiorno. I have been experimenting with this sort of panning and it is interesting to see.  This guy is going into my list of photographers to study. Again he seems to enjoy the theme of youth and transitions. It makes me wonder again about his early death and if his work is somehow foreshadowing  it.

The image above really drew me in as soon as I saw it. She is moving her arm so its obvious she is alive, not in exactly a comfortable position though. The leg in the dark area of the fireplace appears to be in pretty sharp focus and that separates it from the other part of the out of focus body in a surreal way. Almost as if she is stepping through a portal to some new reality, instead of being killed as I first thought. That room she is in has not been lived in for some time, so he found this location and staged the shot. I wonder if he was familiar with the place and envisioned the shot later or if it was spontaneous. It is the same observation I had about Winogrand use of familiar places in a somewhat controlled way. Meatyards is comepletely staged whereas Winogrand let the action happen in the place, but I would guess they were familiar with these place and saw imagery in their minds. Pure speculation but it is something to be aware of.

William Eggleston and Stephen Shore

 "fearless naturalism—a belief that by looking patiently at what others ignore or look away from, interesting things can be seen." This is a phrase writer Robert Woodward used to describe a short film by Eggleston called "Stranded in Canton."
Looking at Egglestons photographs is much the same. I'm not sure what others read into such imagery but after years of education and looking at work I have finally learned to dig a little deeper when looking at this sort of imagery. Usually there are elements that work off each other in some pretty clever ways. Sometimes it is more about the color, Eggleston showed the first color exhibit in the history of the MOMA. This was at a time when black and white was still king, and I think his work was perfect for getting that barrier down.

Going beyond his eye for color he also is in the tradition of photographers that find a way to comment on some aspect of our society with images that may seem rather mundane to many.

A sidewalk, tricycle, lawn, house and two cars. It makes me think what these things mean to a child as opposed to what it means for an adult. Very much like the way children view a holiday such as Christmas and the way adults see it. Magical for most kids and stressful for most of the rest of us!


Stephen Shore has been described as " an interpreter of the American vernacular." He shows charcteristics that relate to the period in an often banal way. He is another artist that often requires the viewer to dig, yet the work is ambiguous enough to allow them to read into it what they wish. Much like Eggleston.

He was also another early pioneer of color photography as art. Pioneer may be a stretch, but certainly the time was right. I see this and think Freidlander shoots color. The subject matter is still relevant and fairly familiar, so what does the color add that pushes it? After seeing and shooting so much black and white I think it was exciting for these guys to have a new means of expression. The psychological impact of color has been employed by artists for literally tens of thousands of years.  Stephen Shore as well as Eggleston borrowed from photorealist painters and I am sure the were consciously aware of the way color affected the imagery.

Joel Meyerowitz and John Pfahl

"In the pantheon of greats there is Robert Frank and there is Atget.", Joel Meyerowitz.
This quote shows us where Meyerowitzs passion lies, and his greatest strength. He is a street photographer from the tradition of people like Atget, Frank and Winogrand.
Undoubtedly, the work that has been seen the most is the 9/11 series. Those were images that needed to be made and he was in the right place at the right time to make them. I'm sure it was very emotional for him. I try to imagine what would have been going through my mind if I had been the one shooting those images. Street work can be challenging. I have dabbled in it over the years and have grown to enjoy it. People like Joel remind me that even though things may seem to get redundant at times, we are really there for those special moments that need to be captured. As many cameras as there are in the world today we need a reason to to keep going. Meyerowitz's work certainly provides motivation.

John Pfahl is best known for his altered landscapes work. There was a book published in the mid 70's but the theme seems to be an ongoing one for him. He sets up many different items in landscapes that in most cases work with the landscape he places them in.
I am left wondering about the context of this work. Is it purely a matter of design for him? What does it mean when he places cables on a beach that seems to anchor a distant outcrop in the ocean, leading the eye using one point perspective. I think it begins to touch on something a bit deeper, but does so in a clever way using minimal elements. Perhaps he is alluding to humanities reliance on technology to sustain itself in a world of awesome natural power. The rock is so massive, with this huge ocean surrounding it, and we are supposed to believe the thin cables are going to keep these forces in check? Seems to require a bit of suspension of disbelief. This of course is the power of his work, the use of minimal elements to provoke deep thinking.