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.