No Preconceptions

When I first met my husband, 29 years ago, I knew much less about photography. He showed me his own work, but began telling me about the people who had influenced him, illustrating his discussion with pictures from the carefully-selected collection of photography books on his bookshelf. He had studied with Minor White (who he respected but didn't particularly like as a teacher) and with Joseph Losey, the film director (who he did like, very much). He admired the work of Walker Evans, August Sander, Disfarmer, and Dorothea Lange, up through contemporary photographers like Emmett Gowin. His real love, though, was street photography, beginning with the in-the-moment photography of Cartier-Bresson and continuing right through the contemporary American realists.

It was inevitable that we'd end up with Gary Winogrand. I was startled and fascinated by Winogrand's eye, his prolific shooting, his quirkiness. Winogrand was to die much too young, at 56, in 1984, leaving a huge volume of undeveloped film and a legacy of brilliantly-observed moments. Last fall, at MOMA, it was wonderful to be in the photography galleries with my husband and a close friend, also a fine photographer, when she discovered Winogrand for the first time, and to see the look on her face and hear her exclamations as she moved from image to image.

So I was happy to find an account, the other day, about what Winogrand was like as a teacher. Coffee and Workprints: A Workshop with Gary Winogrand was written by Mason Resnick, a former editor of Modern Photography. It definitely sounds like he captured the person who must have been behind that camera. RR, this is for you.

(You can view a slideshow of two dozen of Gary Winogrand's images at the website of Fraenkel Gallery, which represents his estate.)

Comments

[marja-leena]

Thanks, Beth, I enjoyed the photos and then read the article - fascinating to read about how he worked and taught. And I got a glimpse into J's passions too.

[beth]

Hi Marja-Leena, good morning from the other side of the country! Yes, Winogrand is great. I've learned so much about looking at photography, as well as about the art in general, from J. over the years, and to have the resource of the web now makes it so much easier to explore any artist's work -- as you often show us on your own site!

[rr]

Dear Beth. What a gift. But, as you know, the greatest gift of all is to look at photographs with you two. You remember the book of his pictures I bought? left it in, of all places, Toys R Us, Times Square. Never found/handed in. But they're all there on the site you link to. Such joy! The hilarity and pathos. A wonderful combination.

[Lucy]

It amazes me to think how little I seriously thought about photography until fairly recently, something so surrounding all the time can go unnoticed. Now I am so enjoying everything the greater awareness of it brings. Street photography is a great wonder to me, something I couln't imagine being able to do. I shall enjoy looking at these.

[Jean]

That's a wonderful article, thank you! Many of its passages resonated in my head as I looked at the slide show you link to: the huge number of quick shots; the unapologetic, smiling in-your-face-ness; the verticals and horizontals being those of the figures not the horizon... and of course the poignant knowledge of Winogrand's untimely death and the thousands of undeveloped shots, unexpected contact sheets. This post is so rich, works on so many levels.

[Blork]

I've been a fan of Winogrand for a long time. Although I don't do much street photography myself, it's one of my favorite styles, or genres, of photography when it comes to looking at other people's work.

Interesting that you should mention Mason Resnick. The name was unfamiliar to me until a month ago, when I read his "Photo Industry Predictions for 2008," one of which I disagree with. I wrote about it on my obscure photography blog that is dedicated to a camera that's not even on the market yet (Sigma DP1). His prediction was related to that camera, so of course I blogged about it.

Now I'm off to read that story about the workshop...