Father Serra Statue - Los Angeles

July 12, 2020

I have written posts before about how Garry Winogrand is my favorite photographer. I saw his MoMA retrospective in 1988, his SFMoMA retrospective, the entire Women are Beautiful exhibition at Pier 24 and my library has lots of Winogrand books. One of my favorite books is John Szarkowski’s “Winogrand - Figments from the Real World”, and it was that book which led me to me to photograph the Father Serra statue pictured above.

I have gone through the book many times over the years, and early on I found something intriguing. That both Winogrand and Robert Frank had photographed the same Father Serra statue in Los Angeles in 1955. Neither of them knew one another but both stumbled on to this same statue, in the same year, while exploring America, and independent of one another. A statue that wasn’t famous and was in an unassuming part of Los Angeles. Below are their images from Szarkowski’s book.

Back then I decided that I also wanted to photograph the statue, maybe as a right of passage as a photographer, maybe just out of interest to see how my image would compare to their images. Using the two images I had a good idea where the statue was and I decided to photograph it on my mom’s birthday, May 29th, in 1995. I had a feeling it might become an important photograph for me so I chose a memorable date, and there was no rush since the statue wasn’t going anywhere. On the way home from Pasadena, after seeing my mom, I headed to Sunset to photograph the statue. When I got there not only was the statue not there, that part of Sunset Boulevard had been renamed and the streets were reconfigured. I got out my Thomas Brothers map (iPhones and mobile internet access did not exist yet) and began searching. After driving around for a few minutes I located the statue a couple blocks away in what is now called Father Serra Park at N. Alameda and Los Angeles Street, across from Union Station. Having a new location my background options were completely different. I decided on photographing the statue from behind, looking West, with the sun creating a good silhouette of the cross. I included a couple palm trees to frame it and the 110 Freeway on ramp sign because it said “Pasadena” & “Hollywood” on it. I actually liked my image better than theirs, and a print hangs in my house still (CA - 087 #17).

For whatever reason I started thinking about this image in this past May and wondered how long ago I had photographed it. I checked, it was in 1995, and I then realized 2020 was the 25th Anniversary. I decided to photograph the statue again on my mom’s birthday. On May 29th my son and I headed to Los Angeles on the way to Pasadena. We parked at Union Station, masked up, and headed over to photograph Father Serra.

The palm trees were gone and the tree behind it had grown so much it engulfed the statue. The freeway sign had been moved and there was now a fence around the statue area, I assume to keep the homeless from camping under it. I tried all the angles above and I think the image with Los Angeles City Hall in the background was the best image now.

As I was finishing up we heard sirens, lots of them, and saw several news helicopters South of us. We began walking towards City Hall and saw multiple LAPD patrol cars headed to City Hall and LAPD’s Headquarters, the George Floyd Protests of Los Angeles were beginning.

I photographed some in the area and found the protesters were much farther South and moving away from us. They were attempting to take over LA Live and Staples Center. Because of the distance and not knowing the situation down there we headed back to the car and went to see my mom.

As we all know the protests and civil unrest have continued, and have expanded to encompass so many more things. On June 20th , sixty indigenous activists used the current climate to stage a protest at the Father Serra statue, The activists invited the Los Angeles Times to come document the Father Serra statue being toppled and the Times accepted. The activists pulled the statue down in a ceremony, poured red paint on the head, spray painted “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards) on the torso, and cut the cross from his hand. They left the statue afterward but kept the cross as symbolic souvenir I assume. I have no idea how they linked the anti police narrative to Father Serra but I guess it made sense to someone with a can of spray paint.

25 Days after had I re-photographed the Father Serra statue (my 25th Anniversary of photographing it) I returned and photographed the empty pedestal.

This man saw me photographing where the statue had been and came over to start a conversation and take his own photographs. He said as a kid he had gotten in trouble at school for talking about Father Serra’s atrocities against indigenous people instead of talking about how the missions helped to develop California. No idea if that was true but he was polite enough and I have absolutely no problem with his viewpoint. I respect his argument and I was not here in the 1700’s to see first hand what the conditions were like at the Missions.

What I do have a problem with is 60 people deciding to destroy something that belongs to an entire community of millions of Angelinos . We can not accept acts such as this to be considered an exercise of one’s “freedom of speech” if we are to maintain a Democratic society. If the activists wanted to petition for an Indigenous Statue to be placed next to the Father Serra statue to tell the full story, great!, I would support that 100%. If the public display of the likeness of a man who died 236 years ago is hurtful to the majority of the community, and the community decides to have the statue removed to a secluded place where it won’t offend people, then I am fine with that too. I am also not writing about this to defend Father Serra or the Catholic Church, nor to criticize people who exercise their First Amendment Right appropriately. But you can’t destroy history, no one rights any wrongs with toppling a monument. In this case, for me as a photographer, that statue had so much more meaning than the person it depicted because of the people who have photographed it. Its gone now, and what gain did that group get besides a brief moment in the news spotlight which has already faded, especially in today’s world of constant conflict and health worries.

SEE THESE PHOTOS ON MY 2020 WEBSITE

Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, Jack Sal, and Rick Wester.

The Legacies of LIGHT symposium - The Center for Creative Photography

March 4, 2020

The CCP describes the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition as this: “The Center for Creative Photography’s exploration of LIGHT Gallery is an institutional history that investigates the impact of this commercial space through its role in the larger community.”

When I attended the opening in December, I saw the description was accurate. It’s a unique exhibition in how it recreated certain physical elements of the LIGHT Gallery, displayed works of LIGHT’s artists, had a component for highlighting emerging artist of today (an important function of LIGHT back when it was open), and was able to show how important this gallery was to the history of the medium. One of the most impressive elements for highlighting the impact LIGHT had on photography today was Curatorial Assistant Adam Monohon’s brilliant concept of creating a line map showing the connections of so many important photographers, curators, and photography institutions back to LIGHT gallery. The exhibition also has so many cool interactive elements which I documented in a separate post. I had no idea that so many of the people who effected my growth as a photographer were linked back to LIGHT in some way. I think the entire exhibition really does well to capture the spirit of LIGHT and that time period.

Another important aspect of the exhibition is to highlight the connection between CCP and LIGHT. Harold Jones was the first Director of LIGHT and his vision set the course for the galley. Harold left LIGHT to help with building the Center for Creative Photography and the Studio Photography Program at the University of Arizona.

So this blog post is about the “Legacies of Light” symposium which was held in January at the CCP in conjunction with the exhibition. I signed up for the symposium as soon as I learned of it after having my work included in the exhibition. I thought it would be a good experience to learn more about LIGHT’s history and to have an opportunity to interact with so many people involved in photography. I was blown away with the experience of this symposium, it far and away exceeded my expectations.

Here is a link to the description of the speakers and the subject matter o the “Legacies of Light” symposium on CCP’s website. It is the best way to accurately describe the event in detail.

Another great resource is this link of CCP’s videos of the symposium: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRnlWp7M-YuVQY_okRmQmGA .

Now for my impressions. While attending the Legacies of Light I quickly realized one of the symposium’s primarily goals was to document the history of photography’s evolution to becoming a recognized as fine art. The people connected to LIGHT, many of whom attended the symposium, played so many important roles in photography’s rise in status within the art world. The symposium also talked about the current state of the photography community and our future. Everything was so well done by Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Rebecca Senf, and the entire CCP staff. There is so much to cover I will just jump in and start talking about the weekend and hopefully all my notes and recollections are accurate.

Anne Breckenridge Barrett

Fern Schad, Britt Salvesen, and Charles Traub

Things started Friday with small tours of the CCP facilities (I covered that experience in this linked: blog post) and a Keynote speech by Britt Salvesen who is the Curator and Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA. She gave an overview of LIGHT’s impact on the development of fine art photography followed by a panel discussion with Fern Schad and Charles Traub about LIGHT. Fern owned LIGHT with her husband Tennyson. She had an early interest in photography and had worked for Bill Jay in England before coming to the US where she spent time as a picture editor for LIFE magazine. Tennyson was an attorney who had the vision for the gallery and supported it financially. Traub spent time as a Director of LIGHT gallery and later was instrumental in establishing The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. He is also an established photographer an educator. I was fascinated by how much effort went in to establishing the gallery and maintaining it.

Becky Senf, Sally Stein, and Marvin Heiferman

Sally Stein, and Marvin Heiferman

Fern Schad - Legacies of LIGHT at the CCP

Saturday began with two former LIGHT employees Marvin Heiferman and Sally Stein reminiscing about the gallery and the atmosphere of New York in the 1970’s art world. Marvin spoke about how he learned to “see” pictures at LIGHT. He said Harold Jones taught him to “Just look at stuff” and to learn by the experience of looking. He went on to explain how he came to understand what pictures communicate to viewers. This really resonated with me because I feel too many people today don’t take the appropriate amount of time to actually look and experience images, we live in an Instagram world of the two second page view then “Like and Swipe”. Marvin gave examples of how photography wasn’t always accepted as art then. He remembered how a New York Times art critic had told Harold that photographs were not art. He also remembered an occasion when a woman accidentally got off the elevator on their floor while looking for another gallery He said she stepped off the elevator looked down the gallery wall at all the prints and stated “Oh photographs…” then stepped immediately back on the elevator. Marvin said Weston Neff and representatives from the Fogg Museum at Harvard would come in to the gallery but MoMA’s John Szarkowski would not, speculating because he didn’t want to acknowledge there was another “game in town”. Sally spoke to how the gallery struggled financially to survive.

Fern Schad, Andy Grundberg, and Marvin Heiferman

Becky Senf, Andy Grundberg, and Marvin Heiferman

Andy Grundberg, Marvin Heiferman, Michal Raz-Risso, and Sally Stein

Michal Raz-Russo, who is the Associate Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago spoke next of her Master’s thesis research about LIGHT gallery. She talked about how LIGHT was innovated in how they presented work, specifically hanging rows of images in grid form which hadn’t really been done before. She described Light’s 1972 exhibition of Stephen Shore’s “American Surfaces” which was shown three rows high and taped to the wall (No installation prints from this exhibition survived) and the 1975 exhibition of Garry Winogrand where LIGHT displayed over 100 of his prints behind glass and “L” hooks on one wall. Michal said Harold Jones used the grid style to try and show how Winogrand approached photographing: “Rapidly and Quickly”. It was fascinating to learn this because I can see the impact on some of the exhibitions I have seen. Most notably the Pier 24 Gallery exhibition where Winogrand’s complete “Women are Beautiful” series was displaced in a grid in one room while Stephen Shore’s prints were in another room. I can also recall MoMA, MFA, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Art Institute and other institutions using grids in fantastic exhibitions, so I found it interesting to know where the possible origins of these designs came from.

Andy Grundberg spoke next on the evolution of photography as an accepted art form and LIGHT’s important involvement in that process. For those of you reading this who aren’t familiar with Andy he is possibly photography’s most well known art critic and the author of numerous great books on photography. He has written for the New York Times and is also a professor at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University. Andy was in New York City during this period and summed it up perfectly when he commented “I was a witness of photography at its most incredible time, the 70’s and 80’s”. I loved hearing him describe the New York scene like the print bins at The Witkin Gallery and studying under Lizette Model at the New School. I am also interested in upcoming new book, How Photography Became Contemporary Art because I understand there was considerable focus on LIGHT gallery’s impact.

Becky Senf lead a Q&A panel session next which focused on the history of photography and LIGHT’s impact. In summary they acknowledged how prior to the Witken Gallery and MoMA showing photographs that photography magazines and publications were the primary source for people to see good photography (way different than today’s Instagram era). They spoke how Winogrand and other photographers all got their start with photography-based magazines. Fern Schad, LIGHT’s co-owner, brought up how LIFE magazine closed in 1972 with the advent of television news, and how images on TV are fleeting. The panel spoke of Susan Sontag’s writing on photography and John Szarkowski’s catalogues at MoMA and how photography began to be looked at for its artistic value and not just a means of describing news. Michal Raz-Russo added to that saying that some Photojournalism is now starting to be accepted as artwork.

The panel recognized the important influence entities like The Society of Photographic Education, The George Eastman House, The ICP, National Geographic, The Visual Studies Workshop and others had on the medium. They also identified that the 1970’s were really when much of the movement occurred; in example the first formal photography department was at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Becky Senf then pointed out something very important when she said “It’s remarkable how much (photography) history from the decade of the 1970’s isn’t documented.” Becky’s comment came in to focus for me more and more as the weekend went on. I realized the symposium was really focused on preserving photography’s history while it was still possible to get it firsthand from people who were part of it. Looking around the room there were so many icons from the industry and I knew because of reality of their ages that this symposium was most likely the last time you would have so builders of the medium together in one room. I also realized that with all my previous history of photography courses the focus was primarily on the photographers. Yes, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall were recognized, and we used their textbook, and we were taught about Stieglitz’s influence but most my knowledge was on image makers. It makes since because I studied at Arizona State University in the mid 1980’s when this New York scene was still strong and the Center for Creative Photography was just getting started. For me personally it was very good to grow my knowledge of the medium. By Sunday I realized the symposium was not only exploring and documenting the history of the medium, and considering its future, but I think the symposium was becoming an historic event in the history of the medium itself by what was being accomplished there.

Dominique Luster

Rick Wester, Liz Allen, Dominique Luster, and Alec Soth

Liz Allen, Dominique Luster, Alec Soth, and Sarah Stolfa

The afternoon session on Saturday began with a panel discussion “Engaging Community” moderated by Rick Wester. The first thing they focused on was how we define the photography community. ASU Professor, and current Society for Photographic Education President Liz Allen spoke about SPE’s formation in the 1960’s under Nathan Lyons. She talked about the changing landscape of education the challenges educators have now with colleges having fewer tenure tract professor positions. Dominique Luster who is the endowed Charles “Teenie” Harris Archivist at the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art spoke about her role with the Harris archive. I was not familiar with Harris who was a Pittsburgh based commercial photographer who documented the African American community. It was highly interesting to hear the impact Harris had on documenting the history of his community with his camera and how their museum is keeping that legacy of community moving forward. Magnum Photographer Alec Soth spoke about once he had a photography career, he craved a community. Something I can related to after graduating from ASU and leaving behind the academic environment. For Soth he started blogging in the early days of social media and found a safe way to engage a photography community. Soth remarked how he now followed by over 100,000 people which he still is awe of considering how few comments he got on his earliest posts. He also mentioned the weekend of the symposium was the 10th Anniversary of Instagram and added the “Corporation of Instagram has taken over” how we interact with photographs. Rick Wester added insight from a gallerist’s point of view when he said “The Internet has replaced the experience with information, people are now getting information and want to get the experience to go with it.”.

Following up on the last two quotes, I want to again talk about a theme I heard throughout the weekend and mentioned above, that you learn about photographs by looking at them. Now this might seem like an obvious thing but it isn’t today. We now live in the age of the “two second page view”, where people scroll through Instagram, or any other social media platform, as fast as they can until an image catches their attention. Unfortunately these “lure images” are usually the ones which catch people’s attention (my term based on the concept of shiny fishing lures). Intense saturation, lots of post-production, or a trending subject. Many people are missing out because they aren’t spending time with images to experience them. One of the best exhibitions I saw recently was the Howard Greenberg Collection at the MFA last November. The prints in the exhibition were some of the best I have ever seen. But to get the full experience you had to spend time inspecting them, noticing details, and thinking about them. I walked through there exhibition twice to make sure I experienced it as well as I could, and if I could have gone back and seen it a second time, like I did the Warhol at the Whitney Museum recently I would have. Everyone I saw at the MFA was taking their time viewing the prints, it gave me hope.

Web 1-17 to 19-20 CCP - 3 Legacies of LIGHT 5.jpg

CCP’s Meg Jackson Fox and Emily Una Weirich moderated the next session which was “Valuing Story”. I think the best way to describe this session was an exploration of how institution are preserving history in non-traditional ways; basically history used to be written in text books and now we are capturing oral traditions and digital forms of communication to preserve historical information. Cassie May – an Oral History Archivist focused on the medium of Dance, Molly Garfinkel – Managing Director of City Lore, Dr Matthew Grilli – Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, and Photographer Judy Natal were the panelists. Cassie, Molly, and Judy spoke about the projects and the process in their approach to documenting oral histories. It was interesting because they had diverse approaches and subject matter. They expressed the common theme that telling one’s story was important to create connections between people. Dr. Grilli then went on to examine what motivates people to tell stories, “The Why”. He said this motivation can change over time, often with younger people the goal may be to solve a problem while with older people the goal of story telling may be to teach, to inform, or to contemplate what may come to pass. They all agreed that documenting oral history is often a challenge because it is usually recorded in a long form manner which is hard to create sound bites from to be used in different ways of presentation. Several panel members also spoke of past problems they have with documenting oral histories and use rights. The panelists told of several stories where the original use release signed for an audio recording or filming for a specific project did not include wording in the release such “In all media for perpetuity”. The problem they have encountered is when they want to digitize the original oral histories and share them the original releases do not specifically authorize that and the interviewed persons are now deceased. Where it is obvious the person interviewed wanted to share their story, heirs have at times refused to grant new releases to use the materials in new formats.

Tennyson Schad

Fern Schad

Original LIGHT exhibition

Peter MacGill

Winnogrand show announcement

Stephen Shore announcement for LIGHT

First exhibition at LIGHT Gallery

Max Yavno

Bruce Davidson at ASU

Saturday concluded with a screening of Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s new documentary “LIGHT; When Photography was Undiscovered, 1971-1987”

Peter MacGill

Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, & Jack Sal

Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, & Jack Sal

Peter MacGill, Anne Breckenridge Barrett, and Harold Jones

Harold Jones and his family

Sunday started with a panel discussion about LIGHT from the perspective of people who worked there. Included in the panel were Peter MacGill, Laurence Miller, Rick Wester, Susan Harder, and Jack Sal. Its too hard to go in to all their comments, and this post is longer than I had intended already, but the thing I really came to understand listening to this group was an understanding of the atmosphere and energy of the LIGHT gallery. Susan Harder and Peter MacGill talked about handing them portfolios of photographer’s work and being sent out to museums across the country to cold call curators to promote photography as art and stir up business. They also told stories of going and staying with iconic photographers as they were preparing to exhibit their work at LIGHT and had so many funny experiences they shared. There is no doubt everyone involved with LIGHT helped pave the way for every photographer today. The panelists also accurately recognized how important the symposium was for recording the history they were part of because much of the knowledge of those days is on the cusp of going away with the aging of those involved. The final event was a celebration honoring Harold Jones who spoke along with several his close friends and family members.

Personally, I am still processing all the experiences of the weekend because it truly was an epic event. I believe this symposium, which was designed to document Photography’s history, will in fact be recognized in its own right as an historic event for Photography. The topic material from the symposium was fantastic but I more so I had so many valuable interactions with people, I am just thankful I was able to attend.

Becky Senf and Rick Wester

Richard Misrach

Anne Tucker and Meg Jackson Fox

Dr. Maurice Berger and Emily Una Weirich

Sally Stein and Jack Sal

Audry Sands

Alec Soth and Michal Raz-Rizzo

Mark Klett and Alex Turner

Mary Virginia Swanson

Rick Wester with Alec Soth

William Karl Valentine and Eli Giclas

William Karl Valentine and Liz Allen

William Karl Valentine with Meg Hagyard

William Karl Valentine , Becky Senf, & Frank Gohlke

After-party Sunday at Mary Virginia Swanson’s home - Mark Klett and Peter MacGill - perfect finish to the weekend.

Pasadena PD Officers Naum Ware & Darin Craddolph conducting a search warrant related to rock cocaine sales. March 1987 (PPD-177 #23)

Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition - Center for Creative Photography

January 14, 2020

I am proud to announce that a print of the above image has been included in the Center for Creative Photography’s Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition which opened December 13th and runs through the end of May 2020.

This image is from my Pasadena Police Department Series which is one of my most important bodies of work. I began the series while studying at Arizona State University and exhibited the work at the Northlight Gallery just before I graduated. The ASU faculty arranged for Van Deren Coke, at the time the Director of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Photography Department, to meet with me privately in the gallery to review my work. He compared my images to Larry Clark’s work which will always be one of the highlights of my career as a photographer. Photographing the Pasadena PD eventually led me to chose to a career in law enforcement which allowed me to continue photographing more than most other professions would have. The Pasadena PD series has also had increased interest in recent years and I should be producing a book of this work in the near future.

As for my image above, as stated in the title it was from a search warrant related to rock cocaine sales. For me, I saw the damage first hand that the rock cocaine era in Southern California did in the 1980’s. Pasadena’s Northwest area was ravaged with drive by shootings, property crimes by “baseheads”, and gang activity. So many good people lived in that part of town and they basically had to stay inside at night for their own protection. I knew people I went to grade school with who were killed during this time, like Danny Harris who was shot in a drive by shooting while selling rock cocaine. Then I also saw the harm done to small children like the boy in this photograph, Officers like Naum and Darin cared about the community and worked hard to make it safer by taking people involved in crime off the street. An approach that worked in many ways then which we have abandoned today because of political concerns. Could the approach in the 1980’s have been better? Yes with hindsight things can usually be done better but the over all approach to fighting crime prior to 2000 was better for society than it is being portrayed today. Naum made over 1,000 hand to hand undercover “buys” of narcotics during his career, most all in dangerous situations. Darin, recently retired after a 30 year career. Both these officers cared and put their own safety on the line to protect others. Some people today may wrongly interpret this image as oppression by the means of law enforcement, I know the truth behind it because I was there.

To be included in this exhibition has helped me achieve several long time career goals. I wanted to have my work exhibited at the Center for Creative Photography, arguably the most important photography archive in the world, and eventually have some of my prints added to their permanent collection. Being included in the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition accomplished both goals, with hopefully more to come at the CCP in the years ahead. One other interesting thing I discovered at the opening, for me at least, is this is the first time one of my prints has been in an exhibition with a Garry Winogrand print. (Winogrand is my favorite photographer - I traveled to New York in 1988 to see John Szarkowski’s retrospective of Winogrand at MoMA, to San Francisco to see his entire Women are Beautiful series exhibited at Pier 24 in 2017, and again to San Francisco in 2014 to see the SFMoMA retrospective of Winogrand’s work.)

The Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition documents the history of the LIGHT gallery which existed in New York City between 1971 and 1987. This was a critical time in the development of the medium of photography being accepted as art and LIGHT was one of the first galleries to concentrate solely on exhibiting photography. This exhibition examines LIGHT’s impact on the medium which continues on to this day. One important aspect of the LIGHT gallery was it showcased emerging artists and had work from multiple photographers readily available for view by patrons in flat files. My print was selected, along with other emerging artists’s prints, to document that important part of LIGHT.

For more information about the exhibition please follow this link: The Qualities of LIGHT: The Story of a Pioneering New York City Photogaphy Gallery.

To learn more about the history of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona please click here.

"The Mind and the Hand" by Lee Friedlander

July 16, 2019

I recently stumbled across Lee Friedlander’s new book “The Mind and the Hand” completely by accident. I did a search on Amazon looking for new Garry Winogrand material and this book came up. The book looked interesting so I took a shot and ordered; $90 isn’t cheap but I always enjoy seeing Friedlander’s work. “The Mind and the Hand” definitely exceeded my expectations

The book is actually six 60 page softbound books in a slip case. Each book has between 25 and 34 of Friedlander’s photographs and documents a photography icon: William Eggleston, John Szarkowski, Richard Benson, William Christenberry, Walker Evans, and Garry Winogrand. Each book also has a brief lecture excerpt by the featured photographer which adds the right amount of information to deepen the viewers understanding of the individual.

I was familiar with a few of the photographs but not most. I would also say most of the images are snapshots. But these are wonderful snapshots and, in this context, they form a fantastic document of each featured photographer. These people were Friedlander’s friends and peers and many of the moments he photographed were very personal like Winogrand’s wedding. I love the images of these photographers out photographing. As a photographer I am always interested in how other photographers approach the medium and Friedlander’s photographs give a wonderful insight to six icons of photography.

The book was released in April by Eakins Press Foundation and was printed by Meridian Printing in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. The print quality is beautiful and I really like the intimate size of the book of 8.8” square. I think Katey Homans did a perfect job with the design and I am assuming that Lee Friedlander’s Archivist, Stephanie Prussin, edited the images. I am very happy with this purchase and would suggest it to anyone interested in documentary photography.

Featured Photographers

William Eggleston

John Szarkowski

Richard Benson

William Christenberry

Walker Evans

Garry Winogrand

Book Details:

· Paperback: 240 pages

· Publisher: Eakins Press Foundation (April 23, 2019)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0871300796

· ISBN-13: 978-0871300799

· Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 1.2 x 8.8 inches

Printer: Meridian Printing – East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Lee Friedlander Archivist: Stephanie Prussin

Design & Typography: Katey Homans

Garry Winogrand - PBS American Masters

April 22, 2019

I got lucky and saw Fraenkel Gallery’s Instagram post about the PBS American Masters documentary on Garry Winogrand which aired last Thursday night.

Winogrand is my favorite photographer, I saw his 1988 retrospective at MoMA curated by Szarkowski, I saw SFMoMA’s 2015 retrospective, I saw the exhibition at Pier 24 gallery where they displayed prints of every image from his Women are Beautiful book on one massive wall, and I even attended Geoff Dyers's lecture last year at Getty for the release of his book on Winogrand.

I have seen several videos of interviews of Winogrand, have numerous books on his work, but I always want to learn more about him and his process. This PBS documentary is amazing. It has old interviews of Gary, lecture audio from Szarkowski speaking about Winogrand’s work, video shot by Winogrand, interviews of scholars, as well as interviews of his family and friends. Great insight in to the man. If you like Winogrand’s work, documentary photography, or just great images, you will enjoy this film.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/garry-winogrand-all-things-are-photographable-full-film/11339/

Also, as a documentary photographer who photographs on the street, I particularly loved these following three quotes from the film about Street Photography :

“If we applied standard definitions of propriety and niceness to photographers working in the street we’d be left without a lot of the great pictures in the history of photography.”

Jeffrey Fraenkel – Gallerist

“I find it kind of intriguing because we allow the State to photograph us so relentlessly and yet people don’t seem as bothered by that as they do by someone who is clearly an artist.”

Michael Ernest Sweet – Photographer

“It’s an artistic process, you live within this process. So the questions of surveillance, political correctness, all of that stuff, it’s just totally irrelevant. Now perhaps that makes the few of us who even understand what I’m talking about right now are dinosaurs or insensitive ghouls or whatever…but who cares about that?”

Tod Papageorge – Photographer

Geoff Dyer - The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand

July 28, 2018

William Karl Valentine’s review of Geoff Dyer’s book “The Street Photography of Garry Winogrand” and his March 23, 2018 lecture at the Getty celebrating the books release.