Qualche anno fa ho partecipato ad un corso di fotografia digitale e il docente mi ha fatto riflettere molto sul tipo di sguardo che un fotografo dovrebbe adottare per ogni genere di foto (panorama, ritratto, ecc.), portando dei validi esempi che non conoscevo.

Ora ogni volta che fotografo qualcosa, non posso fare a meno di pensare a chi ha fatto veramente della fotografia un’arte; nulla di presuntuoso da parte mia, ma è certo che se si conoscono i “punti di vista” di chi sa fotografare, magari alla lunga qualcosa si può migliorare ed io di strada ne ho molta da fare.

Ecco perchè ho voluto tenermi archiviata una piccola ricerca sui grandi artisti del passato, che hanno saputo utilizzare la fotografia per esprimere un loro pensiero, utilizzando sicuramente anche strumenti che oggi si potrebbero definire pionieristici.

Le immagini e le biografie sono tratte dai siti proprietari
a solo scopo illustrativo e senza lucro alcuno.

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Richard Avedon (sito ufficiale)

Una delle sue opere più famose è la “The American West “, una raccolta di foto di persone comuni di strada, rigorosamente in bianco e nero, pubblicata in due colori nero / grigio.

Alcun esempi:

Alcuni comuni “Minatori”:

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Andreas Deffner (sito ufficiale)

La sua opera più famosa è stata “White, too white”, una rassegna fotografica di persone indiane albine:

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Irving Penn

E’ famoso per le immagini di moda e di ritratto.

Pablo Picasso 1957

Truman Capote 1965

John Osborne 1958

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Annie Leibovitz

Cristo impacchettato.

John Lennon

Woopy Goldberg

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Philippe Halsman

Tra le sue maggiori opere ci solo le famose foto con Salvador Dalì come soggetto.

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Anne Geddes (sito ufficiale)

La sua fama è stata l’idea di fotografare i bambini neonati in posizioni particolari, un’idea che l’ha resa famosa nel mondo intero, anche non fotografico.

Questa è una piccola galleria di miniature, sotto ci sono alcune sue opere più famose.

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Robert Capa

Bravissimo fotografo, definito anche “fotografo soldato”, che seppe immortalare alcuni momenti storici dei vari conflitti mondiali (una piccola raccolta fotografica).

La sua foto più famosa, Cordoba 1936.

"Leggermente fuori fuoco", sbarco in Normandia.

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Gjon Mili

Ha scoperto l’effetto luce nelle fotografie, famose le sue foto con la partecipazione di Picasso mentre dipinge le sue opere con una torcia elettrica.

La sua tecnica è di dipingere con la luce la pellicola, lasciando il soggetto al buio, aprendo l’obbiettivo e facendo disegnare qualcosa con una fonte luminosa, alla fine un colpo di flash per fissare il tutto.

Picasso che dipinge il minotauro con la luce.

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Robert Doisneau (sito ufficiale)

Il suo nome viene ricordato soprattutto per le foto riguardanti la vita di strada della capitale francese, caratterizzate da una sincera e umoristica rappresentazione della società e dell’ambiente parigino.

Doisneau amava immortalare la cultura dei bambini della strada e dei loro giochi, arrivando a conferire alle loro attività, seppur infantili, rispetto e serietà.

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Steve Mc Curry

Definito il fotografo dell’anima, famosissima la sua foto di copertina del National Geographic di una ragazzina afgana di circa 14 anni conosciuta casualmente in un campo profughi afgano nel 1985, ritornata in auge nel 2001, quando scoprì la ragazza cresciuta (“Passaggio in Italia“).

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August Sander

Ha saputo immortalare i mestieri della sua epoca.

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Henri Cartier Bresson

Si può definire uno dei pionieri della fotografia, dedicava ore per ottenere uno scatto, con una buona macchina Leica-I-1, ma non certo speciale (una piccola rassegna).

Henri Matisse al lavoro

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James Balog 

Un fotografo che ha sempre amato giocare con la natura

Utilizzando più foto per questo grandissimo albero.

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Maurizio Galimberti (sito ufficiale)

Un fotografo contemporaneo che ha saputo inventarsi uno stile suo, utilizzando esclusivamente la Polaroid e formando un’immagine mosaico (una rassegna fotografica).

Mario Monicelli

Isabella Ferrari

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Due fotografi che hanno rappresentato una svolta storica nel conflitto mondiale, entrambi sono stati capaci di riprodurre dei momenti importanti ed unici, anche se in realtà non erano presenti fisicamente all’accaduto:

Joe Rosenthal

Nella battaglia di Iwo Jima la vera bandiera non è mai stata fotografata e questa è una sostituzione della prima

Yevgeny Khaldei

Il bombardamento rappresentato e la caduta di Berlino erano del giorno prima, ma mancava la bandiera e lui stesso l’ha ricostruita sul tetto, usando della stoffa rossa e della carta bianca per la falce e martello.

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John Paul Caponigro (sito ufficiale)

Artista di fama internazionale, John Paul Caponigro è l’autore di “Adobe Photoshop Master Class” (Adobe Press); un secondo volume, “The Power of Color” (Focal), è in via di pubblicazione. Caponigro tiene workshop in tutto il mondo, inclusi seminari sul colore, è considerato il maestro del Photoshop.

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Uliano Lucas (sito ufficiale)

Fotografo milanese, si è affermato come fotografo intorno agli anni ’70, quando documentò le lotte operaie e studentesche a Torino e Milano. Figlio di operai, ha fatto dell’impegno sociale un tema di fondo della sua opera, dal forte contenuto simbolico.

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Una rassegna di artisti, per mia futura memoria.

Bye  

Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism, an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the “street photography” or “real life reportage” style that has influenced generations of photographers that followed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

Twenty years ago today, the fall of the Berlin Wall opened the way to German reunification and contributed to the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. While the political legacy of these events is still contentious, few mourn the physical presence of the wall that divided families and scarred the urban landscape of Berlin for 28 years.

Associated Press, [East German soldier jumping barbed wire barricade to freedom as he defects from East Berlin], 1961

Bild Zeitung, [East German police lifting corpse of 18-year old Peter Fechter across barbed wire after they shot him as he attempted to cross over the Berlin Wall. He was left near the wall for 50 minutes screaming for help before he died], August 17, 1962

Henri Cartier-Bresson, The construction of the Berlin Wall, 1962

Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Berlin Wall, 1962

Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Berlin Wall, 1962

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Luckauerstrasse, West Berlin, September 1979

Me he encontrado en Youtube con un documental sobre Henri Cartier-Bresson que me ha parecido muy interesante; y aunque el audio está en francés, con ayuda de los subtítulos en ingés se entiende todo perfectamente.

Cartier-Bresson es considerado el padre del fotoperiodismo moderno así como uno de los precursores del uso generalizado del formato 35mm (lo habitual en esa época era utilizar cámaras más grandes y pesadas) ya que toda su vida empleó nada más que una cámara Leica y un objetivo de 50mm. Gracias a aquello supo mezclarse con la gente sin llamar la atención para retratar así mil y una escenas cotidianas como nadie más ha sabido hacerlo.

En las cinco partes de las que consta el reportaje podemos ver cómo este fotógrafo universal es capaz de jugar con nuestra mirada en cada una de sus geniales e irrepetibles fotografías y escuchar en sus propias palabras esa especial concepción de la fotografía que él tenía. Todos los aficionados a captar imágenes con nuestras cámaras tenemos mucho que aprender de él, y creo que este reportaje puede ser un buen modo de acercarse a su intereseantísimo universo visual.

“Tirar fotos é prender a respiração quando todas as faculdades convergem para a realidade fugaz.

É organizar rigorosamente as formas visuais percebidas para expressar o seu significado.

É pôr numa mesma linha de mira a cabeça, o olho e o coração”.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

“W”. México 1934

Fotografía de Henri Cartier-Bresson

Although it’s been less than a year since I first picked up a camera, I quickly learnt I love street photography, so far, more than any other type of photography. Fleeting moments which will only happen once, captured. That photo can speak a thousand words and noone else can replicate it exactly. Decisive Moments.

Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of my all time favorite street photographers, working with but one camera and lens through his whole career to boot, but there are a few more that follow. He is amazing and I adore his work. I aspire to be even slightly as switched on and talented. An amazing eye.

It’s a bit of a game and challenge which adds to half of the fun, for me atleast it’s opened my mind up to things I’d not usually see. I crave travel for so many reasons but photography is definitely up there, capturing real life. I haven’t gone out onto the street for a while and must do soon, my camera is getting lonely but unfortunately there isn’t a lot of the right inspiration out there for me, going to the same places i’ve been to my whole life, over and over.

I’ve had a couple of people tell me taking photographs of Buskers is a cop-out. I think that is a load of tripe. I love to take photographs of interesting Buskers and give them some coin for the privilege. It’s about capturing a moment with an interesting subject and if you do it well, I don’t believe it’s a cop-out at all.

This is one of the first street shots I took and I adore him. I’ve seen him around Perth a few times. Such a fantastic smile. The blurring with everyone’s movement in the background… it’s a moment I am glad I caught. Look at that smile!

Environmental Portraiture, i’ve not had much of a chance with this so far but I love the idea of taking candid photos of people in their natural home or workplace environments. So much character, personality and rawness.  Deep down i’m very much a candid girl at heart.

Luc Delahaye’s Winterreise is a ‘melancholy road story’ that documents a journey from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian express in the winter of 1996, across what the introduction calls ’…a grotesque empire, a dull and almost empty space’.

Amongst the bleakly intimate moments that Delahaye records are heroin overdoses, families scavenging on rubbish dumps, the immediate aftermath of street robberies, smalltime mafia violence, bruised psychiatric hospital patients, and vodka binges in squalid, Dickensian conditions.

If this all sounds horrendously grim, it is, although Winterreise is not without humour: in one photograph, an old woman foraging on a rubbish tip cheekily pokes her tongue at the camera, to the delight of the women around her. But moments like this are rare, and for the most part the book is an unflinching, garishly beautiful document of the social fallout of economic depression.

Winterreise seems to be less well regarded than the war photography that established Delahaye, and there’s precious little information about it on the net. This interview briefly touches on it and will also mildly annoy those who worship at the Church of Cartier-Bresson.

© Tous droits réservés Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum
“Rue Mouffetard” – Paris – 1954

august sander

Voir, observer et penser

9 septembre-20 décembre 2009

En 1927, à l’occasion de son exposition Hommes du 20ème siècle à la Kunstverein de Cologne, August Sander déclarait que « voir, observer et penser »  était le credo de son travail. La Fondation HCB expose, en collaboration avec Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur de Cologne , une centaine de tirages du célèbre photographe allemand (1876-1964) qui nous livre une magistrale esquisse de son époque à la fois typologique et topographique, et une grande leçon de photographie. Tirages d’époque pour la plupart, les épreuves rassemblées sont d’une qualité rare, et l’ensemble constitue une proposition inédite à Paris. Présenter l’œuvre d’August Sander en faisant cohabiter portraits, paysages et études botaniques, c’est rendre justice à l’esprit même de sa démarche.

ACCÈS:

Métro
Gaité, ligne 13, sortie n°1, vers la rue de l’Ouest
Edgard Quinet, ligne 6, vers la rue de la Gaité

Bus
Ligne 28 et 58 arrêt Losserand-Maine
Ligne 88, arrêt Jean Zay – Maine

Vélib
Avenue du Maine, rue de l’Ouest

Heures d’ouverture au public
Du mardi au dimanche de 13h00 à 18h30,  le samedi de 11h00 à 18h45, nocturne le mercredi jusqu’à 20h30. Dernière entrée 30 mn avant la fermeture.
Fermé le lundi et entre les expositions. Ouverture le 11 novembre.

ENTRÉE:

6 € plein tarif
3 € tarif réduit : chômeurs, moins de 26 ans, plus de soixante ans
Gratuit pour les Amis de la Fondation et en nocturne le mercredi (18h30 – 20h30)

From http://www.henricartierbresson.org/

Book your room at www.hotelsophiegermain.com

It happened again; I feel like it has been too long.  I opened the visual flood-gate.

For a while now, I’ve been feeling stalled in my picture making.  Today it happened, a full visual connection.  I felt everything I saw with excitement.  The world became whole, though it only lasted a little over an hour.

I wrote in my journal sometime ago Beauty is an intoxicant. Intoxicants can be thrilling. Sometimes a straight line can move you to tears. I found that with a camera again, something thrilling and moving, a sense that I can see creatively and with feeling.

It’s been too long, but I suppose that if that kind of feeling and clarity were easy to find it would all lose its value.

Mayu Kanamori, commissioned for the First Generation exhibition to show at the Viva la Gong festival, has worked as a photo journalist for almost two decades, capturing everything from murder scenes (for newspapers) to some of the oldest and most amazing people living in the Mediterranean island, Sardinia. As a photo journalist, Mayu is no stranger to confrontational issues, and visual ones at that. So when we asked her to give us a list of her most shocking and exhilarating images she has experienced, from the perspective of a photo journalist, we were shocked. Not because she chose them, but because some of the shots are indeed shocking and confronting. So without a dose of sugar-coating, here is a list of some of the most shocking and exhilarating images that have touched Mayu over the years…

1. “Eddie Adams’s famous photo of South Vietnam national police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a suspected Vietcong member – because of the expression on the Vietcong member’s face. It is chilling and portrays the horrors of war. It is one of the those photos that changed the world.”

2. “Pablo Bartholomew’s photo of child killed in Union Carbide chemical disaster in India. I don’t think I need to write a reason for it. It’s just so terrible and shocking what has happened. Have a look… “

3. “Mike Wells’s photo of a starving black hand and normal healthy white missionary’s hand in Uganda. It’s just shocking.”

4. “When I was younger… I used to work for newspapers and being young, gun-ho, and embarrassingly non-caring (I am now older and have changed and cannot do these sort of things again), I often worked the midnight to dawn shift and had photographed my fair share of crying widows, bodies being carried, a man who just killed someone in a car accident etc. I am shocked with myself that I did it – it’s not as if my photos were going to change the world like Eddie Adam’s photo – it was just a very disrespectful thing to do – yet I did it because photo journalists were supposed to take photos like that. I am shocked with my own immaturity at that time.”

5. “Eugene Smith’s photo of mum and child at Minamata, Japan – because you see the love in the mother’s eyes even under such terrible circumstances.”

6. “Sandy Edwards’s Marr and Marina at the dam from the photo essay Paradise is a Place – because I am forever in love with my father (he is dead) and wonder if he was as much in love with me.”

7. “Nobuyoshi Araki’s photo Satchin because it was created in the year I was born. (I actively dislike Araki’s works, but the Satchin series is his earliest and best.) In the boy’s eyes shines hope for post-war Japan, as its economy just began to develop and the children of this time are leaving poverty behind. This image is about my generation.”

8. “Henri Cartier Bresson’s photo of boy with bottles of wine – somehow it reminds me of my husband as a young boy (I didn’t know him when he was that young, of course), but he loves wine, and the boy’s smile is very much like his smile.”

First Generation will be showing at Viva la Gong…
Saturday, November 7
Wollongong City Gallery exterior panels
Crn of Kembla and Burelli streets, Wollongong
Exhibition launch: Friday, 30 October

First Generation is:
A portrait exhibition reflecting aspects of migrant experience in Wollongong. Mayu Kanamori has photographed people who migrated to Wollongong, post World War II, seeking work in the mining and textile industries.

Recently I posted an article about the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. I thought I would extend my coverage of photography and Paris to include the upcoming Paris Photo. If you can’t get to Paris in November, you should at least visit the website (in English) or the French version, if you prefer, to catch up on the photographic news around Paris (which will also help you if you are lucky enough to visit Paris).

First, some of the details of the event:

WHAT?

Paris Photo, the world’s leading event for photography, presents a panoramic overview of photographic expression spanning the 19th century to the present day.

-         89 galleries and 13 publishers from 23 countries
- 31 first-time exhibitors
- Seven new countries will be represented (Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Portugal, Russia, Tunisia , UAE)
- 75% of the participants are non French
- 38,000 visitors expected
- 500 international photographers

WHEN?

Dates : Thursday 19th November – Sunday 22nd November, 2009
Opening: Wednesday 18th November 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm (by invitation only)
WHERE?
Venue: Carrousel du Louvre, 99 rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, France
Métro : Palais Royal / Musée du Louvre Station (Lines 1 et 7)
Bus : Palais Royal Station (théâtre de la Comédie-Française n°21, 27,39, 81, 95)

Opening hours :
19th November from 11:30 am to 8:00 pm
20th November from 11:30 am to 10:00 pm
21st November from 11:30 am to 8:00 pm
22nd November from 11:30 am to 7:00 pm

General admission : 15 € / 7.50 € for students and groups, free for children under 10.

If you go the press tab you can get an idea of the range of photographic genres, themes and more..

hasan sarbakhshian

Mohamed Bouroussa

Mark Cohen

Lalla Essaydi

Abbas

And on the website there are links to other galleries and exhibitions:

Jeu de Paume Federico Fellini, la grande parade

Federico Fellini

from 20 October 2009 until 17 January 2010

To attempt to put on a Fellini exhibition means to go back to the sources of Fellini’s art and studying and revealing its processes of transformation, alteration, borrowing and accumulation. The result is a set of strata combining filmic elements, photographic documents, magazine presentations of the event, TV images and works by artists.
This exhibition is resolutely multidisciplinary. It sets out to offer a new grid for reading Fellini’s films.

Dolce Vita

The event and the historical fact, History and anecdote, biography and fiction are the materials that, by means of confrontations, echoes and dialogues, Fellini used to built his distinctive narratives and original visual environments.

Showing the creative context of Fellini’s work in an exhibition means showing the nature of his creative mechanisms.

While many now legendary scenes have come to be seen as perfect incarnations of Fellini’s prolific imagination, it now looks as if a more thorough analysis of the context will offer a fresh point of view on his work. Such a hypothesis sits well with Fellini’s own inclinations. Trained as a caricature artist in his youth, for a while he earned a living by doing portraits of GIs on leave, and all through his life he would show the same visual acuity, the same ability to gather so much more than images in his freeze-frames of reality.

The exhibition at the Jeu de Paume affords a glimpse of Fellini’s creative mechanisms by showing his unique ability for absorbing the real.
It comprises mainly photographs and drawings by Fellini, original film posters, period magazines and excerpts from his film.

Exhibition curated by: Sam Stourdzé

WHERE?

Concorde

1, place de la Concorde
75008 Paris
métro Concorde
information: 01 47 03 12 50

Hours
Tuesday: 12:00 – 21:00
Wednesday – Friday: 12:00 – 19:00
Saturday and Sunday: 10:00 – 19:00
Closed Monday

“Click! 99+1 chefs-d’oeuvre de la photographie” opens on October 30th!

12/10/2009 – The Mairie of the 5th arrondissement, in collaboration with the Centro Italiano per le Arti e la Cultura, presents the photographic exhibition from the Giov-Anna Piras Foundation for contemporary art and photography “Click! 99+1 chefs-d’oeuvre de la photographie”, from October 30th to November 28th 2009.

The aim of the event, on the  occasion of Paris Photo, is to offer a chance to catch, in a single place, the 20th Century photographic masterpieces.

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, August Sander: seeing, observing, thinking 07/10/2009 – The exhibition pays tribute to the August Sander’s approach by showing portraits and landscapes alongside botanical studies.

This selection of close to one hundred vintage prints of work by the German photographer (1876-1964) provides a spectacular typological and topographical overview of his era.

9 Sept – 20 Dec. 09 Tuesday to Sunday, 1 pm to 6.30 pm and Saturday from 11 am to 6.45 pm, late evening on Wednesday until 8.30 pm.
Centre Pompidou, The subversion of images. Surrealism, photography, film 01/10/2009 – The exhibition at Centre Pompidou presents a panorama of surrealist photography: an anthology of exquisite works by Man Ray, Bellmer, Cahun, Ubac, Boiffard and Tabard, as well as previously unseen images showing surrealist uses of photography (Artür Harfaux, Benjamin Fondane, Léo Malet, Victor Brauner…)

Man Ray

24 Sept. 2009 – 11 jan. 2010 – Wednesday to Monday, 11 am to 9 pm, late evening (exhibitions only) on Thursday to 11 pm

Musée du quai Branly, 165 years of Iranien Photography 28/09/2009 – As part of Photoquai, 2e biennal exhibtion of photographs from around the world, the Musée du Quai Branly is dedicating an exhibition to Iranian photography and shows works starting from the earliest days during the Qajar era, through to wartime photo reportage and images by decidedly contemporary visual artists.

22 Sept – 22 Nov. 09 – Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday from 11 am to 7 pm,
Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 9 pm.

Apart from the photographic exhibition -this is a great museum to visit.

Even if you are not walking the streets of Paris – worth browsing the sites. Bon voyage,virtuelle!

Twins by Diane Arbus

Babyrace by Diane Arbus

Tattooed man by Diane Arbus

Boy with grenade by Diane Arbus

Contact sheet by Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus is one of the photographers I feel I relate the most to(the other being Cartier-Bresson).  Arbus was a magazine assignment photographer that choose to use a square format over the traditional 35mm camera.  considered controversal in  both her subject and the way she depicted them.  I have often heard her work summed up in one word “Freaks”. Arbus was known for photographing alternative people, Twins & triplets, Tattooed people, Dwarfs and the mentally ill.  When I look through her work now the people she photographed don’t seem  to be the oddities of society  as much as they would have in the 50’s.  Seeing people with tattoos now is common place and people with alternative life styles have become much more main stream accepted.  The thing that has not changed is the way she choose to  show them to the world,  which is also why some people are not fans of her work, saying she turns her subjects in to freaks.   This point is probably the most clear in the two images directly above.

If you only see the final print of the kid boy holding the grenade  you would think the boy was insane  which is what I thought when I saw it.  Years later I saw the contact sheet and you can see that the boy is like any other normal  little boy  and just for that one frame Arbus caught something  totally different.   She really knows how to  show the world through Weather its showing you something  freaky or making the every day I little odd, Her photos will captivate  your imagination.

I try to take a similar approach to my work  I love to walk around and show the world  the way I see it as I assume  must photographers do.  I  want to show people the  ugly, freaky and common place parts of the world, but do it in a light that shows  people what beauty they are missing  when they are not looking.  Although it is not evident in the contact sheet above when I have looked at  her other released contact sheet  I feel I share the view that you try and capture a subject in as few frames as possible.  Other sheets I have seen, she would only take a few shots of each subject unless it appears to be ever changing like this little boy. The one negative aspect  about Arbus work is  print quality.  As great as the work is I belive this is the one element that holds the work back in a way  for me.

Last Week I said I would talk about editing:  Editing to me is just as important as shooting.  They seem like different rounds of editing to me in fact.

I go out with my camera and edit the world I see  down in to single shots.  Develope it and edit those 12 shots down in to just the usally 2-3 ( although my hope is always for 12 perfect ones)  that really capture the world I saw.  in Arbus’s example above I think she does an amazing job of editing, there are other shot on there where the boy has his hands on his hips that would also work as photographs but none would be as powerful as the one she choose.

Editing what you captured can often be the hardest part of photography because  you rely  on your own judgement of your self.  Is what I photographed really good or could it have been better?  What is really the best shot or is there even a best shot on the page?

When I Edit  after I get the contact sheets I go through  a number of times with different china markers.  First I go through and just look at every image with out marking any thing  I think it is really important to just look at every image and see what you have before deciding.  The 2 or third time though I have a red china marker  and circle every one that I know is a guaranteed winner, shots that I absolutely love.   The next round I  use a  different color usually yellow  and  go through and circle all the ones that are good but have something in them that stops it from being an amazing shot.    These ones might be  fillers  or transition shots  to carry you through a collection  to the high points.   In the 3 or 4 days following  I usually look at the sheets at least once or twice a day  and really getting a feel  for the images I choose and seeing what I like and don’t like about.

Last week  I posted an Image of central park  with the sun portioned right above a hill and it ended up drawing a huge response from  all of you and  going through my edit  that shot had been one of my yellow  selections.  Now that i see the response that it has received  it has made me reevaluate the way I look at the other images  i took of the park and see   what that shot has that people like  so much so I can make better choices in the future.

Below  you will find a  group of images I took of a little girl dancing on a musical park  element  and you can see how I edited down from the shots I took of her. Although I like all the shots I took of her As a series  but the larger one I think is the defiant pick.

Contact sheet of girl dancing Copyright 2009 Bryan Moore

The Joy of Dance Copyright 2009 Bryan Moore

Here’s an excerpt from Alex’s response today on Burn Magazine to a question raised by photographer Eric Espinosa.  To read all the comments, visit:

http://www.burnmagazine.org/

ERIC ESPINOSA: In a way, Alex has been true to his vision all these years and I am a huge fan but maybe he would have preferred to take his vision into more different directions?

ALEX WEBB: The questions you raise about repetition and reinvention are complicated and difficult for any photographer or artist who has been working for some time.  When does an obsession become stale?  When is one repeating oneself without expanding one’s vision?  In the early stages of one’s work, the changes are often more striking, more evident.  As one works deeper into an obsession, as one hones one’s vision and one’s craft,  the variations are often subtler. For me, some of the questions I’m grappling with are:  Are my variations on my obsessions deepening and expanding my work? Or have I exhausted the tension, the vitality, and the power of these obsessions, so that the work no longer sings?

I sometimes look at other photographers and artists to see how they have grappled with this question.   I think of photographers like Bruce Davidson, or Josef Koudelka, who have changed cameras and sometimes formats for different projects, clearly demarcating divisions between their bodies of work.  Lee Friedlander, on the other hand,  for years (until recently) never changed formats, but his projects seemed fairly unique, though clearly it was the same remarkable eye that created all the images.  And  Cartier-Bresson never changed his approach significantly for all those many years of working (though I do think there is a  difference between the early, more formal and surrealist work  — Italy, Spain, Mexico — and some of the the later work — India, China — which often seems to strike a more worldly, more socio-political note.)  As I was originally a literature major, I also often think of writers and how they have dealt with obsessions.  I sometimes feel with some of my favorite novelists that they have simply written the same book many times over.  It’s only the superstructure that changes: the essential themes, the essential elements remain fairly consistent throughout.  I also often wonder if we as photographers or artists have more than one or two serious obsessions in our life.   Maybe it’s okay to have just one — if indeed it’s rich enough, complex enough, and expansive enough.  In my case, I discovered a certain way of working in color in certain kinds of places and have expanded on that obsession for 30 some years.  Is that enough???  Or does it simply reflect my limitations?  Or are my limitations perhaps ultimately also my strength?I don’t know.  So, these questions that you bring up are ones that bedevil me — especially now, after nearly 40 years of photography.

Though I think you are right that there are certain themes, motifs, tendencies that run throughout my color work, and that some of the notes — especially visual notes — struck in, say, Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds or Under A Grudging Sun, are also struck in my Cuba work, I think that there are emotional notes that I  more consistently strike in Violet Isle that are distinct.  It’s the same photographer, the same eye, but it’s a different place and it’s a different time in life.  In my early work, I think I had a much greater need to directly confront the otherness of the world, to explore that tension, and, as in Under A Grudging Sun, to experience and photograph the violence of the world, specifically Haiti.  The Cuba work is subtler, at times perhaps more lyrical, though often tinged with melancholy (a little bit like my Istanbul work).    Yes, there are photographs in Violet Isle that could have been taken by the Alex Webb of 1986, but the Alex Webb of 1986 could not have produced the totality of this particular body of Cuba work.

Along the same lines, one of the things that appealed to me about the notion of doing a book with Rebecca was that it would be something new, a different kind of book.   I have produced books on Haiti, the Amazon, Florida, the US-Mexico Border — did I just want to do another on Cuba?   I found it very exciting to collaborate with Rebecca, to experiment, to try something different and new.   Furthermore, there have been quite a few very good photography books about Cuba.  Both of us liked the idea of producing this “duet” — a form that inevitably makes Violet Isle a unique kind of book on Cuba.

Ultimately, I don’t have any answers right now about the issues of artistic repetition and reinvention.  After all, a certain level of repetition is not problematic; in fact, the very nature of obsession implies a certain level of repetition.  Certain art forms — most notedly poetry and music — rely heavily on repetition (an obsession is “…a refrain, after all, playing itself again and again in the mind.” –– the poet, Katie Ford.)  I’m not sure what’s next for my work.  Usually I am working on several projects simultaneously, but not so right now (though I have some ideas.)  So we’ll see. I don’t think you’ll see me on the corner with an 8×10 camera anytime soon. But you never know…

It’s so French! Especially i like the first photograph very much!!

The film documents how Eggleston came to develop his technique of art photography. It shows the first black-and-white photographs made at the beginning of Eggleston’s career. Here the influence of Henri Cartier Bresson’s decisive moment is still evident. Yet Eggleston went his own artistic way early on. Elements of his later work in color can already be discerned in the composition of the black-and-white photographs. Reiner Holzemer visited Eggleston in Memphis in the fall of 2007. For the first time, he was able to get the photographer to talk about his artistic background and concept of photography. Up to then, Eggleston had largely refused to answer such questions. Of his photographs he says, I am at war with the obvious.

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