I have it too...fascinating reading. I would have loved to be an assistant on a series like that! Really inspiring. That's why I'm rather envious of jan's experience of watching him work. So much to learn about technique, and just how he dealt with people, from someone like that... Jonathan turner Photographer T: 07796470573
I have the book by his assistant Laura Wilson on the whole
trip...Can't recall the title right now... something like
"Avedon in the American West" Very interesting and includes
some out takes.
herschel
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On 3/22/2013 6:28 PM, Jan Faul wrote:
There is a lot of back
details about the cowboy series which does not immediately come
to mind to most viewers. The most important thing is that Dick
travelled with a crew and they ran interference for him, set up
his backgrounds, trucked stuff here and there, loaded film,
metered light, and all manner of other little nitpicking jobs
which have to be done before a single exposure is made. TAking
that crew with him was essential. Without them I don’t believe
there would have been a single exposure.
I saw that show at the
Corcoran, and Dick had gone to DC and lit the show and had the
walls painted black. The prints were floating out from the walls
on invisible mounts and the prints were huge darkroom prints at
about 40x50”. The show was nothing short of incredible and
inspired several photographers working today. I’m sure Annie
Leibovitz was inspired by the series as was I.
Dick had a gift not too
many photographers have in that he could focus his energy on the
subject and block out everything else. It’s a skill or a gift
people are probably born with and not something you can learn
out of a book. Somebody told me I had that skill (it might have
been Dick), but by that point I had widened my horizons to
include landscapes.
I know somebody here
will say this is self-aggarandizment, but it isn’t. It’s just a
fact and something I no longer use very often. I could get back
into portraits again as you know what? It’s hard as hell to
shoot landscapes when one only has one real foot and the $53,000
new one is no substitute for what I was born with. Studios have
flat floors, and the places I like to shoot, don’t. I’m not
certain I will ever walk on a battlefield or a beach (like Omaha
Beach) again as it is just too bloody painful.
Jan
On Mar 22, 2013, at 7:56 PM, Jonathan Turner wrote:
Richard Avedon's American West series is something that
has never lost it's magic for me, and was one of my first
real loves in photography. When I did my fist degree (about
12 years ago) it was a book I found in the college library,
and I think it had more effect on me than I realised at the
time. Each portrait is a thing of beauty in itself, but the
whole series together makes for something else
entirely...for me 'the whole is greater than the sum of it's
parts'.
It's led me down a path of being interested in collections
of people, that have included the likes of August Sander
(another of my all time heros) Irving Penn, Daniel Meadows
and more recently Rineka Dijkstra.
The American West series is something that I keep coming
back to time and time again, so much so that I'm presently
in the process of applying for a grant from Arts Council
England to try to emulate something similar in my local
neighbourhood in Leeds. I guess I just want to see if I
could ever produce something like that, and also as an
exercise in slowing down the work...I want to use 5x4 to do
it on (although he used a 10x8) which would be so much more
of a challenge than a DSLR. I probably won't get the funding
of course, but no harm in dreaming.
Jonathan
--
Jonathan Turner, Photographer e: pictures@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
t: 07796 470573 w: www.jonathan-turner.com
On 22/03/2013 21:56, Herschel
Mair wrote:
Sadly missed. His book of
portraits from the American West is such an
important document.... Straight portraits... unadorned
and un-constructed (To a large extent) People so
readily associate the West with either
California/LA/Hollywood or cowboys and rodeos. So his
pictures of people molded by their immersion in heavy
industry really brings a hard reality check. I can't
stop staring at the images.
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On 3/22/2013 3:40 PM, Jan Faul wrote:
The only two
photographers I can think of who don’t shoot smiling
brown faces even though they are on location, are Phil
Borges and Mark Tucker. Even people who should know
better can’t do a portrait without a grinning
subject.
I’d put Dick
Avedon on my ‘few smiles’ list, but he is no longer
shooting portraits.
Jan
On Mar 22, 2013, at 1:10 PM, karl shah-jenner
wrote:
From: "Jan Faul" < jan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators -
Professionals - Students" < photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:46 PM
Subject: Re: Brutal Review of PF members exhibit
on March 16, 2013
One of my objections to photographers shooting the
locals while traveling is that there is a
preponderance of smiling faces aimed at the camera
while we as viewers do not know if they are
smiling because the photographer has just given
them $50, promised them a trip to Disneyland, or
other inducement to smile. I dislike portfolios of
brown-skinned foreigners smiling at the cameras
it reeks of everything bad about Yuppies.
http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/hypocrisy.asp
touches on the subject somewhat..
well, a bit.
I thought it interesting
k
Art Faul
The Artist Formerly Known as
Prints
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Camera Works - The Washington
Post
art for cars:
panowraps.com
.
Art Faul
The Artist Formerly Known as Prints
------
Camera Works - The Washington Post
art for cars: panowraps.com
.
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