i have added a "Movies" section on my home page…i will try to have a little library of short films on photographers and by photographers soonest….i only had one in hand to start this off… it is a short produced by Natgeo…this is a 6 minute version of a one hour production on yours truly working in Brazil…
if you have not seen it, go get some popcorn and beer.. the 50mb file will be about a 5 minute download for most…if this puts you to sleep , then maybe i have done my job for the day!!
of perhaps more interest, there is new work being posted later this evening of some of your colleagues as yet unseen here under the Emerging Photographers section…both as essays and a few more singles…i think you will appreciate this new work and there is even more to come…it has taken us awhile to get all the space we need for this section..
please do not forget that some of your work, now featured here, will be exhibited in June at the Virginia Festival of the Photograph (Look 3…see link), and hopefully at Visa Pour L’Image (Perpignan) this fall…stay tuned….
Sad to hear about the passing of P.J.G. I wish I could have met him, esp in Saigon over a bia hoi and some banh mi. His pictures have had a particular resonance for me due to my several trips (well 5 now) to Vietnam, a place I love and plan on returning to many times. I totally get his fondness for the place even though he saw it during darkest times.
I’m sure he will be sorely missed.
hi everyone,
i’ve not been able to view the movie that david has put on the site. is this it, or something different?
thanks,
jason.
SIDNEY…
i am pleased you know these photographers…yes, and all active…
NEIL…
yes, i love her work too…and yes yes, i wish we had some text!!! your review soonest…
SEAN…
many thanks for your notes on Philip…he was largely responsible for me coming into Magnum…i will work forever to make sure that i do my part to keep his legacy alive..
HERVE…
thanks for posting the link..that Magnum in Motion says it all about Philip…
JASON….
no, that is another short film in Cuba that i had totally forgotten about…the one i posted is from Brazil…
peace, david
hi david,
in that case i’ve seen the full length version of the brazil film, i had recorded it when it came on the geographic channel. but then the tape broke.
david did you see an earlier post i made. have you heard of the book: american mood by robert farber?
J.
JASON…
oh yes, sorry, i forgot to answer you before..yes, i know Robert Farber…not sure if i know that exact book however….anyway, he is an interesting photographer….
david
hey david,
thats cool. its something of a journal, covering a journey across the usa and the last thirty tears. its very nostalgic and beautiful in places. i’d never heard of him before and found the book completely by chance.
it reminded me of a lovely book called bound for glory – which is a collection of colour photos from the 1930′s to through the 1940′s. as you travel through the book, across the years, you move from rural to urban scenes. from the relative peace and innocence of pre world war 2, to the industrialization that feed the american war effort.
J
David,
Finally caught your film on your site. My favorite part is when you admit that nothing is going right! By god, haven’t we all been there at one point or another. Though it must be fantastic to have the luxury to spend so much time on a story – the good days then easily cancel out the bad.
Best,
Charles
only a photographer. What a great man. I have no idea if being a war photographer makes a difference but fuck it should
david,
sorry to hear about your friend.
Jason, Thanks for the link to “David in Cuba”.
Everyone, it’s all new, posted on youtube yesterday only.
What sad, sad news about Philip Jones-Griffiths passing.
Your post David, about the passing and transition of PJ Griffith, just came in a few minutes after i had to leave this afternoon. Reading this now, among the rest of the other posts, i sit here, lost for words. I feel empty and hollow inside. I am very sorry to see PJ Griffith pass, although I have seen some of his images before, I didn’t know much of him, until the interview was posted yesterday, and people here talking about him. Thanks Herve for posting the inmotion Magnum about PJ Griffith. That really told a great story of a great man and photographer, who surely has left a legacy and most certainly deserve a seat around the round table. PJ Griffith is a true inspiration, and will be missed. My condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.
peace,
jarle
How I miss cuba and trinidad…
David… No dancing? what was happen on this film?
If you will have workshop on cuba I will sell my wife and all stuff and I will join it!
ok. Take care today David. Drink wine, listen good music.
peace
Philip Jones Griffith on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Philip+Jones+Griffith&search_type=
Philip Jones Griffith on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Philip+Jones+Griffith&search_type=
sorry for the double posting!
~ j.
ALL,
I have a new blog at http://www.shutterwatch.blogspot.com
I’ll write about and link to photographers of interest. Both famous and upcoming photographers. I will also post about exhibitions and gear of interest. Have a look!
Cheers
jason — i had the same trouble viewing the movie that david linked us too on his site.
i tried using a couple of different browsers but it still wouldn’t work.
then i saw a little white box with a red x in it at the lower right-hand corner of my screen.
i clicked on it and a window opened alerting me that i needed to allow for pop-ups to view the page.
i clicked on that option and was then able to view the movie.
hope this helps!
…
Philip Jones Griffith – safe journey to you…
Hi everyone;
It may be old news but I found an interesting link on foto8 discussing photojournalism. Apologies if it is old news.
http://www.foto8.com/home/content/view/377/216/
“UNCONCERNED BUT NOT INDIFFERENT”
BOB; I see you have been contributing to the discussion there.
When they say they are seeing “the same old images” do they mean that people are deliberately submitting those “types” of images because they think that’s what the judges want to see? Rather than maybe other strong, but different work?
I saw a doco on Magnum a while ago where they were doing portfolio reviews and one member (can’t remember who) said the same thing. Too many asylums, war images etc.
It just seems pertinant re; Mr Jones-Griffiths recent comments about the state of photojournalism. Any ideas anyone?
hi katia,
thank very much for that. i’ll give it a try. i like your pictures by the way.
j.
I should have read the earlier posts before posting my last post. I missed the message about Griffith’s death. I read his interview at Aperture.org yesterday and while I didn’t agree on what everything he said, he at least had clear, strong and very respectable viewpoints. R.I.P. PJG
David…and all,
I hope it’s OK to bring a little levity.
I was strolling around the local liquor store and came across this bottle of wine:
http://www.michaelkircher.com/chebottle.htm
Remembered David’s post about Korda and Che and compromising and selling out and all that good stuff. Anyway, I laughed…then I bought it! I’ll let you know if it is even remotely palatable!
Peace.
You know guys (and gals), I read that stuff about R. Frank’s and his interview, and the tour movie with the Stones where evryone was high on coke and “could not care less if anything came out of the camera” (R. Frank), and how he fucked up the life of his kids…Nausea….
….And I see the persistent testimony Griffiths did about Vietnam, I see all these kids congenitally disformed as if coming from some nazi mad clinic experiments (“agent orange”, see magnum site, it’s not just a rock band)…
…. and i know it’s not nice to take sides and have “opinions against” nowadays, be nice Herve!, but fuck it, I won’t be nice, and to me it matters a lot more what griffiths stood for than the self-indulgent existential nihilism of Frank and so many others who raised fucking up to an art form when Vietnamese mothers gave, maybe still give, birth to children who will have to pay for our imperial sins all their lives.
Sorry, I had to get it out of my chest.
Well, Herve…
Comparing Frank to Jones-Griffiths might not be the fairest thing to do.
I appreciate where you’re coming from but I’m edging toward saying that not everything is so black and white (no pun!). Yes, Griffiths’ work was amazingly important. But it doesn’t mean the culture of the sixties or the Stones or documenting things like that was strictly nihilism.
It’s all perspective.
I guess this is one reason to have a TV…to watch cool Nat Geo vids about my favorite photogs…too bad the hundred other channels made me throw my TV out the window…!
MICHAEL , how is that CHE wine ???
Loved the photo of the bottle … you shot…
I’m glad you left the price tag…
that was my next question… how much per bottle ????
but , of course you already new..peace
KATIA SAID:
“…Philip Jones Griffith – safe journey to you…
Posted by: Katia Roberts | March 19, 2008 at 04:28 PM..”
safe journey ?????
can it get any “safer” than that…?
sorry, Katia, I’m playing…
i’m trying to lighten up and also get done with that “element of surprise”… that hit everyone… regarding
PJG’s death…
I feel for DAH that new the guy personally… (family members etc,)
Let’s face it…
He was really , really , really old….
He lived a full life…
we should all celebrate… i wish my life ends up like that…
You see , i feel for Mozart thad died young… and
not recognized… and blah…
but for PJG….?
He achieved everything, he did more than “normal” human beings”
do, in 6 lifetimes….
And he started losing his mind…!!!
Really sad when i read his theories about
“REAL MAGNUM”,… and “LITE MAGNUM”…
D’AGATA is LITE…. this is symptoms of “dementia”
Nietzche ended up with the same story, almost ( i hear you)…
… no dis to anybody…
I recognize his talent… and all that bull…
Allright, OK… let me make it simple …. for ALL…
If i had one chance ( and one only),
to meet either ANTOINE D’AGATA, or PJG….
Imagine a house with two rooms…
One room is hosting a lecture- workshop with PJG,
and the other room lecture – workshop with TRENT PARKE,
what would YOU choose…
Which door would you open…
I would go with D’Agata or Parke…
so…
REAL MAGNUM and LITE MAGNUM…. TOTAL CRAP….
DEMENTIA vs NEW IDEAS…. ahhhh, you be the judge…
Uhm, I am available for some things, you know hanging out (NYC) or some reviews and stuff.
or, let me put it this way…
Last time i REALLY CRIED FOR A PHOTOJOURNALIST
THAT DIED..!
IT WAS a little while ago , in MYANMAR…
the tragic DEATH OF THE JAPANESE photographer….
I’m still curious if he was recording that millisec…
… the bullet reaching his heart…
I worried when Paolo Pellegrin, was wounded last year in Lebanon…
…
nobody talks about Myanmar, anymore…
I never seen an “angry” Dalai Lama… before…
but , couple days ago … he “offered” CHINA… his ” resignation”
People, CHINA STILL TORTURE AND KILLS BUDDHIST MONKS….
PEOPLE, PLEASE SHOW ME THAT YOU CARE, PLEASE…
ps:… Once again , David i feel sorry about the loss of your friend…
my condolenses to the family…
TO THE REST OF US… or almost everyone else..
enough with our hypocritical bullshit…
Stop using other people’s deaths just to show to your cold self how sensitive you are…
Let’s talk ABOUT people that are still alive, TRYING TO FEED
THEIR FAMILIES… OR DO ART…
LETS TALK ABOUT MARCIN, OR SHEAN OR BOB B, OR , OR, OR..
NOW THAT THEY NEED OUR SUPPORT…
coz, after they die…???? ah fuck it…
i meant CONDOLENCES to the family… sorry…
obviously,
i’m subconsciously thinking about lenses…
MARCIN SAID:
“…ok. Take care today David. Drink wine, listen good music.
peace
Posted by: marcin Luczkowski | March 19, 2008 at 04:06 PM….”
THANK YOU MARCIN…
PANOS…
one thing to remember please….both D’Agata and Parke are full members of Magnum….this means that at least 75% of the membership thought they should be IN…Philip Jones-Griffiths loved Magnum as much as any member i know and totally supported the process by which photographers enter the agency, including the ones he might not like…surely PJG was perhaps not in favor of some new members, but he totally respected the wishes of his colleagues and the flow of integration…
Philip loved to be a type of “loyal opposition” on many issues…kind of like you Panos! he would fire off missives full of “fire and brimstone” oftentimes just to see how it went down..sound familiar?? the man was from Wales , with all of the wit and alleged “contentiousness” that goes with his culture….on any issue, Philip was always the guy who would stand up and take the “other side” even if there seemed to be consensus among the others….he would never let anything “go down” without letting us know the possible pitfalls of whatever it was that we were about to do…
i can tell you that the commitment to “straight photojournalism” and witty rhetoric of Philip Jones-Griffiths will be missed by all, including Trent and Antoine and Martin…
peace and goodnite….david
David,
I was so saddened today to hear of the loss of your collegue and friend Philip Jones-Griffiths. Selfishly, I feel like I’ve missed a ledgend. Just this weekend, I was reading pieces of an interview with PJG out loud to Lance (I think I even tried to do a Welsh accent). Lance was working, but I just kept interupting him with these great jaw-dropping and laugh-out-loud quotes from this man whose work I only recently discovered. (I know… what hole have I been living in?) At the time I said, “I have to meet this man.” I’m very sad today for your loss and for all of us who have just discovered and have yet to discover this great man and his work.
kelly
Hi Michael, my comment was not about the sixties, but just a personal reaction reading within 12 hours the Frank’s interview and the pieces with PJG on Magnum and aperture. I was probably too harsh about someone I know little, so mea culpa.
The little I read from the Vanity fair magazine tells me (I may be totally wrong), Frank is finishing his life a bitter and remorseful man.
The chinese trip account is really a sad one. He was probably coerced/cajoled to go.
Panos, since you mentionned it, 300 000 signatures in 48 hours:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/21.php/?cl=65266648
thank you David!
thank you Herve!
Herve,
well, however anyone finishes his life I dont think it has much to do with their photography. The interview I read with PJG made me think he was quite bitter about anything non-PJ…. I think PJG was a great PJ photog but theres more to photography than PJ or even documentary and Magnum is smart as hell to diversify…both for business but more importantly artistically. So the whole magnum vs magnum-lite thing was kind of going to far. As far as your assessment of Frank or anyone else doing something different than stuff like Vietnam Inc….its also quite harsh, dont you think? I personally prefer stuff put out by D’Agata or Parr because they are doing it differently. Not that I dont like PJ stuff by guys like PJG but its good to see new directions.
Frank, as bitter as you think he may be, and he probably is…hey, life had its bad surprises for him….still changed what photography could be. Or atleast he was one of the change agents. And finally, theres nothing wrong with self-absorbed photography…not all of it has to be socially conscious….it would be boring if it all was. Sometimes we need to dive into ourselves or our own worlds, and leave changing the rest of the planet to others.
Those who wish to leave a message for Philip Jones Griffiths (which will be send to his family) can do so here:
http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2008/03/philip_jones_griffiths_1936-2008.html
I’m afraid, in my sad and drunken stupor my own lamentation and contribution to PJG will probably look pretty insane…but…
if you wish to add, please post at the Magnum blog…
b
“Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg.”
“Tapping persistently breaks the stone.”
–Welsh Proverb
I.
Tonight, I have been drinking and I am bereft.
Philip Jones Griffiths has died.
I cannot begin to explain or enumerate the loss that this entails. I miss him as if I miss my father, broken. Though I have never spoken to him, face to face, I grieve for him. Is this not the measure and weight that he has been given to our often-atrophied life? How to straighten the clawed forearms of a heart if not by breaking the pinched-shell of an outer reluctance. Did he not accomplish this within the foreshadowing of all that he photographed
Is it possible to tell his children how eloquently he bequeathed something that is more long-lasting that what we often bargain for: a photograph, a line, a story, a shadow as howl, a moment as assimilation, a broken body, a scar over flight, a picture not as metaphor but as testament. The world is bereft and we, shuttling back and forth like addled ghosts, try to make sense of all that surrounds.
Philip Jones Griffiths has died and I feel impoverished by his death. This may sound ineloquent but it is neither exaggeration nor histrionic. He was an extraordinary photographer, an extraordinary writer and an extraordinary human being, I know, I am speaking as if a grandiose orator, but can I suggest that our lives are less lost from that which he has been accomplished. Is this not his contribution? Creation or surprise, though the particular, is this not the legacy? Jones Griffiths’ allowed and negotiated our sense of the cadaverous world. What greater bravery can be asked of a person?
Let me be more succinct: the time of childhood. Jones Griffith helped me from the time I was a 16-year old. He made sense of the incomprehensible. I would not be the person I am without him. Is this too grandiose? Okay, let me speak simpler. He was also one of my heroes? Is it possible to speak, still, of these kinds of things? All this.
All this day, I have tried to think and swallow, to allow for that which was washing up with that which was falling away: tears in the middle of a lecture; conversations with my wife and son; a phone call with my angry brother; a woman, sitting alone on a bench in dripping Toronto, crying, a book unarmed, a name forgotten, a subway token picked up on a cafe stair, a ring looked at and not bought, a quiver at the sight of a face, all this in one day, all this and the centrifugal force of his exit. Many will speak of what he meant to all of us, so I want to briefly speak about what he meant to me privately.
Tonight, I wonder and am exhausted.
His work and his life taught us to speak upon things. For me, I spoke to him often in my head, beginning the moment as a 16-year old I opened a book about Vietnam that my father had given me and was first cold-cocked by photograph of “Little Tiger” only to be confronted by a photograph of a brother howling at the loss of his sister who lay beneath him along the stomach a truck’s bed, a howl that even know speaks of resuscitation and forbearance.. That boy (then as well as now) looked like my brother and I wept imagining that that photograph was of my brother : the sister the one I always dreamed of. Even now, writing about this more than 25 years later, i ache from that which we lost so tremendously. This was Philip’s hard offering to us: to speak of that which we took for granted and that which we did not speak up enough to defend.
Into the world, as if to resuscitate the dead, and then the photos: of the brother looking at his sister in the back of the pickup truck: all is contained in that moment, all.
Christ, words exhaust.
II
Tonight, within the country of this cool and damp and soft-settling evening, I am at a loss to express how below my feet I sense the world’s pivot slightly off-kilter. Tonight, I not only mourn his death but more selfishly I mourn the temporary loss of my own navigation. Like many others, I grew, even during this time when slaughter and destruction and cynical political gerrymandering seems to be the inevitability bequeath to us, to rely upon the undiminishing fact that with Jones Griffith alive the world stood a chance, a better chance to make right of what it had so egregiously wronged: that his presence somewhere on this gravely planet represented commitment and goodness and a depth of moral and spiritual mindfulness and temerity that no matter the amount of death and cynicism and blindness may shape-shift the world that steadied human valour and speech would prevail. He represented all that is brave and honest and good about our broken, misguided and forlorn species. All that is good and committed. He broke more than stones. He transfigured nations.
Until the end, he spoke and spoke without diminishment. Against the klaxon yelp of depravity, his voice was a buoys’ bell. Tonight, . The night is extraordinarily silent this evening. I can hear the howl in my skull.
Wearied, let me now stoop to narcissistic sentimentality. He was, uncategoricaly, one of my heros. Philip Jones Griffiths was a towering beacon of light, a wave of impassioned, righteous, moral music in a world drowned by its own deafness. He was one of the 36 jewels that help the Earth in its equilibrium. He may not have even understood the importance of his responsibility, but by God, he lived it and that was clear.
Tonight, the spin of the Earth is a major key short in its song. For me, Philip Jones Griffiths was a Lamed Vav Tzadikim. For those not familiar with these Righteous Ones, let me offer a brief explanation. The Tzadikim Nistarim, Lamed Vav Tzadikim (ל”ו צדיקים) (often abbreviated as “the Lamed Vavniks ) refers to 36 Righteous people, a notion rooted within mystical Judaism. According to the Talmud, the world is kept in balance by these 36 righteous ones, human jewels that keep the world’s clock knocking and tocking, their chime forestalling the apocalypse. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim):
“Their purpose: Mystical Hasidic Judaism as well as other segments of Judaism know that there is the Jewish tradition of 36 righteous people whose role in life is to justify the purpose of mankind in the eyes of God; their identity is unknown to each other; if one of them comes to a realization of his true purpose then he may die and his role is immediately assumed by another person….. In our folk tales, they emerge from their self-imposed concealment and, by the mystic powers, which they possess, they succeed in averting the threatened disasters of a people persecuted by the enemies that surround them. … The lamed-vavniks do not themselves know that they are one of the 36… Since the 36 are each exemplars of anavah, (“humility”), having such a virtue would preclude against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous…These holy people are hidden. According to some versions of the story, they themselves may not know who they are. For the sake of these 36 hidden saints, God preserves the world even if the rest of humanity has degenerated to the level of total barbarism…….”
For many of us, Philip Jones Griffith preserved for us and embodied for us what is still yet remarkable about humans, even amid the mud and slaughter of our barbarism. He represented for me, first as a young teenager struggling with the meaning of what Vietnam meant to my father and his father’s friends and country and later, as a young man, what it meant to pursue regardless of the world around, the effort to speak about that which most were still too afraid to speak upon,.
To do that which is often maligned and to do that which is misunderstood.
To make someting which speaks about that which is a part of all of us.
III.
Now, tonight.
Tonight, I do not grieve. I am thankful that Philip Jones Griffith was among us. He fed our lives. He opened our eyes. He, more than any other photographer I know, taught us that unwavering commitment, moral outrage, belief in the responsibility of acting upon that short and cowlick part of ourselves..
Without him, our lives would have been even more bereft: reminding that we, who can afford or who are able, should speak of and of those whose stories are often not told.
Alas, have not written this with an eye to remembrance but with an abandon that which has dug along the line of my own inadequate thoughts.
Philip Jones Griffith has died and I wish to share to share a fifth of whiskey or a bowl of skin-tickleded weed or a small page of of image with him. Maybe we would have never agreed, drunk, stoned, sober and articulate, or disagreed, but what I lament is that his passing reduces that conversation. How mchjc would have loved to chat. believe is that had i been priviledleged enough, I would have relished the moments I spent with him.
We care out wha† it is that we are bequeathed. We speak of that which we do not understand but to which we are committed.
I am saddened and yet, let me be improbable, let me be considerate, let me sway:
Philip, you shall be remembered, cherished and received: for your work lives. Your reconciliation and you remark, balance and amid the opositino of al thigns, the assurance of that which you have seend.
What else is there.
I am thankful for this small gesture, that manifest itself in such a heroic and
magnificent way.
Our loss, is nothing to your loss: my condolences and thoughts go out to his family, daughters, friends and colleagues…
Gone.
All.
My condolences and thoughts go out to his family, daughters, friends and colleague, including Fanny Ferrato, Katherine Holden, Donna Ferrato and Heather Holden amid all the brothers and sisters at Magnum.
He has bestowed us with now only legacy but with fervour. What else can one accomlish
Sincerely,
Bob Black
Yesterday two giants were lost.
First of all of course Phillip. An amazing photojournalist who had such a incredible effect on our lives.
It’s photographers like him, like Eve Arnold, Capa, just to name a few, who have influenced me and made me want to be a photographer myself.
And then there is the Belgian writer Hugo Claus. He died yesterday too. One of the biggest and most talented writers in Europe and the man who was responsible for my love of the theatre. His play Thyestes was the first I ever saw in my life and it made such a profound impact on it ever since.
Really sad that both men passed away, but very happy that their work will live on and keep inspiring us in our own work.
David, wishing you strenght with the loss of your dear friend. Hang in there!
Wendy
David did Philip like Rugby? If so he surely had a good last weekend Wales having a massive grand slam win. Though I have a feeling that he might have been one of the few Welsh men who considered it nonsense.
Rafal, Where did I say anything about “anyone else doing something different” or any kind of photography, even self-absorbed?!?!?
BTW, You were the first one, yesterday who offered a comment on Frank as concerns his remorse vs “fame” (a word David corrected).
Just because a guy is a genius doesn’t mean exemption from looking at the man. In the name of what?
He is telling us so himself: His photography can’t make him ignore what brings much remorse to him.
Anyway, I don’t suscribe to the idea of glossing over a photographer just because the guy was a trail-blazer. We can leave that to dictionaries and wikipedia entries.
the self-indulgent existential nihilism of Frank and so many others who raised fucking up to an art form when Vietnamese mothers gave, maybe still give, birth to children who will have to pay for our imperial sins all their lives.
———————–
This is what I meant. yes, I did bring up Frank and his sadness and regrets but thats just his life and had no judgment on his photography. But you do cast a judgenment on so called nihilism and “fucking”. Id like to know what you meant. As I said not all photography has to give a damn about Vietnamese mothers or mothers anywhere in this world. It would be boring if it did and really wouldnt change anything. Photography rarely changes anything, bad governments do bad things, just look at China. PJG was a great one but how much do you think he changed anything? Vietnam didnt end because of his book, other wars still broke out and I assure you no photograph will ever stop a war in the future.
Herve…Understood. Peace.
Panos…Thanks! Thanks for noticing the price tag. Appropriate, wouldn’t you say. But you do get that! Will let you know how it is… Probably this weekend.
L’chaim!
JONI,
Surviving fallas is quite a challenge but surviving 12 hours in a bus after a long fallas day and night is…. a tremendous deed!! I wonder how you’re still alive!!
Very nice to meet you too ;-). And happy that it was encouraging and energetic…. maybe that helped you to survive in that long trip on the bus!!
DAVID,
We missed you so much and talked about you a lot. If we survived… you could survive too. Next time hope you come!! :-)
STEVE,
net time… ;-)
On Robert Frank. I have only seen a couple of assignements of his apart of The Americans. I find this book (even if it has been said once and again) just simply the most important photography book I can think about. First, it opened ground for lots of photographers to follow, showing our everyday surroundings. It’s impossible to count the amount of people that used to go back to it once and again (like Winogrand or Meyerowitz). Second, in an golden age of the United States, it showed a much more democratical cross-section of the population. Suddenly it’s not just Hollywood stars and washing machines. I had never realized the strong Mexican presence in the US at that time if it was not because of Frank and Kerouac. Actually, reading On the Road just gives much more strenght to Robert Frank’s document and brings out more of its latent humanity. Simply, some of the images could be stack next to parts of the reading of Kerouac (like the two Mexicans driving the car or the bars with jukeboxes and rough guys). Most of this seemed to be fairly much ignored in documents and arts from the same country at the same time, and to no surprise both Frank and Kerouac had real trouble trying to get published.
It could be more controversial to move that discussion towards Parr, whom I do like. I mean, after all, somebody has to be documenting the middle classes (who else has an eye on them!?) and the abundance of the West, which after all is the largest cause of conflict in and between countries in the third world. You have swarms of photographers in Iraq, but where are the documents of an era showing the build up of paranoia after 9/11 that leads to that war? We knew then and everytime we have more clues showing all the lazy judgements and bad loose arguments that lead to the invasion, but no proper photographic document (as far as I am aware) has been produced.
At least we have the BBC:
http://novakeo.com/?p=131
(But now try to go out and shoot that in stills.)
ALL,
Forgot to mention that…. I could see “in live” how Joni takes his “night” pictures. Quite interesting and fun!! :D
@Ana: heh, I was so tired in the morning (even after sleeping on a table with an older couple looking after me, bless them) that I started to take pictures asking people in advance instead of after shooting… but yes, sure, the meetup replenished batteries for shooting for a couple of weeks more…
DEAR ALL…
this has been the damndest thread….
it started three days ago with me with two big ideas in my head, one for you, one for me, and yet not quite ready to post either…
stalling for time, i reach in my backpack and pull out the dvd which i sometimes show in my classes and i post it for you…i figured that i would leave it up for a day and then go on to post what was really on my mind…my intent was just to provide perhaps a little “entertainment” while the “big ideas” stewed in my head…
if you go back and re-read this series of comments on this post you will quickly see how one thing turns into another…how INTENT , no matter how “trivial”, no matter how “important” can turn into something NOT INTENDED….
we spoke mostly of three photographers on this post…Allard, Griffiths, Frank…
Frank’s personal life vs. his art..
Allard’s sacrificing his “ownership” in favor of a “photographic life” best suited to him..
Griffiths being tough on “change” and sticking by his guns…
right in the MIDDLE of this post, Philip literally dies…DEAD…..gone
when i wrote to Gerhard (above) that i “strongly disagreed” with Philip, i was seriously hoping that Philip would chime in with a comment…i knew he was at home in London and was a “lurker” here on our forum…
some of the most interesting writing i have seen on this forum has come under this particular post, which seems so so unlikely given the original “intent”…ironically, it has mostly been about the “intent/result conundrum” which has manifested itself in the post itself…even the Cathy/David “tennis match” became something other than what it started to be…
now i have just read Rafal’s post about how the “intent” of Philip to make people aware and therefore stop all war, did not work…”no photograph will ever stop a war in the future”…for sure Rafal is “right”…
yesterday afternoon i received a call from Susan Meiselas…she told me that photographers and staff were gathering at the Magnum office for a toast to Philip….
when you first come into Magnum as a new photog, you must buy a “magnum” of champaigne and pour it for the members…just an old ceremony going back to Le Dome in Paris when Magnum was “born”….yesterday we bought two magnums of champaigne for Philip who will never leave Magnum…teary toasts all around….sad stories…funny stories…stories only Philip could have told…
“photography never changes anything” says Rafal…..intent does not signify change….Philip “intended” to move a society to an awareness so that babies would no longer be napalmed to ashes….so that chemicals produced by companies whose stock prices were rising would no longer make a defoliant which would end up twisting bodies for generations….
Philip cared, Philip intended, but he did not change anything..or did he?? he sure as hell motivated dozens of photographers who followed to at least “put a brick in wall” in the right direction..he sure as hell, along with others, stopped THAT war or at least made it end early…by all accounts, the photographic coverage of Vietnam surely saved lives…however, humankind moves very slowly within its own knowledge system…
but, Vietnam photographers like Philip (Catherine Leroy, Donald McCullin) are not just another part of an effete academic discussion about “photography”…they STOOD for something…BELIEVED something
whether the “intent” mirrored the “result” cannot be judged by any of us…
but, i do know one thing…Philip changed me…saved me….thank you Philip….
peace , david
David,
Antoine is not a full member yet. He is applying this June…
John