Monday, September 24, 2012

Robert Bergman



Photographer Robert Bergman: Outsider looking in

Bergman's street portraits of unidentified Americans have been compared to the Old Masters. Yet recognition has been a long time coming
Untitled image by Robert BergmanView larger picture
Street life ... Untitled, 1990. Photograph: Courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery, New York and Michael Hoppen Gallery, London/Robert Bergman
As photographers go, Robert Bergman is, if you'll pardon the pun, a late developer. He took his first photograph in 1950, when he was six years old. Last year, aged 65, he finally had his first show at the prestigious National Gallery of Art in Washington. Previewing the show, the Wall Street Journal described him as "a cult figure" whose work had long been "isolated from contemporary tastes".
In the last few years, though, Bergman has belatedly become a hot property. A few weeks after the Washington show opened, he was feted by a retrospective at P.S1 in Queens, New York. Now, finally, theMichael Hoppen Gallery in London is hosting the first-ever European exhibition of his work. It is, to say the least, an intriguing show.
Since the mid-80s, Bergman has been photographing on the streets of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York. He is not a street photographer, though, prowling the pavement for that elusive moment where it all comes together. Instead, he is a street portraitist who always asks permission of his subjects, and moves around them slowly and patiently, shooting in colour using a 35mm Nikon. His portraits possess a heightened intensity and painterly quality that is rare in work made outside of the photographic studio. Indeed, in a press release, the Michael Hoppen Gallery compares them to "the most luminous of Renaissance and old master paintings" as well as Goya and Van Gogh.
Bergman's work seems to inspire this kind of hyperbole. When his first book, A Kind of Rapture, was published in 1998, Toni Morrison wrote: "Occasionally there arises an event or a moment that one knows immediately will forever mark a place in the history of artistic endeavour. Robert Bergman's portraits represent such a moment, such an event."
Untitled image of a woman, Robert Bergman'Strange, sad power' ... Bergman's portrait of a woman. Photograph: Courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery, New York and Michael Hoppen Gallery, London/Robert Bergman
Bergman's subjects often seem to be street people or outsiders, and many gaze away from the camera or stare fiercely into it. One old man with a hat possesses a face that is sad, bemused and world-weary, but also appears somehow theatrical – as if he has just walked out of a production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. A red-headed woman with piercing pale blue eyes seems almost otherworldy in her gauntness, the luminous vertical strips of pink and violet light in the background adding to the strange, sad power of the portrait.
Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photography at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, noted Bergman's "ability to put his subjects totally at ease and to capture them with these introspective feelings on their faces". It is that sense of captured introspection, perhaps, that sets Bergman's work apart.
He has doggedly pursued his craft since dropping out of college at 20, seemingly convinced of his greatness despite the long years spent in artistic obscurity. In 1966, he saw Robert Frank's seminal book The Americans and later told an interviewer that it taught him "the main thing one needed was a personal vision, and the main thing one needed to serve that vision was intuition and feeling". That is what he has been refining ever since, though his single-minded pursuit of the intuitive and the emotional may have been what kept him out of step with an art-photography world that has consistently preferred the highly formal, the conceptual or – latterly – the deadpan.
Bergman started shooting in colour in 1985. He uses an inkjet printing process to create the soft translucent tones in his photographs, the aura of mysterious light that sometimes seems almost holy. In a recent interview, he suggested: "Putting the colour film in the camera was an act of self-destruction; it was an act of acknowledging defeat because I felt the work would not enter the world, would not enter history because of the institutions that were in force …"
Untitled image of a child, Robert Bergman'Anonymous' ... Untitled, 1989. Photograph: Courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery, New York and Michael Hoppen Gallery, London/Robert Bergman
Intriguingly, Bergman refuses to title his photographs or identify his subjects by name, insisting that "I don't want you to have any escape from simply reacting to the art." This has angered one American critic, Andy Grundberg, who, in a review in Aperture magazine this summer, wrote – I think unfairly – that "there's a temptation to dismiss Bergman's pictures as latter-day Bowery bum photography". Directly evoking the spirit of Susan Sontag's book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Grundberg also questioned Bergman's motives. "Surely he can't be concerned that these pictures in any way improve the lives of people they portray, since we don't know where or who they are?"
I find this odd and oddly old-fashioned. You could as easily argue that the anonymity of Bergman's street people is the very point: we pass by people like these every day, maybe just catching their eye for a brief moment then passing on, each of us cocooned in our own thoughts. There is no room, in Bergman's photographs without words, for sentimentality. Nor is his intention to shock or startle or even gently nudge us into a greater awareness of homelessness or the plight of the outsider. There is something else going on here – something deeper, more enigmatic and mysterious.
Bergman, one senses, is, like Robert Frank, an outsider by temperament. He told the Wall Street Journal reporter of an encounter with a man in the Bronx who asked the photographer where he came from. When Bergman told him he came from Minnesota, the man replied, "You come all this way to photograph yourself." Perhaps that penetrating comment gets closest to the mystery at the heart of Bergman's intensely poetic portraits.


Saturday, September 22, 2012

William Eggleston





William Eggleston  
b. 1939 Memphis, Tennessee
photographer
American

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William Eggleston assumes a neutral gaze and creates his art from commonplace subjects: a farmer's muddy Ford truck, a red ceiling in a friend's house, the contents of his own refrigerator. In his work, Eggleston photographs "democratically"--literally photographing the world around him. His large-format prints monumentalize everyday subjects, everything is equally important; every detail deserves attention.

A native Southerner raised on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta, Eggleston has created a singular portrait of his native South since the late 1960s. After discovering photography in the early 1960s, he abandoned a traditional education and instead learned from photographically illustrated books by Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Frank. Although he began his career making black-and-white images, he soon abandoned them to experiment with color technology to record experiences in more sensual and accurate terms at a time when color photography was largely confined to commercial advertising. In 1976 with the support of John Szarkowski, the influential photography historian, critic, and curator, Eggleston mounted "Color Photographs" a now famous exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.William Eggleston's Guide , in which Szarkowski called Eggleston's photographs "perfect," accompanied this groundbreaking one-person show that established his reputation as a pioneer of color photography. His subjects were mundane, everyday, often trivial, so that the real subject was seen to be color itself. These images helped establish Eggleston as one of the first non-commercial photographers working in color and inspired a new generation of photographers, as well as filmmakers.

Eggleston has published his work extensively. He continues to live and work in Memphis, and travels considerably for photographic projects. 





Jackson, MississippiView next full-sized photograph

         William Eggleston
         Jackson, Mississippi
         undated




Morton, Mississippi
View next full-sized photograph
                                              William Eggleston
                                              Morton, Mississippi
                                              1969-70

Stephen Shore


STEPHEN SHORE

                                                       Edie Sedgwick!

Stephen Shore started photography at an early age. When he was six he received a photographic darkroom kit and three year later, he began experimenting with color photography with a 35mm camera. He was strongly influenced by “American Photographs”, a book written by Walker Evans, which was given to him in 1957. One thing I think is really cool is that he met Andy Warhol at the age of 17 and was inspired to photograph the artist's studio. Frequenting Andy Warhol and the Factory must have been an amazing experience. That I think is what makes him an interesting photographer, because of the opportunity he had, being able to hang out with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick (I recomend you watch the movie “Factory Girl”).
Here are some photos from that period:


Later in 1972, he was attracted to the American landscape and began taking cross-country road trips and documenting them. He first documented his trip using a 35mm camera and was asked to take the trip again using a 4x5 camera. Most of his American landscape photos can be found in the “Uncommon Places”book. He, along side of William Eggleston is recognized as one of the first color photographers.



Sources:

-Uncommon Places: The Complete Works, Stephen Shore.
-http://wwar.com/masters/s/shore-stephen.html
-http://www.jenbekman.com/stephen_shore_bio.html

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Odell Mitchell Jr


Really enjoyed workshop with Odell this past July, along with viewing his work that was displayed at the Sheldon.  
V.P. Fair (Fair St. Louis), 2001 type-C print. Courtesy of the artist.
V.P. Fair (Fair St. Louis), 2001 type-C print. Courtesy of the artist.
Gallery Spotlight:
Master Class Photography Workshop with
Odell Mitchell, Jr. 
Saturday, July 14, 2012
10:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Odell Mitchell, Jr. will discuss his experiences in the world of photojournalism and will provide portfolio feedback and tips for improving work. Bring up to 6 prints to discuss. $65 per person, lunch included. Space is limited. Call Rebecca Gunter at 314.533.9900 x18 by July 3 to reserve.
Odell Mitchell, Jr. RetrospectiveThis exhibition highlights photographs by Odell Mitchell, Jr., from both his professional career and personal work made over the last 30 years. Mitchell was an award-winning photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 24 years. In addition to his career at the Post-Dispatch, Mitchell has taught seminars on photography and has been a judge in various photographic competitions. He currently teaches photography to college and high school students.

The exhibition is made possible in part by Capes, Sokol, Goodman and Sarachan, P.C.



Sheldon gallery shows retrospective of Mitchell's photojournalism career

Odell Mitchell Jr.

The work of Odell Mitchell Jr., a Post-Dispatch staffer for 24 years and now a photography teacher, is the subject of an artistic retrospective opening Friday at the Sheldon Art Galleries.
"I am seriously blessed and just happy to be doing this," said Mitchell, 57.
The exhibit will include about 40 photographs that cover Mitchell's career, which began when a teenage Mitchell got a camera his older brother brought home from Vietnam. The collection includes work from his college days at Iowa State University, his journalism career at the Florida Times-Union and the Post-Dispatch, and from photos he took for two children's books written by his wife, Linda.
Taking those thousands of pictures was easy, Mitchell said. It was paring them down that was hard. The process began almost two years ago.
"I get attached to my photos, so I spent a lot of time in my garage going through old prints and looking for photos from old contests, trying to decide what to include," he said. "I got it down to 100 photos, and I put them on a disc. Then (gallery curators) picked about 40."
The hand-wringing didn't stop there.
"Then after all that, I'd remember some photos I had on old negatives and I'd say to myself, 'I should have include that one' or, 'I should send them this one.' But I had to draw the line somewhere," he said.
One major news event captured in the display is Mitchell's assignment for the Post-Dispatch in 1990, when he and reporter Jon Sawyer traveled to South Africa. At the time, that nation was struggling to end its longtime apartheid policies and gearing up for free elections.
The series of stories and photographs, entitled "Apartheid's Legacy," garnered numerous accolades, including awards from the Overseas Press Club and the National Association of Black Journalists.
"That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the images were powerful," he said.
Mitchell took care to explain that some of his work was not meant to be "artistic" in the strictest sense.
"What I learned working for newspapers was that I had to shoot photos of what was actually going on," he said. "I wasn't shooting for some national interest, I was shooting for the readers," referring to that kind of work as "a document of history — because that (event) is never going to happen again."
Mitchell stressed that this show also recognizes the excellent photographers with whom he has worked over the years.
"I had a lot of good teachers, at college, in Florida and at the Post," he said. "There were a lot of good people at those places. They talked, and I listened."
That learning process continues for Mitchell, who said he would constantly ask questions of younger photographers when he was still at the Post.
"They knew things about Photoshop and whatnot, and I never hesitated to ask, 'How did you do that?' about something," Mitchell said.
"I don't think you ever stop learning at this."

Top 10 Photojournalists


Top 10 Photojournalists

In today’s world, photojournalism isn’t something that is heard or spoken of much anymore. With the Internet providing us with places such as YouTube, DeviantArt, and other online sources created just for sharing amateur photography, it’s really no surprise that photojournalism is slowly becoming a dying form of art as well as media. However, those who haven’t had much interaction and experience with photojournalism really don’t understand the true beauty behind it. It’s amazing to be able to look at a set of pictures, if not just one single picture, and be able to draw a story from it- and not only is the story usually touching, but its message is usually important.

10. Philip Jones Griffiths

philip-jones-griffiths
Philip Jones Griffiths is best known for his portrayal of the Vietnam War through his pictures, though his first picture was of a friend and his family using a Brownie (a very popular and relatively in expensive camera produced by Kodak). As the Vietnam War was slowly coming to an end, Griffiths took photographs during the Yom Kipper War and then traveled to Cambodia where he worked until 1975. Because of his great success and popularity, Griffiths became Magnum’s president until 1985. Though he died in 2008, Griffith’s legend still lives on today. He is best known for Vietnam IncDark Odyssey, and Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam.

9. Henri Cartier-Bresson

henri-cartier-bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson is known as the father of modern photojournalism. Born in France in 1908, Cartier-Bresson was one of the first to use the 35mm format. He was influenced by the randomness and grace of a photograph taken by Martin Munkacsi of 3 young boys running into a lake. He often spent hours on various streets, capturing life as he saw it, which became known as street photography. He took pictures all over Europe: from Madraid to Prague and from Budapest to Brussels. In 1948 he became well known for covering Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral as well as the ending of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. He also spent time photographing the Imperial eunuchs.

8.  Robert Doisneau

robert-doisneau
Robert Doisneau is a well-known French photographer, who along with Cartier-Bresson, was able to lead the way towards a new path in photojournalism. He is well known for snapping ironic images as well as ones that depicted juxtapositions. At 13 he went to a craft school where he was first introduced to the arts, participating in still life and figure drawing, and earning diplomas in lithography and engraving,  At 16 he discovered photography and, according to many, he was so shy that he’d only photograph cobblestones. Eventually he moved to photographing children and then adults. In the 1920s he became a lettering artist for Atelier Ullmann, an advertising company tied to the pharmaceutical industry. He was also able to work as a camera assistant in the studio and over time earned the job of a staff photographer. In 1932 he sold his first photo-story to Excelsior newspaper. In 1939 he took up a job working with postcard photography and freelance advertising services. Later that year he was drafted as a photographer and a Resistance soldier. He used his skills to forge identification papers and passports. During this time he photographed the Battle of Paris. After the war he worked for Life magazine and he also worked with Paris Vogue doing fashion and high-class photography. He won the Prix Kodak in 1947.

7. David Burnett

david-burnett-marley
Burnett graduated in 1968 from Colorado College and immediately went into amateur and eventually professional photography. He was a freelancer for Life and Time magazines in both the U.S. and later on Vietnam. Once he was in Vietnam for two years, Burnett decided to join Gamma, a French photo agency that allowed him travel all throughout Europe, where he worked as a news photographer. In 1975 Burnett decided to fly solo and co-founded his own photo agency in New York City, known as Contact Press Images. Even though he opened his own photo agency, Burnett was still heavily devoted to his job and passion as a photographer. For the next 30 years he travelled all over to cover various worldwide events, including the Olympics, political campaigns, and various others. He even photographed some of the most famous people of the time, including popular reggae singer Bob Marley. His photos have been published in various magazines, including The New York Times. While he may be best known for his photos taken during the Iranian revolution, all of his work has been praised and he has received various awards, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, World Press Photo, and others.

6. Robert Capa (Endre Friedmann)

robert-capa-spanish-soldier-loyalist
Robert Capa, born as Endre Friedmann, is well-known for his wartime photos during WWII as well as his boldness and bravery and his involvement in Magnum Photos. His life as a photographer started at the age of 18 when he moved out of his native home in Hungary and left for Berlin where he worked as a darkroom apprentice. He was also able to dabble in photography and was able to take pictures of Leon Trotsky. Once Hitler came to power, he went to Paris, but here he struggled to live as a freelance journalist. He and his fiancée decided to take another approach, setting up a business under the falsified persona of a rich and famous man called Robert Capa, who the two claimed was an American photographer visiting France. Friedmann took the pictures, his fiancée sold them for no less than 150 francs a piece, and all credit was given to the made up Capa. Editor of Vue, Lucien Vogel found out the secret but sent the pair to Spain, where Capa took one of his most famous photographs of a Spanish soldier dying. His fiancée died during their quest to take notable pictures, and after her death Capa went to China were he photographed the battle of Taierchwang. After traveling to various countries to capture more of the war, Capa died on May 25, 1954 after stepping on a landmine.

5. David Seymour (Chim)

david-seymour-orphans
Sometimes known as Chim, David Seymour was born in Warsaw but moved to Paris where he became enthralled with photography during his studies. He is well known for his perceptive eye and caustic personality. In 1933 he landed his first job as a freelance journalist and from there his career took off. He was able to capture moments during the Spanish Civil War as well as during unrest in Czechoslovakia. In 1939 he took photographs of Loyalist Spanish refugees who journeyed to Mexico. When WWII began, Seymour was in New York but enlisted in the army in 1940 where he worked as a photo interpreter in Europe. In 1942 his parents were killed by Nazis, which lead him to help UNICEF document the plight of refugees, especially children.
Even though he was well known for his war photographs of orphans, he later got into photographing celebrities. While covering the 1956 Suez War, Seymour and fellow photographer Jean Roy were killed by machine-gun fire.

4. Dorothea Lange

dorothea-lange-depression

Dorothea Lange was an American photojournalist who heavily covered life during the Great Depression. She first learned about photography in New York City and got the chance to apprentice at various New York photography studios. In 1918 she moved to San Francisco where she opened a portrait studio. Once the Great Depression began, Langue left her studio and decided to use her camera outside where she captured images of homeless and unemployed people. She later married an agricultural economist in 1935 and the two worked together documenting migrant laborers, sharecropping, and rural poverty. Her photographs caught the eye of many and she was given a job with the Farm Security Administration. In 1941 she earned the Guggenheim Fellowship and went on to cover life for Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. Today, her photographs are well known all across the world as they show the true side of the Depression and put faces to the dire circumstances and made their plight public. Lange’s photographs and coverage of the era influenced the creation of documentary photography.

3. Margaret Bourke-White

stalin-smiling
Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer who is well known for her documentary photography of WWII and the India-Pakistan violence. She earned the first of many titles, including being the first female war correspondent, the first female to work in a combat zone, the first foreign photographer to be granted the right to photograph the Soviet Industry, and the first female to have her photograph grace the cover of Life magazine.
She worked for Fortune magazine from 1929 to 1935 as a staff photographer. In the early 1930s she became known for her photographs of those suffering from the Dust Bowl and she also published a book with the help of her novelist husband which portrayed Southern life during the Depression. She also went to various countries in Europe to photograph life under Nazi rule and Russia life under Communism. Here she was able to capture a photo of a smiling Joseph Stalin. In 1936 Henry Luce, the owner of Life magazine, hired her and put her Fort Peck Dam construction photo on the front cover. She was the on and off staff photographer up until 1945. In 1969 she retired due to her failing health and later died in 1971.

2. Eddie Adams

eddie-adams-war-photo
Like many on this list, Eddie Adams’ name is well-known and attached to one specific photograph. Often referred to as “Saigon, 1968,” Adams said the image haunted him for the rest of his life. Even though he photographed 13 different wars, he is best known for his work that he produced during the Vietnam War. And even though today these pictures are widely known, praised, and analyzed, they were never published in a book before his death in 2004. Many say this is because Adams was a perfectionist, which often slowed down or halted the publishing process.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and worked as a combat photographer. He was sent there to take pictures of the Demilitarized Zone from one end to the other and he was able to complete the task in just over a month. Adams became widely known when he worked for the Associated Press during the Vietnam War where he took various photographs of Vietnamese refugees attempting to escape in a photo essay that was entitled “The Boat of No Smiles.” Adams pictures greatly changed the American view of the war and even persuaded Jimmy Carter to grant asylum to 200,000 refugees.

1. Robert Frank

robertfrank-les-americains
Robert Frank was born in Switzerland and ever since his work entitled Les Americains was published, he became a very prominent figure in American photography as well as in film. He was born to a wealthy Jewish family but when Hitler came to power, despite his family being safe in Switzerland, Frank experienced the widespread oppression. To escape the oppression as well as the fact that his family was so involved with business, Frank got into photography and in 1946 he was able to create his first book of photographs entitled 40 Fotos. A year later he moved to the U.S. and worked as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. In 1950 he published a book of photographs he had taken while in Peru and in the same year he participated in the 51 American Photographers held at the Museum of Modern Art. While in the U.S., Frank never liked the American way of life. He saw it as being too fast-paced and too dependent on money, something he tried to escape at home. He referred to the U.S. as being lonely and bleak, a theme that runs through Les Americains. Later on in life he worked as a photojournalist for FortuneVogue, and McCall’s.