Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay

[logan2z]

I just ran across this documentary on Bill Jay and really enjoyed it. Thought others might enjoy it as well.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Just watched it today. Can't think of a more moving and inspiring film about photography — about loving photography — and can't think of a photographer and teacher I would have loved to meet more than Bill Jay.

 

[logan2z]

Just watched it today. Can't think of a more moving and inspiring film about photography — about loving photography — and can't think of a photographer and teacher I would have loved to meet more than Bill Jay.

Couldn't agree more. I think I've seen it three times now but it deserves another watch this weekend.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Wow! Imagine having some of your ashes used to make a gum print...
I always enjoyed Bill's writings since I first read them in LensWork.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Wow! Imagine having some of your ashes used to make a gum print...
I always enjoyed Bill's writings since I first read them in LensWork.

A lot of his articles, as well as all issues of Album magazine, are available on his website: https://billjay.com/

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Watched this documentary first thing this morning. I suggested Bill Jay to BBC Radio 4's 'Last Word' programme when he died; perhaps he was more well known in the United States.

 

[Ian Grant]

Watched this documentary first thing this morning. I suggested Bill Jay to BBC Radio 4's 'Last Word' programme when he died; perhaps he was more well known in the United States.

He had a higher profile in the US, his influence here in the UK though is quite apparent through the photographers he inspired before leaving for the US in 1972. I have one early copy of Creative Camera from his period there.

Ian

 

[Helge]

Sorry to be contrarian (to some might seem for the sake of it) and piss on the parade, but I found the film long and boring. And worst of all pointless. Frankly I feel I wasted the time I used watching it.

Bill was obviously well liked by quite a few people, but what did he actually do that was so amazing?
I mean what was his theories and dictums?
What was his ideals and dreams for the field?

What little was shown in the movie and what I’ve been able to dig up, was very mundane and frankly a bunch of platitudes and truisms.

Was he a good photographer then?
Nah, at best mediocre from what people say and the photos online.

He published two magazines from a place of naive youthful enthusiasm, and went bust with both. Very old story.
How good were they actually, in the short time they existed?

And his time in university? Seems like the dozen other popular and generically charismatic lecturers and professors I’ve met and known.
They have a small congregation of students that love them, and their lectures are attended mainly for entertainment value to bask in the glory of the moment. But these figures really don’t leave that much of an academic or scientific imprint when they die or get fired.

There is a pseudo religious air about him that makes me balk.

That is generally why people like this are disliked by other lecturers. They form a pregnant, but ultimately stillborn cult.

Seems the whole documentary is another attempt at myth making, in the vein of for example Searching for Sugarman where the filmmaker has a clear agenda and angle to push, even before the film is made. Inconvenient truths and nuances be damned.
Clearly inspired by, but in sharp contrast to wonderful bio/search docs like Stone Reader, where the journey is the reward.
This just felt like a long busride at night.

 

[Eric Rose]

Sorry to be contrarian (to some might seem for the sake of it) and piss on the parade, but I found the film long and boring. And worst of all pointless. Frankly I feel I wasted the time I used watching it.

Bill was obviously well liked by quite a few people, but what did he actually do that was so amazing?
I mean what was his theories and dictums?
What was his ideals and dreams for the field?

What little was shown in the movie and what I’ve been able to dig up, was very mundane and frankly a bunch of platitudes and truisms.

Was he a good photographer then?
Nah, at best mediocre from what people say and the photos online.

He published two magazines from a place of naive youthful enthusiasm, and went bust with both. Very old story.
How good were they actually, in the short time they existed?

And his time in university? Seems like the dozen other popular and generically charismatic lecturers and professors I’ve met and known.
They have a small congregation of students that love them, and their lectures are attended mainly for entertainment value to bask in the glory of the moment. But these figures really don’t leave that much of an academic or scientific imprint when they die or get fired.

There is a pseudo religious air about him that makes me balk.

That is generally why people like this are disliked by other lecturers. They form a pregnant, but ultimately stillborn cult.

Seems the whole documentary is another attempt at myth making, in the vein of for example Searching for Sugarman where the filmmaker has a clear agenda and angle to push, even before the film is made. Inconvenient truths and nuances be damned.
Clearly inspired by, but in sharp contrast to wonderful bio/search docs like Stone Reader, where the journey is the reward.
This just felt like a long busride at night.

Maybe you should actually read his writing before passing judgment on Bill Jay. The video might not truly represent the man well.

 

[Ian Grant]

Maybe you should actually read his writing before passing judgment on Bill Jay. The video might not truly represent the man well.

Adding to what Eric says, Bill Jay was a great influencer who helped inspire others including some of Britain's top photographers like Martin Parr, Brian Griffin, etc. His influence was extremely wide as it informed teaching around the world but particularly in the UK and US and I think that was one reason the film was quite detailed and long.

Creative Camera did not go bust under Bill Jay, it continued for decades after he left, eventually becoming DPict.

Ian

 

[Helge]

Maybe you should actually read his writing before passing judgment on Bill Jay. The video might not truly represent the man well.

I’m thinking that as well. Do you have something particular in mind?
I’m mostly criticizing the film, for not doing a very good job at presenting and honoring the man.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I’m mostly criticizing the film, for not doing a very good job at presenting and honoring the man.

From all accounts, Bill Jay was at his best in class, in small informal groups and in one-on-one conversations. Of course, today, we'd have students and other people filming everything with their phone, but nothing like that existed back then. So basically, the film makers had to work with very little material — a couple of films, one audio interview, testimonials from colleagues and family, the writings. I feel they did a good job, considering the challenges. I came out of there thinking this is someone I would have loved to sit down with and chat—and the sense that, as opposed to many photographers, he wouldn't have talked about himself but about photography.

Is the film a tad hagiographic and sentimental. Yes. Didn't bother me none. It was obviously done by people who liked and admired him very much, with the purpose of keeping his memory alive and having people who might have just saw his name in passing here and there (my case) get to know the man a little better. It was very human, which is why, although we are in somewhat hagiographic territory, I wouldn't go as far as "myth-making."

 

[Ian Grant]

You could start with the articles on Bill Jay's own website. billjay.com

It's also worth reading Paul Hill's Approaching Photography, and also Dialogue with Photographers. Paul is in that video and was contemporary of Bill Jay, originally a journalist married to a photographer, Paul switched to Photography in the mid 1960s winning awards for his very different approach to photo-journalism around 1968.

Another aspect was in the 1960s few photographers were known outside their own countries, in the UK there were no Monographs, unlike the US there were equipments and material shortages after WWII, which held back photographers.

The first time I came across Edward Weston and Ansel Adams was an image from each in the Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, U'd guess in 1970. It was people like Bill Jay that raised the profile of US photographers here in the UK and to some extent in Europe, and also vice versa. Ralph Gibson's comment on Jay were interesting.

Ian

 

[Helge]

From all accounts, Bill Jay was at his best in class, in small informal groups and in one-on-one conversations. Of course, today, we'd have students and other people filming everything with their phone, but nothing like that existed back then. So basically, the film makers had to work with very little material — a couple of films, one audio interview, testimonials from colleagues and family, the writings. I feel they did a good job, considering the challenges. I came out of there thinking this is someone I would have loved to sit down with and chat—and the sense that, as opposed to many photographers, he wouldn't have talked about himself but about photography.

There is the snippets of him teaching, which I doubt are just snippets and not part of a longer recording.
Recordings of lectures go quite far back too.

Audio recordings (of talks) have been common since that became a possibility. And black and white video tape recordings from universities go back to the sixties. And AFAIU he taught to at least the nineties.
I’d be very surprised if tapes of his lectures don’t exist.

What bothered me about the film was that there was a lot of dancing about the subject, and no showing.

It’s like watching a demonstration of glass blowing. The blower spends ages inspecting, cutting, reheating and preparing to actually blow the damn bubble and then when he finally does it, it’s with his back to the spectators and for five seconds.

We are supposed to just take the interviewees stories and be happy with them. Implicitly trusting them without them really telling us why and how. That’s not just hagiography, that’s full on religion.

You could start with the articles on Bill Jay's own website. billjay.com

It's also worth reading Paul Hill's Approaching Photography, and also Dialogue with Photographers. Paul is in that video and was contemporary of Bill Jay, originally a journalist married to a photographer, Paul switched to Photography in the mid 1960s winning awards for his very different approach to photo-journalism around 1968.

Another aspect was in the 1960s few photographers were known outside their own countries, in the UK there were no Monographs, unlike the US there were equipments and material shortages after WWII, which held back photographers.

The first time I came across Edward Weston and Ansel Adams was an image from each in the Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, U'd guess in 1970. It was people like Bill Jay that raised the profile of US photographers here in the UK and to some extent in Europe, and also vice versa. Ralph Gibson's comment on Jay were interesting.

Ian

I understand that he was a good historian and a great popularizer, and as good and important as that might be:
A. He surely can’t have been the only one to do that in the UK or in the US?
With my cursory knowledge, I can think of a few other personality’s with small and large importance from approximately that time, who also had a big hand in getting photography accepted and popularized as real art.
Will look into Paul Hill too.

B. It alone doesn’t warrant the hand waving, almost omnipotent renaissance man painting of him done by the film.

I will search out some of his books (can see my library has some) to get a better sense of him.
So far what was on his own site hasn’t impressed me at all. Again, dressed up platitudes and, at that time too, we’ll known tropes and facts.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

You could start with the articles on Bill Jay's own website. billjay.com

It's also worth reading Paul Hill's Approaching Photography, and also Dialogue with Photographers. Paul is in that video and was contemporary of Bill Jay, originally a journalist married to a photographer, Paul switched to Photography in the mid 1960s winning awards for his very different approach to photo-journalism around 1968.

Another aspect was in the 1960s few photographers were known outside their own countries, in the UK there were no Monographs, unlike the US there were equipments and material shortages after WWII, which held back photographers.

The first time I came across Edward Weston and Ansel Adams was an image from each in the Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, U'd guess in 1970. It was people like Bill Jay that raised the profile of US photographers here in the UK and to some extent in Europe, and also vice versa. Ralph Gibson's comment on Jay were interesting.

Ian

The amount of people he got to contribute to Album in one year is absolutely astonishing. Issue no 2 has some photographs by Eugene Smith that I've never seen before and that I don't think you can find anywhere else. I can only imagine the shockwave in the UK seeing for the first time this type of photography in the various issues.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

There is the snippets of him teaching, which I doubt are just snippets and not part of a longer recording.
Recordings of lectures go quite far back too.

Audio recordings (of talks) have been common since that became a possibility. And black and white video tape recordings from universities go back to the sixties. And AFAIU he taught to at least the nineties.
I’d be very surprised if tapes of his lectures don’t exist.

What bothered me about the film was that there was a lot of dancing about the subject, and no showing.

It’s like watching a demonstration of glass blowing. The blower spends ages inspecting, cutting, reheating and preparing to actually blow the damn bubble and then when he finally does it, it’s with his back to the spectators and for five seconds.

We are supposed to just take the interviewees stories and be happy with them. Implicitly trusting them without them really telling us why and how. That’s not just hagiography, that’s full on religion.



I understand that he was a good historian and a great popularizer, and as good and important as that might be:
A. He surely can’t have been the only one to do that in the UK or in the US?
With my cursory knowledge, I can think of a few other personality’s with small and large importance from approximately that time, who also had a big hand in getting photography accepted and popularized as real art.
Will look into Paul Hill too.

B. It alone doesn’t warrant the hand waving, almost omnipotent renaissance man painting of him done by the film.

I will search out some of his books (can see my library has some) to get a better sense of him.
So far what was on his own site hasn’t impressed me at all. Again, dressed up platitudes and, at that time too, we’ll known tropes and facts.

Helge, I'm not sure what your beef is about. I didn't come out of that movie thinking he was a saint. Just that he was well-liked and well-loved. I didn't sense any kind of religious adoration, more gratitude for what he did. And nowhere does it say that he was the only inspiring teacher — although I have absolutely no doubt that back then as today (unfortunately) there were too few photographers aware of the history of photography and who came before them on even a basic level — no one, starting from Bill Jay himself and the film makers, would argue that people like John Szarkowski or Beaumont Newhall had a much bigger impact than him on American photography.

I think you're making too much out of this movie than it is. It's just a very sympathetic portrait of a guy who was passionate about photography and who was able to transmit that passion (not as easy as it seems) to others and influence their own path. What harm is there is telling that story?

 

[Helge]

The amount of people he got to contribute to Album in one year is absolutely astonishing. Issue no 2 has some photographs by Eugene Smith that I've never seen before and that I don't think you can find anywhere else. I can only imagine the shockwave in the UK seeing for the first time this type of photography in the various issues.

They were grateful to get acknowledgment in the UK and knew not to charge too much?

 

[Don_ih]

What bothered me about the film was that there was a lot of dancing about the subject, and no showing.

In this instance, what, beyond the talking done by the various people being interviewed, was there to be shown? His impact was as an educator, not as a photographer. Even when he was working in the magazines, he was educating and promoting other photographers. So there's not much to show.

I agree the documentary was too long and a bit too long-winded. But there's not likely to ever be another documentary about him. He's easily one of those people who had significance in his area during his time but is easily overlooked by history. The world is shifted by such people. I'd rather there were more documentaries like this, about people like this.

You don't really consider yourself a humanist, do you? (That's a serious question, not a slight.)

 

[Sirius Glass]

I tend not to look at any long videos unless others comment that it was worth the time to view.

 

[Don_ih]

I tend not to look at any long videos unless others comment that it was worth the time to view.

It's nice to live your life at the recommendation of others.

 

[Helge]

Helge, I'm not sure what your beef is about. I didn't come out of that movie thinking he was a saint. Just that he was well-liked and well-loved. I didn't sense any kind of religious adoration, more gratitude for what he did. And nowhere does it say that he was the only inspiring teacher — although I have absolutely no doubt that back then as today (unfortunately) there were too few photographers aware of the history of photography and who came before them on even a basic level — no one, starting from Bill Jay himself and the film makers, would argue that people like John Szarkowski or Beaumont Newhall had a much bigger impact than him on American photography.

I think you're making too much out of this movie than it is. It's just a very sympathetic portrait of a guy who was passionate about photography and who was able to transmit that passion (not as easy as it seems) to others and influence their own path. What harm is there is telling that story?

My beef is basically that it takes way too long in doing it’s little thing.
One hour and thirty two minutes to tell a relatively small story with a lot of repetition and lot of unsubstantiated (in the film) praise and accolades to tell me very little about the man, his thoughts and ideals.

I’m not making too much of the movie. It’s making too much of itself.

The harm is wasting peoples time, making them slightly more sour on the idea of photography docs and possibly tainting his books and oeuvre.

Of recent docs, All Things are Photographable about Winogrand, while certainly not perfect, is a far better example of presenting a whole person in the same time span.

BBC Master Photographers from 83 is a wonderful example of how to present a person in satisfying way in half an hour.
They had the person there to talk to you say? Well, Bill Brandt voice counts for half a person.
They should have been much more focused.
Take Brian Griffin, pin him down and ask him exactly how and why he liked Bill.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

They were grateful to get acknowledgment in the UK and knew not to charge too much?

Well, if you are going to argue about things I neither said or implied, you are essentially arguing with yourself, and obviously have little interest in the qualities other people have seen in this movie.

Nevertheless, I'll clarify this. In the late 60s and early 70s, it was rare even within America, so imagine in Europe, to run across photos by W. Eugene Smith, Robert Franck, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus and others. There were very few photo books published or available — I don't think Gene Smith published a single one in his lifetime, apart from an Aperture monograph in 1969 — and in America it took such luminaries as John Szarkowki to get them into a museum (note that the Met Museum did not have an independent curatorial department of photography until 1992, which is about when they acquired the bulk of their collection).

So yeah, what Bill Jay did was pretty amazing, because he initiated a dialogue between the work British photographers were doing and what contemporary US photographers were doing, as well as what the older generation had been doing.

 

[Don_ih]

I don't know how much a photographer could expect to get from a photo or couple of photos being printed in such a magazine in the late 60s, early 70s. And in this instance, these photos would have been as or more promotional for the photographer than they would for the magazine.

 

[snusmumriken]

Bill was obviously well liked by quite a few people, but what did he actually do that was so amazing?

He published two magazines from a place of naive youthful enthusiasm, and went bust with both. Very old story.
How good were they actually, in the short time they existed?

Creative Camera (in its Bill Jay years) was an eye-opener to me as a teenage schoolboy. As far as I'm concerned that makes him one of the most important figures in photography, alongside the photographers themselves.

Many thanks to logan2z for posting the link.

 

[Helge]

Well, if you are going to argue about things I neither said or implied, you are essentially arguing with yourself, and obviously have little interest in the qualities other people have seen in this movie.

Nevertheless, I'll clarify this. In the late 60s and early 70s, it was rare even within America, so imagine in Europe, to run across photos by W. Eugene Smith, Robert Franck, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus and others. There were very few photo books published or available — I don't think Gene Smith published a single one in his lifetime, apart from an Aperture monograph in 1969 — and in America it took such luminaries as John Szarkowki to get them into a museum (note that the Met Museum did not have an independent curatorial department of photography until 1992, which is about when they acquired the bulk of their collection).

So yeah, what Bill Jay did was pretty amazing, because he initiated a dialogue between the work British photographers were doing and what contemporary US photographers were doing, as well as what the older generation had been doing.

Merely suggesting that getting those photographers, was not exclusively due to his winning persona.
Many of these artists was also kind of new and up and coming at the time he “scored the scoop”.
The important part was knowing they existed.