Elliott Erwitt Snaps - I am in awe

matt miller · May 18, 2007

I received this book yesterday. I am in awe. Until now, I've never really seen too much of Erwitt's work. The man is a genius. His eyes are amazing. I'm usually not a lover of "street" photography, but this is different and better than any I've seen. I found myself laughing, sighing, and wowing out loud. The book has over 500 photographs. I am just halfway through it, so will get more joy from it tonight. Highly recommended!

Lee Shively · May 18, 2007

I love Erwitt. He has that ability to show the humor in fleeting situations unlike anyone else I've ever seen. One of his quotes I will always remember: "Photography is not about thinking--photography is about seeing."

catem · May 18, 2007

I also like Elliott Erwitt very much. A wry sense of humour - and also his personal work of his family (families) is some of the best I've seen. Very tender, very moody.

Tom Stanworth · May 18, 2007

This is good to hear as my copy is in the post!

f/stopblues · May 18, 2007

There's a collection of around 50 photos from Erwitt on the Magnum site.. www.magnumphotos.com. Click on "Photographers" at the top and you can go to a list that he's on. A skilled photographer, no doubt!

pentaxuser · May 18, 2007

I have seldom seen a photographer's work where each photo excited my interest. His does. His quirky thoughtfulness and pleasant sense of humour is on my wavelength.

Thanks

pentaxuser

John McCallum · May 18, 2007

It's a great book - personally I like how you can understand the message - and it is so clever - but it is very difficult to explain in words. It proves visual genius and esp in use of the camera.

Incidentally (very incidentally) his 'quirky thoughtfulness and pleasant sense of humour' seems to be mainly in his images. Like many of the best comedians he can be very dark and terse in person, with seemingly little patience for fools.

The Magnum Agency enabled him to nurture his particular approach to photography over a long time. He has another good quote "It is about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby."

zenrhino · May 18, 2007

That's the great thing about Erwitt -- it's not street photography. It's visual poetry and rhetoric that just happens to be taken in the street.

cao · May 19, 2007

zenrhino said:
That's the great thing about Erwitt -- it's not street photography. It's visual poetry and rhetoric that just happens to be taken in the street.

That rather depends on how one defines street photography. I tend to use the work of Erwitt, HCB, Doisneau, and Lartigue as operational definitions. There certainly is a lot of bad photography which claims the label street, and perhaps I am myself merely adding to that festering pile, but I would prefer to call that simply bad photography rather than condemning street as a genre. The cheap shots of those fallen on hard luck which many complain of are not street; they are just cynical slights made visual. The best street is indeed poetic, and Elliott is a treasure of that discipline.

"It's good when you can't explain a picture, because that means it's visual." - E.E.

Elliott Erwitt Snaps - I am in awe

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