Fredrick Sommer

Fredrick Sommer's work stood out in 1967 graduate school's passionate distraction by photography. Several of his shocking B&W slides were filed alphabetically with hundreds in San Francisco State College's collection by non-shocking photographers such as AA and EW. Later I realize that Sommers work wasn't always shocking....

One thought includes Minor White's idea that the photos we hate appeal in some useful way to something within us...Another, I learned CC 1970 from Conrad Forbes, my only serious photo teacher, student of Minor White, that Conrad had been hired to photograph, using Kodachrome, a massive amount of the work of many fine photographer's for that San Francisco State College art department photo file.

I have a book about Sommer en route to me right now. It will take a month. There’s also this interview on YouTube. I wish that she’d also interviewed Siskind for the series, but no luck.

The only things I have on Siskind are the video available on Amazon Prime and the book Aaron Siskind: Another Photographic Reality. The video focuses mostly on his philosophy and abstract work. He does describe his documentary work as “quiet.” Aaron Siskind: Another Photographic Reality has an essay called “The Feature Group and Harlem Document” which says that he left the Photo League because of its close association with the Communist Party, amongst other reasons. I plan on getting the Chiarenza book on Siskind which might offer more insight.

Cheers, James

Love his paper cut outs pictures.