HCB Appreciation

[Alex Benjamin]

that did not allow his photography to fully exploit his enormous talent.

You have got to be kidding me.

The whole passage reminds me of the nonsense that used to be written about Glenn Gould.

 

[koraks]

sorry Koraks for the role of proxy i promise I will limit it from now

It's a free world and all that. I really dislike his writings, personally. Not an example I'd want to follow.
Btw, you had already linked to that specific bit before a few pages back.

 

[nikos79]

You have got to be kidding me.

The whole passage reminds me of the nonsense that used to be written about Glenn Gould.

What did they write about him? I admire him but I also have a few concerns about his interpretations which are most about himself and not about the composer. When you listen Gould you know you listen primarily to Gould and not Bach

 

[nikos79]

It's a free world and all that. I really dislike his writings, personally. Not an example I'd want to follow.
Btw, you had already linked to that specific bit before a few pages back.

Yes sorry I saw it now in an earlier post I had linked to it

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

But he should supervise the construction.

Many buildings have a separate Construction Management company that handles supervising the day-to-day construction. Or the General Contractor provides the direction. The architect gets involved only when there are questions or issues that pop up during construction. They usually approve the materials selected by the contractor. It's a team effort.

When DiVinci painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he had dozens of helpers doing the work. He directed mainly.

The photographer gives specific requirements to their photo printer. For example, size of the finished photo, where to crop, lighten here or there, etc. So that's similar to DiVinci and to architects.

 

[GregY]

Greg,
I understand that.
But HCB knew what the printers could do for him.
I used do some printing for others - a lot of fairly mundane stuff, but some more demanding stuff.
Whether or not you do your own printing, or work with others who do the printing itself, the people whose work succeeds as a print usually photograph with the intended result in mind.

Matt, I said as much before " I'd bet HCB approved the version of prints that came out of the darkroom & it goes without saying that Pierre Gassman and his crew at Picto were top notch printers."

 

[GregY]

You are not the only one with that opinion Rivellis (sorry Koraks for the role of proxy i promise I will limit it from now on but in some topics I find it relevant):

"The only reservation I might have about Cartier-Bresson stems from the feeling that his need to exclude any vulnerable emotional or charming dimension of his personality gives me. Although he said that thought is very dangerous in photography, he did not allow his thoughts (and perhaps his genius) to succumb even for a moment to his instinct and spontaneity. And that was what he secretly admired in his contemporary André Kertész. Many small and seemingly insignificant behaviors lead me to such a thought. His nearly hysterical refusal to allow himself to be photographed. His aversion to attending live music performances, claiming that music should simply be heard. His rigid rule not to "tamper" with the photo during processing (which he always had done in a professional lab according to his instructions). His habit (which had influenced all of us for a period) of leaving four black margins on the photo to prove (during the analog era) that it had not been cropped. His obsession with the fifty lens because it has an angle of view corresponding to the human eye. His legendary disdain for wide-angle lenses. I believe that he harbored a kind of dogmatism-antidogmatism that did not allow his photography to fully exploit his enormous talent. And I say this while continuing to consider him a leading photographer. Toward the end of his life, Cartier-Bresson turned to his old love, drawing. Because, as he said, drawing, in old age, does not require the agonizing anticipation and nervousness that are so essential for photography"

Nikos, I have limited space for critics who make huge assumptions. As the saying goes, while not entirely true , "those who can do. those who can't teach. those who can do neither become critics...."

 

[GregY]

You have got to be kidding me.

The whole passage reminds me of the nonsense that used to be written about Glenn Gould.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

What did they write about him? I admire him but I also have a few concerns about his interpretations which are most about himself and not about the composer. When you listen Gould you know you listen primarily to Gould and not Bach

You managed to answer your own question.

 

[GregY]

What did they write about him? I admire him but I also have a few concerns about his interpretations which are most about himself and not about the composer. When you listen Gould you know you listen primarily to Gould and not Bach

You're always listening to the musician. Bach has been dead a long time.
But since you put it that way. I'd rather just view HCB's photographs.....IMO Rivellis' writings are more about himself.

 

[koraks]

When you listen Gould you know you listen primarily to Gould and not Bach

No, "you don't" know that; one more 'matter of fact' that's really not a fact. One thing we do know for sure it's that Bach wrote the score, so yeah, we're definitely listening to Bach primarily. Moreover, we don't know what the heck Bach would have performed it like. It might have been closer to Gould or closer to Suzuki, or Sato, or whomever.

 

[Pieter12]

Many buildings have a separate Construction Management company that handles supervising the day-to-day construction. Or the General Contractor provides the direction. The architect gets involved only when there are questions or issues that pop up during construction. They usually approve the materials selected by the contractor. It's a team effort.

When DiVinci painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he had dozens of helpers doing the work. He directed mainly.

The photographer gives specific requirements to their photo printer. For example, size of the finished photo, where to crop, lighten here or there, etc. So that's similar to DiVinci and to architects.

Yeah, he had Michelangelo do all the work.

 

[Mike Lopez]

Yeah, he had Michelangelo do all the work.

Yeah, but was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor???

 

[snusmumriken]

You're always listening to the musician. Bach has been dead a long time.
But since you put it that way. I'd rather just view HCB's photographs.....IMO Rivellis' writings are more about himself.

Interesting, this parallel between printing and performing music. Ansel Adams too said that making a print was like performing a musical score. The performer is arguably more essential for the composer than the printer to the photographer, because the transferable currency is the score, rather than the print.

Of course sound recordings changed that somewhat. Consequently, we know how Rachmaninov played his own works, and how Stravinsky conducted his, and they sound terrific. But while you might wish photographers to print their own works, it is widely accepted that composers aren’t necessarily the best performers of their own works. Debussy was apparently a superb pianist, Ravel not so. So Ravel has always been best heard played by someone else.

We don’t know what Bach playing Bach sounded like. But if someone interpreted HCB’s negatives as idiosyncratically as Glenn Gould’s Bach, we’d all be up in arms. That’s because HCB did direct his printers, and we do know how he liked his photos to look. Whereas if he had printed his own, they’d probably have looked very different, and he’d have hated them!

 

[GregY]

Interesting, this parallel between printing and performing music. Ansel Adams too said that making a print was like performing a musical score. The performer is arguably more essential for the composer than the printer to the photographer, because the transferable currency is the score, rather than the print.

Of course sound recordings changed that somewhat. Consequently, we know how Rachmaninov played his own works, and how Stravinsky conducted his, and they sound terrific. But while you might wish photographers to print their own works, it is widely accepted that composers aren’t necessarily the best performers of their own works. Debussy was apparently a superb pianist, Ravel not so. So Ravel has always been best heard played by someone else.

We don’t know what Bach playing Bach sounded like. But if someone interpreted HCB’s negatives as idiosyncratically as Glenn Gould’s Bach, we’d all be up in arms. That’s because HCB did direct his printers, and we do know how he liked his photos to look. Whereas if he had printed his own, they’d probably have looked very different, and he’d have hated them!

I bet if HCB had printed his photographs they would have looked great, because as an artist with a sense of attention to detail....he would have perfected his darkroom skills....but he had Gassman/Picto.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Yeah, he had Michelangelo do all the work.

Better yet.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Interesting, this parallel between printing and performing music. Ansel Adams too said that making a print was like performing a musical score. The performer is arguably more essential for the composer than the printer to the photographer, because the transferable currency is the score, rather than the print.

Of course sound recordings changed that somewhat. Consequently, we know how Rachmaninov played his own works, and how Stravinsky conducted his, and they sound terrific. But while you might wish photographers to print their own works, it is widely accepted that composers aren’t necessarily the best performers of their own works. Debussy was apparently a superb pianist, Ravel not so. So Ravel has always been best heard played by someone else.

We don’t know what Bach playing Bach sounded like. But if someone interpreted HCB’s negatives as idiosyncratically as Glenn Gould’s Bach, we’d all be up in arms. That’s because HCB did direct his printers, and we do know how he liked his photos to look. Whereas if he had printed his own, they’d probably have looked very different, and he’d have hated them!

Pop, jazz and other music is often reinterpreted in differing arrangements from the original by other artists. Why can't classical be as well?

 

[MattKing]

We don’t know what Bach playing Bach sounded like.

We do know that he didn't play it on an instrument akin to a modern piano.
He probably sat on a chair or bench though of normal height.
I was listening to CBC 2 the other day when they related the story of the Brandenburg Concertos, many of which were almost left unperformed until after Bach's death.
But, like photographs, I'm sure he envisaged what they might "perform" like when he reduced them to a written score.

 

[Pieter12]

Pop, jazz and other music is often reinterpreted in differing arrangements from the original by other artists. Why can't classical be as well?

Classical is often performed on period instruments. Sometimes scores are found with the composer's notes on them, leading to a different interpretation than what is accustomed. Also, just listening to various recording of the same piece by different orchestras and conductors, on can sense differences in tempo, etc. And to your point, works are often arranged for solo instruments or smaller ensembles than the original performances.

 

[Milpool]

Pop, jazz and other music is often reinterpreted in differing arrangements from the original by other artists. Why can't classical be as well?

It can be but how well it works depends on a number of things. Since Bach was brought up there have been a few successful (in my opinion) adaptations / rearrangements of some of Bach's work.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Interesting, this parallel between printing and performing music. Ansel Adams too said that making a print was like performing a musical score. The performer is arguably more essential for the composer than the printer to the photographer, because the transferable currency is the score, rather than the print.

Having done both — performing music and printing — I totally agree that the similarities are strong. Good ol' AA was spot on.

The interpretative questions are close: What is important? should I bring out the bass line (shadows), emphasize the middle voices (mid-tones) or let the top voice sing (highlights)? Should I let the listerner (viewer) be attentive to detail or be carried by the larger form?

In photography, chosing between such and such film, such and such developer, chosing between a warm-tone or a cold-tone paper, deciding to selenium or split tone the print, etc., they'are all interpretative choices — actually, compositional if you are printing your own photo — and to a photographer they carry the same importance as does for a composer the choice of giving such and such melody to the flute vs the English horn, or giving a harmonic progression to the trombones vs to the violas.

And anybody who has listened to great performers know that they can give the illusion that light is radiating from the music the same way a great printer can give the illusion that light is radiating from the print.

 

[MattKing]

And anybody who has listened to great performers know that they can give the illusion that light is radiating from the music the same way a great printer can give the illusion that light is radiating from the print.

Otherwise, all those Canadian singers who one would never consider to be good singers would never have been as successful as they are/were
For example:

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Otherwise, all those Canadian singers who one would never consider to be good singers would never have been as successful as they are/were
For example:

That voice is the proof that deep dark tones, little shadow detail, and lots of grain can be magnificent .

 

[MattKing]

That voice is the proof that deep dark tones, little shadow detail, and lots of grain can be magnificent .

 

[Don_ih]

My guess is, Cartier-Bresson didn't make his own prints because he didn't want to spend time in a darkroom. You need to want to be in the darkroom to make good prints. If you'd rather be out wandering around, you end up like Cartier-Bresson - who paid to have all of that done - or Winogrand - who had no money so couldn't pay and ended up with a mountain of undeveloped film and similar mountain of developed but unsorted/unprinted negatives.

It's hard to imagine Winogrand in a darkroom without imagining him knocking things over and spilling chemicals everywhere....