Richard Avedon, by Irving Penn
What a great portrait. I'd say that part of the story is revealed in this picture. He's obviously hiding, obviously scared. And I believe he envied Penn's happy marriage, something he could not have himself. Penn proved that you don't have to be deeply neurotic and unhappy to be an artistic genius.
Alan - I double checked on Google Earth. That aerial shot does indeed look like the Mt Taylor area southwest of Albuquerque in New Mexico. It's actually in south central NM. Mt Taylor is an extinct volcano over 11,000 ft high, so winter snow would be typical. The long straight lava flow to its south is a Natl Monument.
Richard Avedon, by Irving Penn
You surely must be kidding.
My absolute favourite vacation spot in USA is Texas , love the state not so big on BBq these days but I have travelled there on a few occasions and enjoyed myself immensely.
Please tell us where you go and what you find interesting.
17,000 shots for 124 final keepers - that's a dismal success rate! Imagine what that would could in 8x10 film today, plus his overhead in assistants, travel expenses, and a certain number of actually paid models.
I believe Avedon never meant it to be a document about the west, more of a personal exploration of people he found there. Yes, the beekeeper wass imported, I'm not sure if he was paid. And the photos were taken in 17 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. As far as the 17,000 shots for 124 keepers, of the 752 people that were photographed only 124 made it into the final edit, so the ratio does not reflect what it seems to at first read.Pieter - at least Robert Frank was burning 35mm film, not 8x10. I've never admired machine-gunners; yet we need them more than ever just to keep up the demand for more film manufacture. Yeah, the life's work of most significant photographers can be reduced down to just a few truly iconic images; but at what point is this just nervous energy hoping to get lucky. The artistic element appears in the editing
afterwards.
In terms of importing models, the bee keeper was an infamous example. It's an interesting book, but so saturated with pretense and Avedon's personal advertising ethos, that it tells us way more about him than the "West". And I don't count Texas as being part of the West; but I guess to some New Yorkers, with their myopia of cultural self-importance, anything west of their own city limits is. But no need for me to repeat what I've stated before; different people obviously have different takes of that project - some positive, some skeptical.
It's not landscape or a Sears portrait. A photographer like Avedon would "work" the subjects until he got what he wanted. Plus, I'll bet he didn't have much depth of field with the 8x10 and Tri-X in open shade and was dealing with people who might move around and not end up sharp. That takes film. He could have just as well been shooting medium format if he did not intend to make the prints as large as they are. Weston went through film, too. But mostly because of technical issues--light leaks, vibrations during very long exposures, sometimes just bad film or damaged packaging.Well, even with those statistics, that's an average of over twenty sheets of film per person - certainly not exceptional for that era of abundant sheet film, but overall, rather staggering in terms of the whole quantity. Calendar and nature photographers could be just as reckless in terms of 4X5 color chrome film consumption. David Muench boasted in how many sheets he could shoot in a single day - nothing to boast in, in my opinion, just a lack of priority. Different era, mighty good for Kodak's bottom line, at least.
Not enough detail in the shadows.
Obviously he should have done Stand Development in Caffenol...and used stop bath.
Weston had darn little money, Pieter, and couldn't waste much of either film or paper. Whole different mentality. Yeah, shore surf splash etc had its odds. But, except when he had the luxury of grants, EW had to support himself with a conventional one-man portrait studio which hardly inspired him. By contrast, Avedon was a well-heeled fashion and advertising photographer who could afford to be wasteful
and have a retinue of assistants. He also liked to capture offhand lucky postures or unguarded facial expressions - totally different style.
About as different as two photographers could be - one poetically sensitive and contemplative, the other downright brash (and visually obnoxious in my own opinion).
no, I'm quite serious. At the very end of the 20th century, Detroit was a battlefield. It may be better now.
17,000 shots for 124 final keepers - that's a dismal success rate! Imagine what that would could in 8x10 film today, plus his overhead in assistants, travel expenses, and a certain number of actually paid models.
Yup.Drew it depends on how one quantifies success in photographic imagery , Yours or Avedon.
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