In The American West

Carnie Bob · 2025-07-26T08:47:27-0400

Pieter12 said:
Interestingly enough, I find many of Penn's photographs don't reproduce well. The Small Trades images in the book have little shadow detail, while I recall they looked beautiful in person. I think his fashion work reproduces better because he shot it for that purpose.

Penn printed with deep blacks going further up the scale than others to make his prints more bold, I have seen in hand a very large ( motorcycle dude) and the shadows were definitely crunched to a large degree. I have also seen in my shop one of the Small Trades portraits much smaller that had the same traits.

warden · 2025-07-26T09:08:26-0400

DREW WILEY said:
17,000 shots for 124 final keepers - that's a dismal success rate!

You’re thinking like an accountant while Avedon was thinking and behaving like a photographer.

Alex Benjamin · 2025-07-26T09:24:47-0400

The eternal return of the same. Nietzsche was right.

I don't like Avedon's work

{This offtopic diversion was split off of the place it originally posted in: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/how-big-can-one-print-mf.212291/} I recall seeing a lot of huge square blow-ups of Avedon's shots of factory workers and so forth against his usual blank white backdrops, up high...

www.photrio.com

Alan Edward Klein · 2025-07-26T09:41:07-0400

Where do you store 17,000 8x10s?

warden · 2025-07-26T09:51:51-0400

Alan Edward Klein said:
Where do you store 17,000 8x10s?

In a museum.

warden · 2025-07-26T09:57:31-0400

Alex Benjamin said:
The eternal return of the same. Nietzsche was right.

I don't like Avedon's work

{This offtopic diversion was split off of the place it originally posted in: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/how-big-can-one-print-mf.212291/} I recall seeing a lot of huge square blow-ups of Avedon's shots of factory workers and so forth against his usual blank white backdrops, up high...

www.photrio.com

I totally forgot about that thread. I blame you for reminding me!

prado333 · 2025-07-26T11:43:11-0400

DREW WILEY said:
Carnie Bob said:

Drew it depends on how one quantifies success in photographic imagery , Yours or Avedon.

Click to expand...

He did photos to other people but destruyed these negatives. He toke Photographs to several hundred people

prado333 · 2025-07-26T11:53:16-0400

In a book a out the project his assistant Laura Wilson , a western photographer herself , wrote 752 people were photographed and 123 portraits selected for the exhibition. The book is Avedon at work published by university Texas Press. It is a very interesting book about the work of Avedon in the american west

Arthurwg · 2025-07-26T12:28:31-0400

DREW WILEY said:
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".

Got to agree with that. The bee keeper photo is completely false and should not have been included.

DREW WILEY · 2025-07-26T12:47:43-0400

Conversation always gets interesting when a sacred cow is involved. One person's god is another person's hamburger.

If I were to spend time at the Amon Carter Museum, I'd be far more interested in the prints of Laura Gilpin - that's someone who had real empathy with her subjects, and wasn't just making a curiosity insect collection out of them, pinned to a white sheet.

warden · 2025-07-27T01:09:46-0400

DREW WILEY said:
I'd be far more interested in the prints of Laura Gilpin - that's someone who had real empathy with her subjects, and wasn't just making a curiosity insect collection out of them, pinned to a blah blah blah

If I was fortunate enough to be visiting this museum I would love to see both of these artists actually. What a fine day of art tourism that would be.

It’s possible to enjoy both artists, you know, and there’s really no requirement to publicly shit on one artist in order to enjoy the other unless this is really about posturing. It’s clear from your generous posting history that you have a need to shit on Avedon, and that’s fine I suppose, but maybe after all of your efforts you can recognize that your point has at long last been made, and just, you know, let it go.

Willy T · 2025-07-27T08:01:44-0400

Gee, Fellas.

We saw the show in the 80s at the Corcoran, bought the book, met Avedon.

While we had some (small) reservations about the treatment of (some of) the subjects, we nonetheless enjoyed it for what it was - a performance by an artist, and not needing to have been vetted for purity/honesty of intent, approach, or execution.

In The American West

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