besides photography, Goldwater and I shared another interest - ham radio. quote]
FWIW, the late King Hussein of Jordon was also an international ham operator.
Thanks for reminding me about Goldwater -- I've recently been wracking my memory trying to think of a really good photographer who is also a political conservative. The only ones I've been able to think of are essentially exercising mannered tropes, and Goldwater is certainly the arch-example of all examples. His 1950's and 1960's photos look like they should have been made a half-century earlier.
Here is the Barry Goldwater Photo website:
Dead Link Removed
A conservative from the 60's and 70's has little in common with a neocon and the circus going on today. Goldwater would likely have very serious issues with the current administration (but then again who wouldn't, doesn't, unless you have stock in Exxon)
Yes, but if you read his 'The Conscience of a Conservative' you soon see that he's a long way from the current cartoon conservative, i.e. he's not a brain-dead redneck born-again Christian warmonger.
I'm not saying the cartoon variety is the only sort of conservative there is, because Goldwater himself illustrates perfectly that this is not so. I'm just suggesting that the cartoon variety has been on the ascendant lately.
Surely there must have been a few good Nazi photographers: not Leni, please, because I really believe that she was naive rather than a committed Nazi (and indeed few Nazis apart from Hitler himself appear to have been able to stand her -- an unusually persuasive illustration of the Fuehrerprinzip, perhaps). I do recall seeing other clichéd but still arresting Nazi pictures, though. And of course on the other side of the fence there were quite a few good Communist photographers such as Aleksandr Rodchenko.
And what about Argentina? The percentage of good photographers from the Argentine has been disproportionately high, but I know little about their political sympathies.
Cheers,
R.
Here is the Barry Goldwater Photo website:
Dead Link Removed
A conservative from the 60's and 70's has little in common with a neocon and the circus going on today. Goldwater would likely have very serious issues with the current administration (but then again who wouldn't, doesn't, unless you have stock in Exxon)
In perusing his photos it is pretty clear that he photographed for the love of it, and I think that Barry Goldwater, Photographer, can stand alone and apart from Barry Goldwater, Politician.
Kudos to Mr.Goldwater. RIP
Thanks Roger, good thoughts. I'm in the middle of writing a short essay on war photography and some of the paradoxes outlined in Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others (caution: ugly images) and evaluating it in the light of the sorts of cognitive-evolutionary analysis done by researchers such as Marc Hauser at Harvard.
Basically, I think that Sontag over-interprets the failures and frustrations of war photography in its apparent inability to halt war altogether. Researchers like Hauser et al, while not studying photography directly, reveal the crucial connection for human morality (which functions at a low level with strong universality, regardless of culture) and the importance of seeing people. Sight, and by extension photography, is (to my delight) a strong moralizing, humanizing force - far stronger than words.
Conservative/liberal left/right politics aside, I personally cannot think of many (any?) visual artists of any merit who are pro-war, even in the presence of great direct threat (Goya and Picasso come to mind as artists who were clearly threatened but whose images did not advocate violence against their self-declared enemies).
Actually, today Barry Goldwater would probably be a moderate Democrat!
In perusing his photos it is pretty clear that he photographed for the love of it, and I think that Barry Goldwater, Photographer, can stand alone and apart from Barry Goldwater, Politician.
Thanks for the link Jason.
It was not my intent to spark a political debate when I posted this thread; the intent was to show that photography and politics can be separated and are not intrinsincly linked as some suggest, nor is it the private realm of a specific agenda.
I agree, and as I indicated earlier the photographs speak for themselves, as they should. I have a very fine appreciateion for the man's photographic efforts. I like his portraits very much, and I also think "Canyon Snow" is quite nice.
In fact Barry Goldwater so strongly rejected the Christian Conservative [Damnit now I have to clean my hands and my keyboard!!!] that he refused to endorse them or speak a Republican Conventions. He said you cannot legislate morals and neither should you promise them in politics.
Steve
I was in California when Goldwater was a presidential candidate. I hope he chose not to endorse some of the Christian conservatives there. However, some certainly endorsed him. Several radio stations seemed to exist solely to raise money, tout Goldwater, and damn most of the World to eternal fire and brimstone. It tainted Goldwater by association, even if he may have rejected their stance..
Well, nobody can really be responsible for those people, and who'd want to?
Anyway, I' like to discuss his photography. The article indicates a body of about 15,000 pieces of work, so it was certainly not a passing fancy. The site has about two or three dozen.
There is a nice little page on the sight devoted to his equipment and methods, in his own words. He shot PlusX and later, TriX.
JB,
Following on your suggestion I did a quick review of a couple of dozen of the photos on the website.
Sorry, but I think they are "nice shots" but they reveal that Barry's calling was not photography.
They do provide an interesting historical record, however, of and earlier, more bucolic, AZ. The one that existed up until the boom began after the water and electric resources made possible by the Salt River Project started coming online around 1980.
EDIT: BTW, I think his photographic work tailed off after the 1950's. One might say he was a bit of a "renaissance man"; another might use the term "dilletante".
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