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skellum
22nd August 2014, 10:44 PM
I had a conversation with a friend recently which went along the lines of "if you could spend a day anywhere, at any time in history, where would it be?"
My friend suggested being there on the day the great pyramid of Giza was finished. Or to see the Nuremberg rallies, and try to understand them.

It made me think-
For me, and I suspect many, photography is a rather solitary occupation. However, we all enjoy a bit of photo-chat with a pal sometimes. So, if you could spend a day shooting (or just shooting the breeze) with anyone, who would it be??
For me, I'd love a morning with Atget, prowling the grounds of Versailles in the mist with a big old view camera. His photographs are timeless, quiet, peaceful. On a similar note I really enjoy still life, and I wish I could have seen Josek Sudek at work in his studio. He managed to transform the simplest of items into things of beauty through his complete mastery of lighting.
Or, a session (studio or pub) with the late Bob Carlos Clarke. I'd love to talk to him about still-life, and nudes, and tell him people really loved his work.
So, who would you spend a day with?
And if I might ask, why?

alexmuir
22nd August 2014, 11:13 PM
Horst. He shows complete control of the image. His prints remind me of paintings, formulated in the mind and perfectly executed to make full use of the frame.
Alex

skellum
23rd August 2014, 12:03 AM
Good choice.
99.something% of the population have never heard the name, but how many have seen
http://www.horstphorst.com/images/corset_home.jpg
What a beautifully constructed photograph.

If I remember rightly, he fled Europe ahead of the Nazis with little more than the clothes he stood up in. Did he flourish as an artist in spite of those horrors, or as a sign of defiance against them?
If you like Horst, how about Karsh?

Maybe great photographers need a snappy one-word name?
Cheers, Skellum . . .
:p

Ian Marsh
23rd August 2014, 07:08 AM
I love that image. When I was in the UK one of my clients was Christies and we mounted the photos for their sales, this came up fairly regularly and it always captivated me, but way out of my reach financially

A photographer I would love to have met was Julia Margaret Cameron She was a real pioneer and the images have a wonderful feeling to them

richardw
23rd August 2014, 07:49 AM
I had a conversation with a friend recently which went along the lines of "if you could spend a day anywhere, at any time in history, where would it be?"
My friend suggested being there on the day the great pyramid of Giza was finished. Or to see the Nuremberg rallies, and try to understand them.

It made me think-
For me, and I suspect many, photography is a rather solitary occupation. However, we all enjoy a bit of photo-chat with a pal sometimes. So, if you could spend a day shooting (or just shooting the breeze) with anyone, who would it be??
For me, I'd love a morning with Atget, prowling the grounds of Versailles in the mist with a big old view camera. His photographs are timeless, quiet, peaceful. On a similar note I really enjoy still life, and I wish I could have seen Josek Sudek at work in his studio. He managed to transform the simplest of items into things of beauty through his complete mastery of lighting.
Or, a session (studio or pub) with the late Bob Carlos Clarke. I'd love to talk to him about still-life, and nudes, and tell him people really loved his work.
So, who would you spend a day with?
And if I might ask, why?

I think you've said it all! Can I join you please...?
:D
richard

Eriktheviking
23rd August 2014, 09:26 AM
For me I would like to spend some time with Dorothea Lange. She over came her own physical problems and used her skill as a photographer to capture the effects of the great depression in such and visually empathic but beautiful way.

or some time with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston learning their mastery of the landscape and how to print the image for the most impact. Not the most obscure and unheard of photographers I know but real masters of their art which I believe is the reason they are so popular.

Steven
23rd August 2014, 10:23 AM
I think I would be happy to spend a day with almost any good photographer - the important thing for me would be less who it was, exactly, because I could learn a great deal from any of them.... But more important would be the ability to ask sensible question and then listen to the answers without interrupting - without some clueless interviewer getting in the way who wants the 'human angle'.

"Yes Mr. adams, I've heard the one about playing the piano in your youth, but would you mind explaining to me exactly how you determined the exposure for this negative? No, no, I've got all day... Please carry on".

But since you asked for a person, I think a day with someone like Gene Nocon (if printers are allowed) and I would probably learn more that I could probably teach myself in ten years....

Alan Clark
23rd August 2014, 10:31 AM
Skellum, what an excellent idea. I don't know how you are going to arrange it but I would love to spend the morning with James Raviliouus.
He would take me round one or two of his favourite farms in North Devon, photographing the people who work the land. I'd be especially interested in how he got so much humanity into his work, and how he achieved such wonderful framing and composition.
In the afternoon I would meet up with Denis Thorpe the ex-Guardian photographer, another wonderful photographer of people whose retrospective exhibition made a big impression on me a few years ago. We would go off on an assignment and I know I would learn some valuable things just from watching him at work.
The day would end with a visit to a quiet pub when I would buy them both a drink and look at some of their original prints.

Alan

skellum
23rd August 2014, 10:47 AM
Of course, Ravilious. His photographs go beyond just the documentary level. He really knew his subjects, and his photographs are beautiful. Some look almost luminous. And, so far as I can gather from reading about him, a very self effacing individual for all his talent.

Alan Clark
23rd August 2014, 11:14 AM
Skellum, I think Ravilious was in a special class of great photographers, and very under-rated generally.

Alan

big paul
23rd August 2014, 11:59 AM
well I am going for three photographers they are David bailey Terence Donovan Brian Duffy the famous cockney trinity, and if I can have a time machine I would go back to the swinging 60s and I would like to hit the town with them three ,I can imagine it ,me David Terence and Brian a couple of dolly birds one on each arm ,what a night that would be and then hang out with them for a couple of days , ...The only one left now is Bailey and I don't think that he goes up west with a couple of dolly birds anymore ,so I would like to hang about in his studio, watching him working and listening to the story's of his life .as photographers go he is the only one that I have taken an interest in ,the best photographer we have (my opinion). the only culture I ever had when I was a kid was the stuff growing on the toilet wall ,so no posh photographers for me ....

www.essexcockney.com

alexmuir
23rd August 2014, 03:43 PM
Paul, have you seen the film about David Bailey? It's called "We'll take Manhattan", and it's very good. It's about his early career going to New York to do a shoot for Vogue. I was given a copy on DVD, but I expect you would get it from one of the big online DVD stores.
Alex

Argentum
23rd August 2014, 04:03 PM
how about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and Peter Henry Emerson. I think they would all make for very interesting people to meet.

skellum
23rd August 2014, 06:43 PM
Penn is actually a real favourite of mine. In his portrait work he seemed to make a connection with his subjects, yet the photographs still manage to be technically perfect and very graphic. There's one of Picasso which is quie striking.
And no, sadly I didn't know who Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was until I googled him (that would be Lewis Carroll, for the benefit of others like me).

Argentum
23rd August 2014, 08:01 PM
And no, sadly I didn't know who Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was until I googled him (that would be Lewis Carroll, for the benefit of others like me).

Not a lot of people know he was an acomplished photographer amongst his many skills.


1857
HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING

Lewis Carroll


From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing; But he
opened out the hinges, pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
till it looked all squares and oblongs, like a complicated figure In
the second book of Euclid.
This he perched upon a tripod, crouched beneath its dusky cover, stretched his hand, enforcing silence said, “Be motionless, I beg you!” Mystic, awful was the process.

All the family in order,sat before him for their pictures:
Each in turn as he was taken, volunteered his own suggestions, his ingenious suggestions.

First the Governor, the Father: He suggested velvet curtains looped about a massy pillar and the corner of a table, of a rosewood dining-table.
He would hold a scroll of something, hold it firmly in his lefthand; he would keep his right-hand buried (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat. He would contemplate the distance with a look of pensive meaning, as of ducks that die in tempests. Grand, heroic was the notion: Yet the picture failed entirely: Failed because he moved a little, moved because he couldn’t help it.

Next, his better half took courage; She would have her picture taken. She came dressed beyond description, dressed in jewels and satin far too gorgeous for an empress. Gracefully she sat down sideways, with a simper scarcely human, holding in her hand a bouquet rather larger than a cabbage. All the while that she was sitting, still the lady chattered, chattered like a monkey in the forest. “Am I sitting still?” she asked him. “Is my face enough in profile? Shall I hold the bouquet higher? Will it come into the picture?”
And the picture failed completely.

Next the Son, the Stunning Cantab: He suggested curves of beauty, curves pervading all his figure, which the eye might follow onward, till they centred in the breast-pin, centred in the golden breast-pin. He had learnt it all from Ruskin (Author of “The Stones of Venice”, “Seven Lamps of Architecture”, “Modern Painters”, and some others); And perhaps he had not fully Understood his author’s meaning; but, whatever was the reason, all was fruitless, as the picture ended in an utter failure.

Next to him the eldest daughter: She suggested very little, only asked if he would take her with her look of “passive beauty”. Her idea of passive beauty was a squinting of the left-eye, was a drooping of the right-eye, was a smile that went up sideways to the corner of the nostrils.
Hiawatha, when she asked him, took no notice of the question, Looked as if he hadn’t heard it; but, when pointedly appealed to, smiled in his peculiar manner, coughed and said it “didn’t matter”, bit his lip and changed the subject. Nor in this was he mistaken, as the picture failed completely.

So in turn the other sisters. Last, the youngest son was taken: Very rough and thick his hair was, very round and red his face was, very dusty was his jacket, very fidgety his manner. And his overbearing sisters called him names he disapproved of: Called him Johnny, “Daddy’s Darling”, called him Jacky, “Scrubby School-boy”. And, so awful was the picture, in comparison the others seemed, to one’s bewildered fancy, to have partially succeeded.

Finally my Hiawatha Tumbled all the tribe together, (“Grouped” is
not the right expression), and, as happy chance would have it did at last obtain a picture where the faces all succeeded: Each came out a perfect likeness. Then they joined and all abused it, unrestrainedly abused it, As the worst and ugliest picture they could possibly have dreamed of. “Giving one such strange expressions, sullen, stupid, pert expressions. Really anyone would take us (Anyone that did not know us) for the most unpleasant people!” (Hiawatha seemed to think so, seemed to think it not unlikely.) All together rang their voices, angry, loud, discordant voices, as of dogs that howl in concert, as of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha’s patience, his politeness and his patience, unaccountably had vanished, and he left that happy party. Neither did he leave them slowly, with the calm deliberation, the intense deliberation of a photographic artist: But he left them in a hurry, left them in a mighty hurry, stating that he would not stand it, stating in emphatic language what he’d be before he’d stand it. Hurriedly he packed his boxes: Hurriedly the porter trundled on a barrow all his boxes: Hurriedly he took his ticket: Hurriedly the train received him: Thus departed Hiawatha.

big paul
23rd August 2014, 08:06 PM
thanks for that Alex ,yes I have seen it, the other one I like is blow up very loosely based on bailey ,the bit that was true was the propeller bit .What a life that man has had ,and he sees it as it is .the modern replacement for bailey is I think Rankin he is a very clever man and to stay at the top he has to have a lot of things going on at once ,its different world today ,very much business orientated .maybe I should have said Rankin he seems a nice person with a sense of humour and he has a beautiful wife Tuuli ,they both dog lovers like myselth



essexcockney.com

Argentum
24th August 2014, 03:29 AM
Penn is actually a real favourite of mine. In his portrait work he seemed to make a connection with his subjects, yet the photographs still manage to be technically perfect and very graphic. There's one of Picasso which is quie striking.
And no, sadly I didn't know who Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was until I googled him (that would be Lewis Carroll, for the benefit of others like me).

I'm thinking Henry Lartigue and Emmanuel Radnitzky too, we can get them all and have a FADU historic photographers weekend party.

skellum
24th August 2014, 11:21 AM
Funny you should mention Lartigue. At the moment I'm spending a lot of my time shooting stereograms. I even sent a few as my offering on the last round of the print exchange. Part of my interest came from seeing Lartigues own early stereo work. He carried a stereo camera everywhere, and even managed 'street photography' in stereo.

JohnX
24th August 2014, 04:10 PM
Tomorrow I'm meeting Irving Penn, we're gonna have latte then shoot some occupational portraits, fashion and a bit of Clinique for Vogue.
Then in the evening I'm going round to Robs for a big spliff, a bit of still life and some male nudes :/...

don't wait up..:)

Argentum
24th August 2014, 04:46 PM
Tomorrow I'm meeting Irving Penn, we're gonna have latte then shoot some occupational portraits, fashion and a bit of Clinique for Vogue.
Then in the evening I'm going round to Robs for a big spliff, a bit of still life and some male nudes :/...

don't wait up..:)
Are you sure you haven't had one already ;)

cliveh
24th August 2014, 06:56 PM
No question, as for me it would be with HCB when he took this:-

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=military+appraisal+at+moscow+trolley+stop&rlz=1C1CHFX_en-GBGB558GB558&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=gzX6U4m0GZD07AaJ6IHYDw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAw&biw=1280&bih=899#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=0Ohhyyl0pMg9nM%253A%3BK9lBeXEZObwjBM%3Bhttp% 253A%252F%252Fnews.bbcimg.co.uk%252Fmedia%252Fimag es%252F52383000%252Fjpg%252F_52383964_52371041.jpg %3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.bbc.co.uk%252Fnews%252Fi n-pictures-13208423%3B304%3B470

The reason is because it is a photographer’s picture and probably not appreciated as much by the general public. In this image I think HCB has made a compromise between composition (not a great composition) and moment. What makes it really brilliant is not just the expression of the woman on the left, but the fine line between the woman on the right and the profile of the woman in the distance. One of his quotes reads thus:- The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is a question of millimetres – small, small difference. But it’s essential. I don’t think there’s so much difference between photographers, but it’s that little difference that counts, maybe. - Henri Cartier-Bresson -quoted in the interview by Sheila Turner Seed. [cited in: “Popular Photography, May 1974, p. 142 “Henri Cartier-Bresson”]
In this picture we have proof of this quotation.

Michael
24th August 2014, 08:52 PM
Kertesz for me!

Michael
24th August 2014, 08:54 PM
... or Steichen-Strand-Stieglitz

skellum
24th August 2014, 08:56 PM
Rob???

http://www.nccsc.net/sites/default/files/Robert%20Maplethorpe_Self%20Portrait%20with%20Horn s_0.jpg

JohnX
24th August 2014, 10:25 PM
Rob???

http://www.nccsc.net/sites/default/files/Robert%20Maplethorpe_Self%20Portrait%20with%20Horn s_0.jpg


Thats the fella....:D

Terry S
25th August 2014, 11:20 AM
Thats the fella....:D

Although I admire some of Mapplethorpe's pictures, it's his printer that I would also like to have talked to / watched in action.

Terry S

Just found a link to the printers name = Tom Baril : http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qmNjOTXXRdoC&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=robert+mapplethorpe%27s+darkroom+printer&source=bl&ots=eboRMLp4mF&sig=6GcLof9ZWDlX9B1rjOvL-QMiT68&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PB77U8CQMcjjaLmegaAE&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=robert%20mapplethorpe%27s%20darkroom%20printer&f=false

JohnX
25th August 2014, 12:18 PM
Yeah, printing is where its at on both counts really, but I doubt I'd learn much in a couple of hours and a spliff.
I'd like to see how they both go about set up and shoot in a studio environment, I don't do much studio now but I have done in the past and its tough going when you can't make excuses...:D