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-   -   Harold Feinstein, same league as H C-B, Elliot Erwitt. Harold who? (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=13507)

RickEmmanuel 12th November 2020 10:40 AM

Harold Feinstein, same league as H C-B, Elliot Erwitt. Harold who?
 
Where have I been for 50 years not to have heard of this mid-to-late 20thC New York photographer who died in 2015. Still, no one else has. My wife called me to watch a Sky Arts documentary on the guy. A fascinating and independent personality moulded into a picture-taker whose work was stripped of sentimentality. Though he never saw people as freaks or wrecks at the edges of society. He never denigrated. His people all retain human dignity. What we see is how ordinary New Yorkers spent their lives. The close-up was his method. Limbs, bodies, smiles, lips, teeth, frowns, love, anguish. The tattooed guy staring at the lens at Coney Island 'looks like he's gonna knife you'; he was fearless. Yet he captured more of the inner self than many of his famous contemporaries. Not like HC-B, more in the Erwitt, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus vein but charged with 5000 volts of humanism that few others can match. Escaping a brutal father at 15 he had pictures accepted at MOMA whilst still a teenager. And then the great 'Family of Man' curator Edward Steichen in the 50's took six. But (and this is huge) Feinstein snatched them away before Steichen could 'mess with them'. So ended Feinstein's upward ascent. He disappeared into obscurity. He was not represented by any classy gallery. He vanished... but he never stopped using up film and converting the frames into wonders in his darkroom. He emerged again as an old man. His book is changing hands at over £600, now. What an eye, what a brain, what a spirit!

Terry S 12th November 2020 12:45 PM

Another interesting character that has so far by passed my radar.

Sky on the web allow you to watch it, but again it looks like you have to surrender some details by downloading their app. Will I or won't I?... I think I will check to see if it's on Sky Arts again soon first.

https://www.sky.com/watch/sky-go/win...p9qb4Qwm4Dshgs

There is also a Kickstarter campaign for a DVD, which may well be the above...?

Also lots of shorts on his web-page:

https://www.feinsteinfilm.com/clips

...and on Youtube:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?biw=...0.La0CgjYUDDo:

Terry S

MikeHeller 12th November 2020 03:43 PM

Thanks, Terry; lots of material and info to plumb in the second two links. The first, as you say, was to download a Sky app and as I do not subscribe to Sky and I suspect that I would have to pay to download it, I was not tempted to investigate further.
Thanks, Mike

snusmumriken 26th November 2021 08:01 AM

Thanks for this, Terry. Wonderful photos! I've ordered the DVD.

It's a pity people don't smoke much nowadays - the atmosphere was so much more photogenic in those days!

Jonathan

Mike O'Pray 26th November 2021 12:25 PM

Yes I enjoyed the Feinstein video recently, Rick. Like you Terry I wonder about all these wonderful "free" apps.

These days the only thing that isn't "free" is the lunch :D

Mike

Terry S 26th November 2021 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terry S (Post 136656)
There is also a Kickstarter campaign for a DVD...

Terry S

The Kickstarter campaign has long finished, but I was glad this thread came to the surface again, so that I could watch some of the videos and look at some of his work again. Even on a monitor, some of the prints look really good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by snusmumriken (Post 142444)
Thanks for this, Terry. Wonderful photos! I've ordered the DVD.

Jonathan

And I just have too Jonathan. I have a growing collection of photographer DVD's and I'm sure this one won't disappoint. :)

For anyone else interested in the DVD, it can be found at this link:

https://www.feinsteinfilm.com/

Terry S

snusmumriken 10th January 2022 05:32 PM

Finally found time to watch the Feinstein DVD. It's 1½ hrs, and includes quite of lot of scene-setting contemporary imagery, and it pads out interviews with the man himself using interviews with critics, associates, friends, relations and partners (quite a few of those). In total it give a good feel for Feinstein's work and character. His are beautiful, warm-hearted photos, stunningly printed. Very glad I ordered the DVD.

Also on the DVD there's a walk-around one of Feinstein's exhibitions with a commentary from Feinstein himself, so we get the back-story on many of his best-known photos.


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