Category: art school

Getting Here -out of Art School

Posted on Posted in A Symbol Life, about, art school, morning wood, on photographers1 Comment

There was a time, the early 70s, when a small list, your teachers and fellow students could get you to a large world of artists. Not the entire world, but certainly a grand sampling. Ask 3 people to introduce you to another few people, who introduce you, who help even more, until – BAM, a contact list. Just 3 months work… it could be done again, only the names would be different.

that group:

Bob Flick;Joel Meyerowitz; Van Deren Coke; Joe Deal;  Ron Walker;  Lee Witkin;  Al Sweetman;  Don Drowty; Ellen Brooks;  Dennis Hearne;  Elaine Mayes; Bart Parker;  Larry Sultan;  Ed West;  Arthur Siegel;Leonard Freed;  Margery Mann;  Harry Callahan; Gary Metz; Peter Gowland;  Ansel Adams;  Ed Ruscha; Grace Mayer;  Mike Mandel;  Harold Allen;  Laura Gilpin;  Hank Smith;  Anne Tucker;  Phil Perkis;  Michael Simon;  Bill Owens; Manuel Bravo;  Nathan Lyons;  Bill Arnold;  Jim Hajicek;  Les Krims;  Joyce Neimanas; Judy Dater;  Al Coleman;  Ira Nowinski; Jack Welpott; Linda Parry;  Burke Uzzle;  Jim Dow;  Dave Freund; Todd Walker;  Catherine Jansen;  Eva Rubinstein;  Eddie Sievers; Minor White; Michael Becotte;  Fred McDarrah;  Richard Link;  Betty Hahn; Nick Hlobeczy; Bob Cumming;Ken Josephson;  Naomi Savage;  John Divola; Tom Barrow; Carl Chiarenza; Bea Nettles;  Roger Mertin;  John Benson; Cal Kowal;  Aaron Siskind;  R. von Sternberg;  Paige Pinnell;  Arthur Tress;  Jacob Deschin;  Linda Connor; Don Blumbeing;  Jim Alinder;  Harold Jones;  M.J. Walker;  Bill Parker; Al Woolpert;  Duke Baltz; Gus Kayafas;Duane Michals;  Darryl Curran; Arnold Newman; Geoff Winningham; Paul Vanderbilt; Anne Noggle; Timo Pajunen;Edmund Teske; Imogen Cunningham; Andy Anderson;  Bill Larson;  Pete Bunnell; Robert Doherty;  Joe Jachna; Oscar Bailey; Jerry Uelsmann; Art Sinsabaugh;  Charles Roitz;  Doug Stewart; Chuck Swedlund;  Bill Edwards;  Bobby Heinecken;  Micha Bar-Am;  Beaumont Newhall;  Wynn Bullock; Jerry McMillan;  John Schulze; Neal Slavin; Lee Rice; Joan Lyons; Bill Jenkins; Fred Sommer;  Barbara Crane; Emmet Gowin; Barbara Morgan; Mark Power;  Cornell Capa;  Lionel Suntop; Bunny Yeager; Doug Prince;  Eileen Cowin;  Eve Sonneman; Reg Heron;  Scott Hyde;Conrad Pressma;  John Szarkowski;  Bill Eggleston;  Mike Bishop;  Bob Fichter; Liliane DeCock; Tom Porett;  Arnold Crane; Arnold Gassan;  Elliott Erwitt;  Len Gittleman;

Many are gone. Most aren’t even remembered, yet at one time they were the time.

Post, expanded —

(8/27/17) … In an online world, experts like to block, to maintain their own value, self-appraisal. I have this blog, others choose to hold forth in sponsored forums. One person asked a question of me about the above, which I thought I’d prefaced correctly with the (now bolded section). Anyway, his question:

“What is the source of your list?” (Merg Ross)

He may not be expert blocking. I don’t know. Rather than answer back on that forum, I’ll expand here just a bit.

I began photography seriously by learning dye transfer. After just a few weeks of training, I was making airbrushed separation negatives; reading every scrap of information I could. These first efforts were in technique, the same thing every learning does – get the elementary done; collect all the elements you can handle. In doing that, I noticed that the Kodak materials were not complete, even somewhat scattered, or even outright wrong. What should be done? I contacted Kodak. Made a call to the main switchboard. After a few transfers, I got hold of a woman who had written some of the dataguides. Jeanette was the first person I spoke to who knew the famous. And she was generous with introductions. Like many structural keepers, she shared easily after qualification. She told me about Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana. I visited him, but didn’t feel that school was my path…not at that stage. I was a working commercial photographer able to set my own schedule; able to make any pictures I wanted on my time.

Then (a few years on) came my draft notice. I went. I returned. My DEROS was to Oakland Terminal in the middle of the night I was ‘exited.’ With cash in hand I went into San Francisco.

The next morning, I walked to a camera store to get supplies, which they didn’t have; however, the counter clerk told me about Adolph Gasser out on Geary Boulevard. It was there that I met Gene Saunders, the salesman who sold me my enlarger. He also told me about a new gallery that was exclusively photography.

Focus Gallery on Union Street was a haven for the world of photographers. Helen Head Johnson was the keeper. I showed her some of my dye transfers. She began introducing me to people, and suggested I check out SFAI since I had the GI bill and no real job. She told me to be certain to talk to Margery Mann.

I did. I enrolled. I got an MFA. The program was small, some of my fellow students were Larry Sultan, Mike Mandel, Harry Bowers, Adal Maldonado …

Oh, one other thing: a friend from the Army days worked for the phone company at Pine/Bush with something called ESS. He had access to every phone in the US. Everyone who had a phone, he had their address. Sweet. So, for awhile, I published something called the Contact Sheet – an address book for fine artists who wanted to connect.

Dispute Among Debutantes

Posted on Posted in art school, morning wood, The Why

The dispute being at the beginning was what made it matter; would the answer make it art.

PH or HP? High heels or Low heels at the dance.

Peter Henry Emerson (13 May 1856 – 12 May 1936) and Henry Peach Robinson (9 July 1830, 21 February 1901) were early photographers with divergent approaches to photography. At least they argued about it. Emerson, a writer who used photography to make records of birds, set the standard. He also came in after Robinson.

Emerson trained as a physician; Robinson as a painter. Emerson believed that the camera was the key to photography being distinct, therefore of value. He thought the camera was capable of science – that people in pictures should be wearing their own natural clothes. He also championed the mimicry of the ‘human eye’ – he taught that the camera lens must be made to reproduce human vision: sharp in the middle; blurring to the outer edge. Somehow, he missed the circular, upside down, etc. parts of human vision. But he was a doctor, not a philosopher.

Which picture is the ‘fake’ photograph?

Left
Right

The one on the left is a ‘pitcher portrait’ “Confessions” by Emerson – It is the real photograph. The one on the right, “Day’s Work Is Done” by Robinson is a multiple print, so qualifies as a fake, drawing the ire of Emerson.

Even in 1970, student photographers considered the distinctions stilted, anachronistic, irrelevant to their artistic principals or image considerations. They are both attempts at story telling. The story being told is generic, well established emotionally without device. The frames are used similarly, the tone ranges vary, but not enough to be claimed as superior presentations of story or fact.

For those who know painting of the time you understand some of the relationships, as well as the morals being promoted by the photographers. These weren’t their invention, not even their discovery; they were following the same paths, but using different steps. And like so many people striving to lead to the same place, they argued about the better way. They couldn’t see how much alike they were.

They danced to the same music — one on the ‘stage’ of the camera; the other on the stage of the darkroom. One made a negative, the other made prints from many negatives. As if one shot a single camera one take, the other multiple camera spliced movie. Among aesthetically accomplished photographers both approaches are handled easily.

It is unlikely that either of these images would be shown as new work without expecting some smiles, grins or even laughter. Cast, and costumed differently you may get a show; but not an argument.

“The Human eye is not even centered, the magnitude of the corneal eccentricity appears to be quite irregular and adventitious, and so on.” — Helmholz