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Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.

Explore the world of vintage lenses through repair notes, real test shots, and detailed archive threads packed with images.
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Vivian Maier
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Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:03 pm
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Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:03 pm
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I found the story about Vivian Maier intriguing....later I wondered...how many more anonymous photographers are out there,both departed and living...

http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=42,8,80&pid=A1hO97qcWo7ViDL_rWniVH2LakYxNa7J

Patience please...the video takes a moment or two to load....


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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 2:10 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 2:10 pm
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Probably quite a few. A surprising number of the "superstars" have only turned up late in life or posthumously. There's Eugene Atget, who documented Paris more than a century ago, there's Karl Blossfeldt who beavered away at his plant photos for decades before publishing a book that became iconic, there's Jacques Henri Lartigue whose childhood racing car photo from the 20s or 30s is seen everywhere, but who wasn't "discovered" until he was 69, more recently Seidu Keita from Mali was discovered long after he had retired from his studio and now his shots from the 50s and 60s are being hawked round the auction rooms.

In many cases, the transition from forgotten studio hack to master art photographer seems to depend on having your work promoted by a big-wig in the art establishment. Lartigue (whose car photo was, apparently, an accident as he always tried to get the whole car in the frame) was "discovered" by the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Obviously, these stars were very good photographers, two of them were full-time professionals. but they were only known in a comparatively narrow area before being catapulted to international fame.

If there are any museum curators reading this, please note that I haven't been discovered yet, but I'm starting to work on it Wink


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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:41 am
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:41 am
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Now that's what I'm talking about.


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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:18 am
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:18 am
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PaulC wrote:
Probably quite a few. A surprising number of the "superstars" have only turned up late in life or posthumously. There's Eugene Atget, who documented Paris more than a century ago, there's Karl Blossfeldt who beavered away at his plant photos for decades before publishing a book that became iconic, there's Jacques Henri Lartigue whose childhood racing car photo from the 20s or 30s is seen everywhere, but who wasn't "discovered" until he was 69, more recently Seidu Keita from Mali was discovered long after he had retired from his studio and now his shots from the 50s and 60s are being hawked round the auction rooms.

In many cases, the transition from forgotten studio hack to master art photographer seems to depend on having your work promoted by a big-wig in the art establishment. Lartigue (whose car photo was, apparently, an accident as he always tried to get the whole car in the frame) was "discovered" by the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Obviously, these stars were very good photographers, two of them were full-time professionals. but they were only known in a comparatively narrow area before being catapulted to international fame.

If there are any museum curators reading this, please note that I haven't been discovered yet, but I'm starting to work on it Wink


So you have seen the BBC documentary series "The Genius of Photography"? Wink


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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:20 am
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:20 am
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Yeah, but the first half seemed to be lifted almost entirely from the Photographic Icons series of books published by Taschen - the photos, the photographers and the presentation were almost entirely the same. Once the writers escaped from Taschen's influence I thought they got completely lost - the street photography section didn't seem to know what it was trying to convey.

Does having read up on it rather than just watching it on telly help to restore my credibility?

BTW, Seidu Keita's work doesn't seem to me to stand up to the claims being made for it by the art establishment. I wonder how much of his appeal is that he is a Black African with a large archive that can be monetised. He's very careless about the details of his settings, crumpled backdrops, etc.. There must have been a hundred other studio photographers as competent as him scattered across the continent doing the same thing at the same time.


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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:04 am
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:04 am
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PaulC wrote:

Does having read up on it rather than just watching it on telly help to restore my credibility?


Oh, I don't question your credibility! We all have our sources and I would probably have written the same.

Quote:

BTW, Seidu Keita's work doesn't seem to me to stand up to the claims being made for it by the art establishment. I wonder how much of his appeal is that he is a Black African with a large archive that can be monetised. He's very careless about the details of his settings, crumpled backdrops, etc.. There must have been a hundred other studio photographers as competent as him scattered across the continent doing the same thing at the same time.


I agree, some choices made by the art world look a little far-fetched. I will never downplay the work done by mr. Keita, but most of its appeal seem to come from the fact that he's living on another continent, with his subjects in colorful African clothes. And that's about all there is.


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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:35 am
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:35 am
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Colourful?


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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:11 am
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:11 am
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PaulC wrote:
Colourful?


Of course, his subjects are, not necessarily his photographs Smile
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