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Thread: Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

  1. #1

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Recent conversations here about revisiting scenes famous for having been photographed by giants has peeked my interest.

    Having spent the long days of my photographic career “slaving over a hot developer tray and 8x10 studio Deardorff” instead of romping through fine art museums, I am embarrassingly ignorant of the past great work of the past great masters.

    Most of what little I know concerns the Western photographers. In fact, one would think that the West was originally explored and discovered by landscape photographers.

    Is there really a place called Fine Grain Gulch?

    But as I am in the East, I was just wondering about the photography of early city slickers.

    I have seen work by Eliot Porter in the Appalachians, Joel Meyerowitz’s Cape Light, and only tidbits of work from many, many others.

    Just wondering if those better educated might like to muse in greater detail about their favorite East Coast shooters of olde.

    Bet I could learn something...

  2. #2

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon, Paul Caponigro, Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, Ralph Steiner, Alfred Eisenstadt, Burke-White, Marie Cosindas, Weegee, Louis Hine...
    Wilhelm (Sarasota)

  3. #3
    Mark Sawyer's Avatar
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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Paul Caponigro is fairly modern, having worked largely around New England from the fifties through today. But his work melds and extends the traditions of Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz, and Paul Strand (who should also be considered great New England photographers), while keeping very much Caponigro's individual identity. It's not easy to work in so traditional a style and still have your vision be recognizably your own. His prints are as beautiful and luminous as any I've seen. Anyone with a serious interest in eastern b/w landscape/still life photography owes it to themselves to be familiar with his work.

    "New England Days" (2002) is his most recent book, I think. Cheap on line and quite good, though he has more comprehensive books out there. ("The Wise Silence" or "Master Works from Forty Years" are both good retrospectives of his work.)

    The Maine Photographic Workshops seem to have ben a home-base for quite a few important New England photographers. They're still going, but I don't know what their status is today...
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

  4. #4

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Include John Garo of Boston, the first american photographer to have a salon in London, mentor to Yousef Karsh and many other notable photographers and repesented in collections at Harvard, M.I.T. and the Smithsonian among other achievements such as being Arthur Fiedler's drinking buddy during prohibition.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  5. #5

    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Nicholas Nixon.

  6. #6
    Steve Sherman's Avatar
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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Slightly off topic but the New England Large Format Photography Collective will host a presentation by modern day photographer and book maker Douglas Levere who has visited many of the exact spots Berenice Abbott photographed in the 1930's. He will give a presentation and gallery talk in New Haven on October 2nd about his book project replicating Abbott's work.

    I will be placing a post on each of the internet forums before the end of the weekend


    Real photographs are born wet !

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  7. #7

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Going back a bit, one of my favorites is William H. Rau. And Stieglitz as a New England photographer? New York State won't give him up so easily. Lots of great stuff from then and now out there.

  8. #8

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Nobody's mentioned Berenice Abbott? Her book "Changing New York" is a classic as are her scientific photographs made at MIT. The struggles she had to go through to get that work done were remarkable, especially at MIT where the all-male faculty didn't take kindly to females meddling in their work. Among other things, to make some of the MIT photographs she found that the equipment she needed didn't exist so she invented it and then made it herself.
    Brian Ellis
    Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  9. #9

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    These are all recent past and contemporary, but since you mentioned Meyerowitz.

    George Tice

    Roger Mertin

    Joe Maloney

    Len Jenshel

    Mitch Epstein

    Joel Sternfeld

    John Pfahl

    These guys are all my personal favorites and all east coast.

  10. #10

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    Great East Coast Photographers of the Past

    Thank you, gentlemen for the leads.

    Guess I just can't escape my Eastern mindset.

    All the time I was being immersed in Westons "nude" bell peppers in art school, I found myself secretly wondering if anyone in NYC had ever done something similar with half-sour pickles.

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