View Full Version : Where are Insane Genius Photographers?
Tin Can
31-Mar-2018, 06:47
This came to mind from the Van Gogh thread.
Mr. Van Gogh clearly had 'issues'. Madness, insanity, drug abuse? Perhaps. Hit in the head as a kid? Genetics?
But this is not about Vincent Van Gogh. It's about us and our photographer heroes.
Some say Vivian Maier was 'crazy'. I doubt that. She was a prolific shooter, like Barry Winograd. Both oddballs, but not insane.
Perhaps photography is too complicated and device orientated to allow madness to shine. We need to remain technically capable. Even with a cell phone.
Or do we?
I like to take photos of trains at night, especially in winter during the worst winter weather the Northern Plains can dish out. A lot of people think I'm a little nuts.:p
Kent in SD
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96826069@N00/albums/72157666630589268
Jim Jones
31-Mar-2018, 07:42
Edwin Land was a driven, but certainly not insane, inventor. George R. Laurence (http://robroy.dyndns.info/lawrence/mammoth.html) was also an inventor. Like Edison and John M Browning, he had modest schooling, but like them he had the vision of a genius.
Jim Jones
31-Mar-2018, 07:56
I like to take photos of trains at night, especially in winter during the worst winter weather the Northern Plains can dish out. A lot of people think I'm a little nuts.:p
Kent in SD
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96826069@N00/albums/72157666630589268
Brrrr! Perhaps nuts, but an impressive series of photographs. Even the ghost of O. Winston Link should agree.
bob carnie
31-Mar-2018, 08:33
I like to take photos of trains at night, especially in winter during the worst winter weather the Northern Plains can dish out. A lot of people think I'm a little nuts.:p
Kent in SD
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96826069@N00/albums/72157666630589268
Hi Kent
Impressive work.. have you ever heard of my father in law Al Paterson - he had an incredible collection of Steam and Modern Engines.
Christopher Barrett
31-Mar-2018, 08:36
JP Witkin?
mdarnton
31-Mar-2018, 09:04
My point man for the years when I was starting was W Eugene Smith. Recently I've finally gotten around to reading his biography, and am learning how incredibly self-centered and driven he was. I'm not sure that he was actually crazy, but he certainly appears to have had some serious personality problems that both made relationships with other people often difficult, yet also drove his photography to a level that a more casual person might not have achieved.
But then to counter that, I have also been reading bios of my current favorites, and many of them appear to be as smooth and mellow as could be, so I guess there are different possible paths to achievement.
However, I do notice that too often fame falls on the obnoxious who are always intent on self-promoting and pushing themselves to the front, the fame happening in spite of not because of their work. I guess art is a lot like politics in that respect.
It's all confusing.
Richard Wasserman
31-Mar-2018, 09:07
Eadweard Muybridge? He wasn't exactly insane, but did suffer a traumatic brain injury in a stagecoach accident. He went on to have , you might say, an eventful life
Mark Sampson
31-Mar-2018, 10:36
Mad geniuses? W. Eugene Smith and Garry Winogrand come to mind. I won't mention some of the photographers I've worked with and for.
Mark Sawyer
31-Mar-2018, 10:56
Perhaps the Daguerreotypists, both old and modern? I hear they can be "mad as hatters"...
dentkimterry
31-Mar-2018, 11:47
What about Weegee???
ic-racer
31-Mar-2018, 14:22
Lucas Samaras?
176634
ic-racer
31-Mar-2018, 14:25
Andres Serrano?
176635
ic-racer
31-Mar-2018, 14:26
Adam Fuss?
176636
Jac@stafford.net
31-Mar-2018, 14:39
Insane? Can't we settle for eccentric? A friend of mine is just the ticket. He's been a photographer for about fifty years and all his personal work is 35mm, contact printed. I believe there is a wonderful show in his work.
As an aside, grain don't mean nothing in 35mm contacts. He's a push-film kinda guy. Great stuff.
.
Eccentric is well behaved or motivated insane in my book.
Tichy
Edward S Curtis
All of us here are eccentric by our usage of LF.
Some may be nuts, not all.
I like all the nominations of the Insane to this thread. I looked each up.
Many I was unfamiliar with.
Mortenson was unliked, def excentric but not insane.
This woman qualifies. Read her sad words. Look at the images.
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/lauren-e-simonutti-photographic-notes-from-a-madhouse
Maybe Francesca Woodman too.
I would guess Alvin Langdon Coburn was a little more then eccentric too.
Louis Pacilla
1-Apr-2018, 09:17
Man Ray was pushing the edges most times.
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?89927-In-loving-memory-of-Lauren-E-Simonutti-(1968-2012)&p=878270&viewfull=1#post878270
This all cuts very close to me. Both my wives were mentally ill, which I failed to notice until I married them. I was warned. Fool in love.
Both artists. Both lovely and loving some of the time. Rage at other times. Both deceased. I miss them both.
God Bless us all.
Alan Gales
3-Apr-2018, 09:55
It's hard to live with. My mom has always had problems but refuses help. It seemed to run in her family with some or maybe all of the females to different degrees. One sister took medication for it and was very successful in life.
It's hard to live with. My mom has always had problems but refuses help. It seemed to run in her family with some or maybe all of the females to different degrees. One sister took medication for it and was very successful in life.
It can be very hard. With my second wife, I kept a daily diary. Years of it. I forgive transgression pretty quickly and move on. I try not to read them, but they are 10 feet away right now.
Marnie was a magnificent portrait painter. :)
bloodhoundbob
3-Apr-2018, 10:51
I evaluated mental disorders for Social Security Disability for 27 years and always had great empathy for the claimants. On a personal level, I drove my cousin to a psych unit one night, as she had Major Depression and was experiencing a psychotic break at that point.
I evaluated mental disorders for Social Security Disability for 27 years and always had great empathy for the claimants. On a personal level, I drove my cousin to a psych unit one night, as she had Major Depression and was experiencing a psychotic break at that point.
Driving can be real bad. I had one wife and one brother try to go out the window while I was driving. Makes it difficult to drive and hold them back...or even stop. See I forgot about that. One was 37 years ago and the other 50 years ago.
and now we have a tornado watch
Cameron Cornell
3-Apr-2018, 13:34
Mike Disfarmer told people at various points apparently without irony that he’d arrived in Arkansas via some sort of alien abduction. He changed his name from Meyer to Disfarmer because he thought that Meyer was German for farmer and he didn’t have any interest in being a farmer.
Cameron Cornell
Washington State
www.analogportraiture.com
bloodhoundbob
3-Apr-2018, 13:46
Driving can be real bad. I had one wife and one brother try to go out the window while I was driving. Makes it difficult to drive and hold them back...or even stop. See I forgot about that. One was 37 years ago and the other 50 years ago.
and now we have a tornado watch
It was only a 40 mile drive from Litchfield to Springfield, but it seemed to take forever. She was decompensating by the minute, exhibiting classic signs of paranoid delusions and was crying uncontrollably by the time my ex and I got her to the psych unit. She had intractable depression unfazed by every antidepressant known to man at the time, which was in the 80s. She agreed to ECT aka "shock treatments", which drastically improved her condition leading to her discharge two weeks later.
Randy, since moving here in 2012, I can't begin to tell you how many times my weather radio alarm has sounded. Fortunately, none have come to fruition in this immediate area.
Jac@stafford.net
3-Apr-2018, 13:47
[url][....] Both my wives were mentally ill, which I failed to notice until I married them.
You were marinated in the lifestyle, inevitable economic duress of artists. I understand. Been there. My wife's mind degraded with a profound advancement of Multiple Sclerosis and she eventually died. Then I went mad. All is well now.
Peace to you, Randy. You are living your third of many possible lives. It will all work out for the better.
It was only a 40 mile drive from Litchfield to Springfield, but it seemed to take forever. She was decompensating by the minute, exhibiting classic signs of paranoid delusions and was crying uncontrollably by the time my ex and I got her to the psych unit. She had intractable depression unfazed by every antidepressant known to man at the time, which was in the 80s. She agreed to ECT aka "shock treatments", which drastically improved her condition leading to her discharge two weeks later.
Randy, since moving here in 2012, I can't begin to tell you how many times my weather radio alarm has sounded. Fortunately, none have come to fruition in this immediate area.
I was here for the 1970 tornado. It took out 1/2 the cDaleMall. Never been in one, nowhere to go.
bloodhoundbob
3-Apr-2018, 15:20
I was here for the 1970 tornado. It took out 1/2 the cDaleMall. Never been in one, nowhere to go.
I got caught up in one in Kansas about 25 years ago on the way to Colorado. That was enough for me. I'm sure you are hearing the same rain, high winds and thunder currently that we are.
we just missed. 15 minutes until clear. Rain Aware App is very accurate.
faberryman
3-Apr-2018, 15:41
It is unfortunate that people are conflating personality quirks with mental illness.
It is unfortunate that people are conflating personality quirks with mental illness.
Blew down a lot of branches here. Moved the garbage cans 10 ft. All good, but my road is a river.
I guess it missed you. You are not that far away.
bloodhoundbob
3-Apr-2018, 20:28
Blew down a lot of branches here. Moved the garbage cans 10 ft. All good, but my road is a river.
I guess it missed you. You are not that far away.
Lots of water and part of a shingle missing was all I saw. Energy was hit hard on 148.
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