Garry Winogrand as a teacher

[Tim Hyde]

A very interesting set of recollections has been circulating on the blogs about Garry Winogrand as a teacher at UT in the 70's. (http://www.ocgarzaphotography.com/documents/ClassTimewithGarryWinograndfinal2.pdf)

The piece is fascinating in its own right, but it includes a wonderful anecdote about Russell Lee, one of Roy Stryker's better-known FSA photographers. He taught at UT until the early 70's, perhaps overlapping with Winogrand a year or two. Lee used to require his new students to spend a semester with a view camera, using it to teach them "how to see." Only then could they "move up" to a 35mm.

[Oren Grad]

Thanks, Tim. Interesting read...

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks for posting the link. I thought it was a fascinating article and I've never been a big fan of Winogrand's.

[Eric Rose]

Wow, great piece.

[Capocheny]

Tim,

Thanks for the article... I like "some" of his work but can't imagine standing in the middle of a New York street and pointing a camera at someone's mug! He's one brave fellow! :)

I also chuckled at the following...

"Lee used to require his new students to spend a semester with a view camera, using it to teach them "how to see." Only then could they "move up" to a 35mm."

... especially the last part about the "move up" to 35mm! :)

Cheers

[paulr]

definitely interesting, thanks.

i never would have imagined winogrand as a teacher ... he was so hyperkinnetic, and the only comments about photography ever quoted by him were pretty abstract ... you pretty much had to already understand what he meant to get what he said.

the article makes it sound like this was exactly his style! it's little wonder the students were flummoxed so much of the time. i bet he had the kind of effect on them that Ed Ranney had on me in college ... said a lot of things they didn't understand, until a few years later they'd look a picture and say "aha! that's what he meant!"

[Mark Sampson]

Fascinating. I wonder, though, if anyone ever developed and proofed the thousands of exposed rolls of film left behind after he died?

[bigdog]

... you pretty much had to already understand what he meant to get what he said.

it's little wonder the students were flummoxed so much of the time.

My wife got her BFA in illustration from UT in the 70s. We've been married 25 years and it was only 3 weeks ago that I learned she had taken photography from Winogrand while at UT. Since she considered him to be "not a very good teacher", she had never mentioned it. :o

[paulr]

Fascinating. I wonder, though, if anyone ever developed and proofed the thousands of exposed rolls of film left behind after he died?

yeah, they were all developed and proofed, and then edited by szarkowski. many of the pictures in the last section of Figments from the Real World were seen for the first time in that book.

publishing these was an interesting (and controversial) exercise, because so much of winogrand's vision was determined by editing--as is always the case in photography, but more than ever with someone who prints such a miniscule fraction of their images.