Garry Winogrand Quote - "Why I Photograph"

[Heroique]

Loosely paraphrased... “I photograph to see what things look like photographed.”

That is an extremely passive approach to photography. Given the number of undeveloped rolls he is said to have left, one might also question, if he made that statement, whether he was telling the truth.

The following excerpt from Oren’s link will help clear things up for people who may be misconstruing Winogrand’s claim. The excerpt is from the book, Visions and Images: American Photographers on Photography (1982) — one should remember that Winogrand’s claim was merely a suggestive evasion:

Interviewer: “Several years ago a student did ask you which qualities in a picture make it interesting instead of dead. And you replied with a telling statement describing what photography is all about. You said you didn’t know what something would look like in a photograph until it had been photographed. A rather simple sentence that you used has been widely identified with you, and that sentence is: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.” That was about five or six years ago. And I know there are few things that displease you more than being bored. [My note: I hope the interviewer smirked during the previous line.] So I would hope that you have since amended or extended that idea. How would you express it now?”

Winogrand: “Well, I don’t think it was that simple then, either. There are things I photograph because I’m interested in those things. But in the end, you know what I’m saying there. Earlier tonight, I said the photograph isn’t what was photographed, it’s something else. It’s about transformation. And that’s what it is. That hasn’t changed, largely. But it’s not that simple. Let’s put it this way — I photograph what interests me all the time. I live with the pictures to see what that thing looks like photographed. I’m saying the same thing; I’m not changing it. I photograph what interests me. I’m not saying anything different, you see.”

[John NYC]

The following excerpt from Oren’s link will help clear things up for people who may be misconstruing Winogrand’s claim. The excerpt is from the book, Visions and Images: American Photographers on Photography (1982) — one should remember that Winogrand’s claim was merely a suggestive evasion:

I am not misconstruing anything.

[James Morris]

From watching interviews with him, it seems his approach with the rangefinder was to frame all the elements he wanted in the photo, but not worry about how it should look, and to see how the camera made it look.

Given that he purchased an 8x10 later in life, I wonder what his plans were -- composing on a ground glass seems like the exact opposite approach.

[johnmsanderson]

Visions & Images Interview:

http://youtu.be/wem927v_kpo

Typical second generation Jewish New Yorker -- irreverent, witty, and honest.

Ansel Adams wasn't big on expounding on the deeper philosophical meanings of his photography either. I think being able to verbalize on the inner workings of photography (and art in general) is a skill, but individual ability varies. I don't find the ability to talk in depth about one's work to be critical to its impact, except if one's artist statement is crucial to understanding the work (such as Burtynsky's stuff, for example).

The Winogrand quote is a perfect distillation of his style. I find this especially so after seeing his work and being inspired to start photographing on the street. In contrast to working with the 4x5, trying to capture moments on the street at 500th of a second you don't have time to frame carefully and consider every nuance. If you are free of distraction and outwardly focused on everything that's happening around you, there develops a heightened awareness within oneself despite being amongst a busy street where any number of things are happening at once. Your reaction must be the releasing of the shutter, if you hesitate, it's over. You really are only reacting with the shutter to something that interests you, working on the street is done so fast that in many cases you can't tell if it's a good picture or not until you can sit down and review them.

I think this is what he was getting at. To say "I photograph to see what something looks like in a photograph." is a way of testing the strength of his "camera skill" in translating an emotional response into a picture.

Of course he failed 99% of the time, and although a Winogrand fan, I often wonder about camera skill when your success rate is so low.

[Mark Sawyer]

"Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what something will look like photographed." ~Garry Winogrand

Very close. Winogrand seemed in some ways a second-generation American Cartier-Bresson.

[johnmsanderson]

"Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what something will look like photographed." ~Garry Winogrand

Very close. Winogrand seemed in some ways a second-generation American Cartier-Bresson.

Truth

I just found this documentary on YT:

http://youtu.be/eitfGxc6vbw

When he's photographing people up close he'll often click the shutter before the rangefinder is at eye level, then quickly look away or at the camera, trying to make himself look nonthreatening/disinterested.

Compared to the visions & images interview, the video of him on the street with camera in hand is decidedly less stilted and his explanations flow more freely.

"I get totally out of myself, it's the closest I come to not existing... which to me is attractive."

[johnmsanderson]

"On the same day he acquired an eight-by-ten-inch view camera, an instrument that proposes a diametrically different approach to photography. The new camera was perhaps acknowledgement that his old line of thought was nearing the breaking point. He did not use the eight-by-ten, but he talked about using it, and about his notion of finding a small place on the Hudson River, not too far from New York, where he would do still lifes and portraits, and edit the work of the previous quarter-century. Hackford recalls him saying that he was done with the Leica, that he would now do something else. He also said he would remain in California only for the 1984 Olympics and would then go home, but perhaps he did not really expect to. Late in 1983, when the New York apartment that he had retained during a decade of absence was converted to a tenant-owned cooperative, he gave up his place with what seemed a despairing fatalism. His friends protested he could borrow money to buy his apartment, and at least make a handsome profit by selling it after buying it at the advantageous tenant's price. But he was afraid of banks and could understand only that he was losing his home of almost thirty years." -John Szarkowski in "Figments from the Real World".

[Robert Hughes]

Ansel Adams wasn't big on expounding on the deeper philosophical meanings of his photography either.

OTOH he was pretty smart with a camera, and wrote some handy books on the technical side, so I guess he wasn't completely useless.

Reminds me of that line (Laurie Anderson? Steve Martin? Frank Zappa? Martin Mull? Elvis Costello? Thelonius Monk?) about art criticism: "Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture".

[Mark Sawyer]

(Laurie Anderson? Steve Martin? Frank Zappa? Martin Mull? Elvis Costello? Thelonius Monk?) about art criticism: "Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture".

Martin Mull! Or so it seems...

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad...rtin-mull.html

I thought Adams wrote quite eloquently about photography at times, as in his book "Examples", his arguements with Mortensen, and perhaps in the original Group f/64 Manifesto, (Nobody seems quite sure who wrote it, but Imogene Cunningham thought it was Adams.) That his concerns weren't the same as the Fine Arts photography movements of later decades doesn't diminish them.

[James Morris]

johnmsanderson: Thanks for that! Trying to wrap my mind around the idea of a Winogrand still life.