ROBERT FRANK: VISUAL POET
Photographers around the world revere Robert Frank's contributions to the image pool. Museums of the National and International variety create anthologies, catalogues and booklets attempting to put into perspective the precise importance of Mr. Frank's work. Art galleries and private dealers invest tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in reproducing and reselling the Robert Frank catalogue to new collectors at higher and higher prices each year. Robert Frank's photographs have become iconic, the images are American to the core and yet, he was an outsider, a beatnik, an immigrant, a visual poet. It is almost impossible to define why and what and how the impetus, the formula, the motivation surfaces within an individual artist, but within the example of Mister Robert Frank, it is safe to say that this honest man, with a most basic and unadorned tool in hand, was indeed on a quest for that rare and delectable entity known quite simply, plainly & rather straightforwardly as: The TRUTH.
All Photos © Robert Frank / Courtesy of The Stanford University and The Cantor Arts Center
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
Robert Frank travelled the United States in search of America and Americans: he found both. Seeking the truth, leads to knowledge, with knowledge comes responsibility, with responsibility comes wisdom and somewhere within the wisdom, sits some version of truth. What if the truth you find has something in it that is just the slightest bit askew ? What if your parents fled a dictator for a place that was safe and secure and then you were to gamble all that away for a place that spoke of a much larger idea and when you went out to find that idea, it didn't actually exist ? Like many immigrants, like my ancestors and many of your ancestors, we as a people came to discover America and quickly, we realized that America didn't really exist in the way we thought it did. Within that realization also comes a comprehension that although America is not everything we were told, it is now ours and as Americans, we can collectively & individually make a contribution, and in that offering, in that very active step forward into our lives, we make America what it is: You and me. Frank turned his eye on America and took its picture. He did not flinch, he did not turn away, he did not judge, he did not separate, he did not categorize, he did not modify, he did nothing but document, and in that study and within his vignettes, his so-called snap shots, something quite real surfaced, it expounded well beyond the veneer and eventually he found what many of us can only hope to fathom: Mister Robert Frank had simply discovered America & made it his own. He was not the first to, 'discover,' America. Columbus had discovered America in 1492. Washington and his boys followed suit and decided they liked the place more than they did their own homes. Who could blame them ? This place is awesome. The big difference with Robert Frank's discovery is that he did not conquer, nor did he enslave, he just simply captured the image and after all: image is everything. When America actually viewed it's own portrait shortly after World War II and in the decade to follow, it was somewhat shocked at the signs of poverty, the segregation, the somewhat disheveled look. The melting pot of life had seen it's own reflection and turned away, blaming the mirror. The Portrait of America and Americans by Mr. Robert Frank has gone onto have a lasting effect on the populist, the politics, the entire cultural landscape, which in the mid fifties was about to undergo a major shift in values. These images of America immediately influenced an entire generation of writers, artists and activists that had both preceded and coincided with this very new and emerging America. A recent exhibition presented by The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University unveiled many works from Mr. Frank's famous AMERICANS Series that had never been publicly displayed.
All Photos © Robert Frank / Courtesy of The Stanford University and The Cantor Arts Center
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
At seventeen years of age, Frank learns to develop and print photographs with a neighbor who also introduces him to modern art, the apprenticeship lasted a year. At about this same time, fascism and the rise of Hitler's influence in Germany, where his family emigrated from, his father is German, his mother Swiss, effected the young man's perspectives. Frank, who was of Jewish descent, surely knew, growing up in Sweden, that he was different. His parents were both culturally astute, his father could quote Goethe in two languages, his mother created drawings. When a cousin of Frank's came to visit, her parents, who had stayed behind were eventually victims of the holocaust. The memories of Frank's parents recoiling from the sound of Hitler's hatred remained with him forever. In 1942, Robert Frank studied at Wolgensinger studio in Zurich, where he became influenced by the New Photography and an ethic that, in his teacher's own words, "Photography is the representation of reality - its mission is to convey essence, form and atmosphere." Frank learns to light, print and organize his works as well as contact sheet his 2 1/4 negatives. Two years later, he lands a job developing works for the largest photo studio in Switzerland, by day, he prints their work, by night, he prints his own. By 1946 Frank produces an impressive portfolio entitled, simply 40 Fotos. With the end of World War II, he travels to Paris, Milan and Brussels and by 1947, with a rebellious streak of independence and stories of American culture engrained in his psyche by literature and world events, Mr. Frank boards a ship to America. He recalls sitting between a wild, gangster-hatted American who eats with his hands and a Bishop with rosary and red sash: a scene straight out of a movie. Frank briefly worked for Harper's and a year later, he travelled to Peru and Bolivia. By 1949, he was back in Europe traveling to Spain, France, Italy and later that year is published in Camera magazine, with a prophetic declaration, "We believe Robert Frank can teach us how to see …"
All Photos © Robert Frank / Courtesy of The Stanford University and The Cantor Arts Center
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
Robert Frank travelled between Europe and America several times in the early nineteen fifties. He married, had a child, applied for and received a Guggenheim grant & drove across the United States documenting a very real America. He had already captured iconic images in England, Scotland, Peru and Spain, including top hatted Londoners, coal miners in Whales, workers in LaPaz, bullfighters in Barcelona. He was now in search of the American image, outside of the big cities, rural America. It is fitting that the author of, "On The Road," Jack Kerouac and Robert Frank would eventually collaborate on a film. Kerouac also wrote the preface to Frank's seminal mid fifties survey work that was eventually published in 1958, entitled simply, "The Americans." Mr. Franks entry into America in 1947 and his many travels coincided exactly with author Kerouac's own pursuit and invention of a New Prose language in America. It was the perfect alignment. Frank's search for the truth in images, his abhorrence of commercial situations, where he quickly realized that, "There was no spirit there … the only thing that mattered was to make money," was in total unison with the emerging beatnik movement. Which eventually led to the cultural revolution and a new generation of values that included women's rights, civil rights and alternative lifestyles. Frank was also very much in line with the new school of painting that had taken hold by the likes of New York action painter Jackson Pollock, who had graced the cover of time in 1947, the year Frank first arrived in America. He states, regarding the new found style, after a conscious exodus from his New York commercial assignments, "I was very free with the camera. I didn't think of what would be the correct thing to do. I did what I felt like doing. I was like an action painter… I was making a kind of diary."
The tools Frank selects become even simpler when he begins using a point and shoot 35mm Leica, suggested by his boss and mentor at Harper's Bazaar, Alexey Brodovitch, rather than his 2 1/4 inch box camera. It is very possible that Robert Frank was one of the few modern photographers to be fully conscious of his intuition, utilizing a philosophy of following one's heart as opposed to one's mind. The 35mm camera made this very particular and personal transition that much easier. Frank was also very aware of the myths that had surrounded photography since World War II, with the adventurous roving journalist tradition of photographers such as Robert Capa, who later co-founded Magnum Photo Agency, the first agency to be run by and for photographers. There were times in Frank's early career when lack of sales and rejection from the large magazine publications only fueled his motivation. He strived to break free of the style, story concept and basic mainstream presentation of imagery that pervaded the publishing industry: the beginning, middle & end formulas that LIFE magazine so heartily represented. Frank began to present his layouts and book design works without many words or narration and juxtaposing images such as Christ on the cross with a Ballon at a parade, titled : Men of Wood & Men of Air. Though, even more effective and minimalist are images presented with no text at all and no image juxtaposed, simply an image on one page and a blank page next to it. In this way, Robert Frank elevated the conversation by allowing the viewer to do some thinking, to read the symbols, to project themselves into the image and decide for themselves what was going on. By doing so, he also added a much needed element that had been missing from the photography of the nineteen fifties, Mr. Frank brought back a sense of curiosity to photography and in doing so, he created a new visual poetry with various meanings to each viewer.
All Photos © Robert Frank / Courtesy of The Stanford University and The Cantor Arts Center
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
No Less than ten minutes into the documentary entitled, "Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank," Mr. Frank rejects the films process, unveiling a glimpse into his very true character as a kind of idiosyncratic jazz purist. Up to this point in the film, the filmmaker's have decided to do a, 'connect the dots' biographical take, asking Mr. Frank to discuss and recall all the known biographical facts that have been so well explored before in books and catalogues, such as the very detailed essays by Sarah Greenough of The National Gallery of Art in Washington D. C. where much of Frank's photographic work resides for future study. These biographical essays can also be found in the very extensive book entitled, "ROBERT FRANK Moving Out" on Scalo Press. In the middle of a question and answer session, Mr. Frank is asked to repeat an earlier observation, because the film crew had actually run out of film. He responds with a fiery exchange: "Well, look, forget it. Look, I'm not an actor, you know. I can't go through this shit, you know. I mean… theres no spontaneity in this, it's completely against my nature what's happening here. So, if the crew can't get it together with the film, let's go out to Coney Island, lets play a Beckett play there and lets look at the landscape with my photographs and see that this man is looking for something he did fifty years ago." In the next shot of the film, Mr Frank is seen on the street in Coney Island asking a cop on a horse, "Sir, do you know where this is ? I took this picture almost fifty years ago," The cop answers, "No, I don't know." Mr Frank turns to the camera in response, "Let's find a real old guy, he would know." Suddenly we get some authenticity and a peek into what it Is that Robert Frank does so well: He connects with real people. Eventually, a young african american man points out the location, "It was right there," he points across the way, "So then, you knew it as a kid ?" Frank asks and the young man answers, "Yeah." There is a very heart felt parting glance, Franks says, "Thanks a lot." Then, suddenly, the young man reaches out his hand and Mr. Frank grabs the young man's wrist, their eyes meet and they relate. It's a small, yet beautiful moment where two strangers have connected. We get the sense that
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
Mr. Frank's pictures, his early and entire catalogue were also indeed created with this special human need, for a man, alone with his art and his ideas, to connect with his people, with his immediate surroundings and with the world at large. At another point in the documentary, Mr Frank is riding a bus, looking out the window, recalling an earlier series of works taken from the windows of moving buses. He looks out the window quietly reminiscing in a solitary manner. As an admirer of Mr. Frank and his work, to watch him with no camera in his hands, was literally, for me, quite painful. When a human being you love turns ninety years of age, as Mr. Frank currently has, it is high time to celebrate his life, his work, his experiences. It is also time to ensure that this human being has everything he needs, that he knows how very well loved, well respected and well deserving he is of life's gifts. When both of my Grandfather's had turned ninety, I dropped everything I was doing and focused on them, we made documentary films together, we created images, we conducted interviews, we ate together, we discussed their lives, we set the story straight. Now, both of those men no longer walk the earth, they have moved on to another world. As I look at Robert Frank's world of images, as I look at Robert Frank's life, as I look at Robert Frank's experience at my own 'middle age', I get invigorated, I get inspired, I get turned on to life again and a new phase of creating begins. The power of the Individual is awe inspiring. Very few singular Artists, Writers or Filmmakers have set the bar to a new standard in the way in which Mr. Robert Frank has done. He is stubbornly passionate, defiantly individualistic, decidedly authentic, unabashedly truthful, culturally curious and it is very safe to say that Mr. Robert Frank did not sell out. He influenced and continues to influence The Arts, Advertising, Musicians, Writers, Filmmakers and of course photography, every single decade since his first appearing on theses shores. He is a living legend and most likely, he would shun that appraisal. Which is neither here nor there, the fact is, he did his job, the images remain, end of story.
All Photos © Robert Frank / Courtesy of The Stanford University and The Cantor Arts Center
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
ROBERT FRANK
VISUAL POET : In His Words
ON PHOTOGRAPHS: "I like images and so to make images became kind of natural."
ON PARIS: "I never really had a concept for something. It was really the intuition before I really saw it. So, Paris was very good for me.
ON LONDON: "It was wonderful, because, they didn't pay any attention to you. Which, today, they would tell you to fuck off or turn away, you know."
ON NEW YORK CITY: "New York is a very good city, wherever you look around, it has a character. and you know, It isn't a pretty life, it isn't a sweet life, it's, it's the real life, that I looked for, and that I got.
ON AMERICA: "In America I wanted to do it differently. There was no more romanticism really, a look at a country that I didn't really know, I had only been here a couple of years. The Americans was the first time I made a trip across the country… I really felt something very strong from the people. I looked at poor people, how they tried to survive, what a lonely time it can be in America, what at a tough country it is."
ON EARLY INFLUENCES: "You grow up in a place and the culture of that place or your parents or your situation, it influences you. There was a war going on, Switzerland was a place that was closed off from everywhere, you couldn't get out and you were afraid that the nazi's would invade … so of course, it had an influence on a jew."
ON RACE RELATIONS: "Also, I saw for the first time the way blacks were treated, it was surprising to me, but it didn't make me hate America, it made me understand how people can be. You know, you learn a lot traveling and you learn a lot when you are a photographer and thats what probably what makes the difference, if you have some brain and some feeling for people, you are going to be a good photographer."
ON PERCEPTION OF HIS IMAGES: "The reaction surprised me, because people thought it was an anti-American story, so then, it took ten years till that changed, but I do like America, so I became an American and thats what I know best."
ON CREATING PICTURES : "The Pictures have to talk, not me, and so be it."
All Photos © Robert Frank / Courtesy of The Stanford University and The Cantor Arts Center
Mr Robert Frank is Represented by The PACE / MacGILL Gallery In New York City N.Y. USA
Mr Robert Frank's Images are Archived in The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. USA
INTERVIEW GUEST ARTIST: IRBY PACE
Joshua TRILIEGI: How did the idea for the Smoke series originally come about?
Irby PACE: I had the idea of starting this project a few years before leaving graduate school in 2012, but initiating the series always seemed to get pushed back because of other priorities I had at the time such as school, teaching, etc., but it stayed in my mind and in my sketchbook. Occasionally... weekly... monthly... I would go back through my sketchbook and just absorb or contemplate new ideas or revisit old ones, even the ones that failed. After graduate school I became part of an artist run collective, 500x, which inspired me to do something new from my previous artworks.
Starting any body of work is complicated, at least for me it is, because I have a specific visual image and I have to see it come to fruition before I can continue to explore within the given work. I failed with the Pop! series more times that I can count and I continue to do so. On average I make anywhere from four to five setups for every successful one final photograph. But this challenge keeps me motivated, I feel like I’m always fighting the elements, wind, lighting, etc.
Another challenge I wanted to explore was to do everything “through the lens.” This is what keeps me on edge and it makes it all of the hard work worth it when everything just lines up perfectly. With the work I was thinking like a painter and a photographer combined. I wanted to add these clouds to these physical spaces much like a painter would manipulate a space with oils or acrylics, but the photography makes it hyper realistic because it’s actually happening. It is in these small split second moments that I really truly live as a photographer.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Experimentation and hard work are always a big part of finding an original idea in modern art, your art catalogue shows clearly that you have earned your position and yet the smoke series seems so simple. Tell our readers a bit about your ' search ' for the art image.
Irby PACE: I, and other artists, live in a time where it is seemingly harder and harder to make an original piece of “art.” Yeah I know... that’s a trite statement. Its the mantra of undergrads and artists and everyone. Well, I can’t say everyone, but how about a majority of people. But, it is surprising to me how common that statement is. Even non artistic people say that, or at least I’ve heard a few here or there say that. Maybe the old adage that “everything has been done before” really is true. Maybe it’s bullshit. Maybe we need to move on from this self imposed pity party and start trying to make some original shit happen. But how do we do this? When I hear “nothing’s original” I step up on a soapbox and let them know that every new piece of technology that is being introduced daily has the potential to be an outlet for an art making practice, tool, etc.Experimentation is what makes this process difficult. We’re conditioned to make something “right” then to continue to rinse and repeat this process. But you have to take the time to deviate from the path, to try something new, and to be willing to fail. Failing isn’t necessarily desirable, but that’s my barometer to know when I’m on to something.
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HERB RITTS : THE PHOTOGRAPHER
25 YEARS:NOW A CLASSIC
ON VIEW NOW THROUGH TO NOVEMBER 8, 2015
The Herb Ritts catalogue is now over twenty-five years young. A recent Exhibit at The Boston Museum of Fine Arts gives us a chance to reassess the work of a fundamentally commercial photographer who wanted dearly to shatter the worlds perceptions of Art, Commerciality and Fashion. He had access to the worlds best models, personalities and locations and through it all, had the simplicity and potency to create iconic imagery that harkened back to the earliest days of photography. In looking at The HERB RITTS catalogue, we can see the influence of another great American photographer, Walker Evans, whose work was first celebrated 50 years before Herb Ritts would go onto create some of his most exemplary images that actually defined the times he lived in. Although Walker Evans subjects included the downtrodden and the disparaged, due to the very struggles that occurred economically in the 1930s, Ritts takes that clean, straight ahead style and points his camera at celebrities and clothing in the way that Evans might document a wrench or a trowel. The excesses of The 1980s allowed Ritts, budgets and portfolio commissions, that to this day, seem extreme. And yet, he filtered it down into something very basic, taking a creative note from the architect Mies Van Der Rohe's ever famous quote: "Less IS More."
Considering other influences, we must also mention photographers such as Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz who had both fought a tedious battle to affirm that photography, in the hands of an artist, could indeed be an 'art' and that the by product of this new instrument called a camera, was indeed an Art-form which could rival and compare to great paintings created by great painters and therefore photographs could, should and would be considered: a great art.
The very fact that Herb Ritts' work is now residing within the walls of an institute such as The Boston Museum of Fine Art is a testament to those early battles.It is often said that an object becomes valuable and collectible at its 25 year mark. Many of the images in this exhibition were valuable the day they were taken, but we can also see, with that mellowing, like a good whiskey in the barrel, that yes indeed, The Herb RITTS Portfolio is gathering a value that is now vintage value and all the while his works are earthy, sleek, deceivingly simple & purely classic.
Madonna, Tokyo Herb Ritts (American, 1952–2002) 1987 Photograph, gelatin silver print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Herb Ritts © Herb Ritts Foundation
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Mick Jagger, London, 1987 by Photographer Herb RITTS at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
1.Naomi Campbell, Face in Hand, Hollywood, 1990 2. Backflip, Paradise Cove, 1987 3. Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen, Long Island, 1987 Images Related to this Bureau Article : Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Herb Ritts © Herb Ritts Foundation Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
ALEX HARRIS : PHOTOGRAPHER
Alex Harris's Photographs are Quintessentially and to the Core: American. He is a Master Photographer with decades of consistently important, relevant and revelatory images. From the early Nineteen Seventies with a socially conscious black and white portfolio and a degree from Yale, Harris captured images on the front lines of culturally significant moments. In The Nineteen Eighties he founded the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. In the Nineties, he co founded the groundbreaking photographic magazine, Double Take. He has received fellowships from The Guggenheim & Rockefeller, has published fifteen books and is a Professor for the Practice of Public Policy and Documentary Studies at Duke. His work in CUBA was very Influential to many of his contemporaries. We are very pleased to bring you the very first of several Photographic Essays Celebrating The Art, The Experience and The Conversation of One of America's Best and Brightest Living Photographers, Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Mister Alex Harris.
Joshua TRILIEGI: What initially attracted you to Photography ?
Alex HARRIS : I was attracted to photography before I really had the words to express that attraction. My grandfather Alexander Eisemann, used his camera with great wit and precision to chronicle my mother’s life before I was born, and then the life of her young children and family – me included. I was so attracted to the stories he told with his pictures and the albums he put together, the stories of an intact family living together, full of joy and humor. In fact I was more attracted to that story than the reality of my family life, which must have been fraught with difficulty as my parents separated and divorced by the time I was six and moved to separate homes. When I graduated from high school, I can’t think of one family in my neighborhood that had remained intact or remained in their original homes. Looking back I see its not an accident that my first projects as a required me to immerse myself in some of the most intact, long-lived communities in the United States, the Hispanic villages of northern New Mexico and the Inuit villages in Alaska.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Describe how one image leads to another in creating a Series.
Alex HARRIS : I began shooting color landscapes and interiors in New Mexico in 1979 with the premise that I didn’t want the photographs to be about color so I would try to ignore color with my camera entirely, to photograph color blind. And for about six months I successfully photographed colorblind while making absolutely uninteresting color photographs! One evening at dusk I saw the way the light was hitting my neighbor George Romero’s yellow front porch, and I stopped to photograph it. The porch post visible in the picture was painted blue, white, and red. A shadow from a second post off-camera made it appear that shadows were falling in the wrong direction. I allowed myself to respond to this scene and to color. From then on I looked for color as an aspect of culture, as an essential part of the way the people express themselves with their homes. I was able to go back to the people, homes and fields I had visited over the years as a black-and-white portrait photographer and to photograph would have been the backgrounds to those portraits, now as the foreground and subject of the picture, making what I began to see is another kind of portrait, a portrait without people. I tended to work with one theme at a time:, so bedrooms and other interiors of homes, close-ups of objects and possessions, photographs of villages from a distance, landscapes with signs of human presence, landscapes as seen through automobiles. And I would move back and forth between those series.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Lets talk about this series we are currently sharing with our readers. Tell us how the dashboard images came about and describe the juxtaposing the interior with the exteriors.
Alex HARRIS : When I had the idea to photograph the landscape of northern New Mexico through the interiors of the cars of people who lived there, I’d been living in northern New Mexico on and off for almost 15 years and working in color there for about five years with a view camera. I saw myself as making the portrait of this region without including any actual people in the pictures. So I photographed extensively inside homes, whose decoration was primarily the domain of women, and the outsides of homes and in the fields, which was primarily the domain of men. In photographing these spaces, in a sense I was portraying the people who had created or shaped those spaces over the years. I wanted to represent the younger generation, and the spaces they controlled and decorated were the interiors of their cars. It seemed uninteresting simply to photograph the dashboards and interiors wherever the cars happened randomly to be parked. I had the idea that if I could balance the light inside and outside the car, I could use my camera to make a connection between the car interior and the landscape that person lived in or often drove through. I thought my pictures could represent what it felt like for people in the villages to see their own landscape and community, for the viewer of the photograph to see their world through the frames they had decorated and that they themselves often peered through. The best portraits make a connection between a person’s interior world – in a sense their life history – and the world that surrounds them. That’s what I was looking for in these pictures.
To Download The Entire INTERVIEW WITH A FABULOUS PHOTO ESSAY AND TEN QUESTION INTERVIEW WITH ALEX HARRIA Tap This Link : SUMMER EDITION
PHOTOGRAPHER: VICTORY TISCHLER BLUE
There are Rock Star Photographers. There are Photographers who shoot Rock Stars. There are even Rock Star Photographers who shoot Rocks and Stars, Victory Tischler Blue is a combination of all three. We discovered this image and knew nothing about the photographer who apparently has been a bass player for The Runaways, made an appearance in Spinal Tap and is a serious photographer with some of the most interesting images of the American Desert Landscape that we have seen lately. Ms. Blue's desert is haunted, hallucinated and hallowed. This is Sam Shepard's desert with long lost gas stations, deserted automobiles from other decades, satellite response gear, dried out cacti and ancient artifacts that still provide the mysteries that behold the great American West. Defunct signage from an old cafe that once hosted stories such as The Petrified Forrest stand defiantly like an erect statue in Time Square. And yes, as is so often the case, there is just a hint that maybe , somewhere out there, some living being has landed, will land or is just passing by on it's way to another galaxy not so far, far away. This incredible Image was originally exhibited at The Spot Photo Works Art Gallery in Los Angeles, California U. S. A.
Spot Photo Works 6679 Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90038 USA
The Gallery: SpotPhotoGallery.com The Artist: SacredDogs.com The Lab: SchulmanPhotoLab.com
BUREAU OF ARTS AND CULTURE
presents
SURF INTERVIEW: JACK ENGLISH
Joshua TRILIEGI: Your catalogue is beautiful, diverse and modern and yet, at the same time, your images have an original and purist aesthetic that harkens back to the 1970's. Discuss style in surf photography and explain how you go about 'picturing ' images.
Jack ENGLISH: I love being different and getting a different shot from the next photographer which in the surfing world is so very challenging. If your on the North Shore of Oahu and their are 20 pros out well you're going to have at least 20 photographers on the beach and 20 in the water shooting the same shot and for the most part shooting the same angle. When I do my shoots here in California I always make sure I am the only photographer or if I show up to a place like Malibu on a big swell and their might be 3 other photographers there I will try to sneak down the beach and get an angle in which they aren't getting in hopes that I picked the best location in or out of the water. Every photographer has their own style, but I always try to imagine the shot I am going for months in advance for a specific surfer or location. I rarely show up to a spot and just start shooting. I put everything together with the surfer before he goes out in the water. It's like he is my model and I communicate to him or her what type of shot or move I would like them to do. I like to be involved on what their wearing or what board their riding. I like to direct my shoots and be just as much involved if not more then the surfer. I am not like go out and surf and I will take your picture - it's not like that for me. I am a director of my own shoots.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Surf culture is now a worldwide thing, for those of us on the West Coast, who grew up with it, it was and is a way of life. For the audience, its exotic and a commodity of sorts. Explain how you view the trajectory of Surf culture in the recent decades .
Jack ENGLISH: Maybe it's not safe for me to say this based on [ the fact that] I eat, breathe and sleep surfing and surf photography, but it's kind of boring now to an extreme. Kind of like everything has been done. To me, the late 80's into the early 90's was the best. The 80's had the bright fluorescent wetsuits and the early 90's had the momentum generation: Kelly Slater, Shane Dorian, Ross Williams, Rob Machado, etc… They took surfing to it's highest level. These guy's weren't trying to dress all groovy, they just ripped at surfing. They we're untouchable. You have guy's now that pretty much suck at surfing, but they try to dress the part kind of like, hey I am not that good at surfing, but I will try to be the hipster or groovy guy that way I can still get paid to surf. Companies fall for it for whatever reasons based on their are so many dam brands nowadays and all of them want or think they need to sponsor someone.
Joshua TRILIEGI: Share your views regarding Digital versus Film and the future of photography.
Jack ENGLISH: Digital is such a f*cking copout. It's like a musician who needs all these machines to make their music for them. Take someone like an Elton John who just needs a piano and he will kill it. All these digital photographers became photographers because it was easy, cheap and mostly no cost for film and processing. I have one friend who told me he would never had shot photos if it we'rent for digital. I think in the past before digital you had the true photographers who really loved photography. The photographers that loved going to the photo lab dropping off their film and then hours later racing back to the photo lab praying they nailed the shot. The photographers that loved the smell of the photo labs or the smell of film. On the flip side I can't speak for the digi guy's and say they don't really love photographer or their not really photographers, that's not it. I mean if I was brought up after the film era I to would most likely just be shooting digital and always question what is film. But I was brought up int he film era and my heart is for film. I have passed a point where I hate digital. I hate hard drives, cords, cards, all that shit just bugs me and then have to worry if my hard drive crashes I loose everything. I can't handle that. How am I suppose to shoot so many wonderful images and then I am to rely on some hard drive not to crash, fuck that. I much rather have a folder full of tangible slides or negatives on my shelves and be done with it.
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WITH SURF PHOTOGRAPHER JACK ENGLISH ON COVER TAP LINK:
Norman Seeff : The Ramones New York, 1977 © Norman Seeff Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Miami
LET'S ROCK
Now Through JUNE 13, 2015
Rock & Roll Music has always been affiliated with the medium and Art of Photography. Performances only last a few minutes, hours or the duration of the current tour. Musicians found early on that the power of the image from last years tour could sell tickets and albums to next years tour and the fusion or marriage between the camera and the music was complete. Let's Rock, the current exhibit at Fahey / Klein's new Gallery in Miami, Florida takes us through the History of Modern Rock and Roll with photographs by the best in the biz. Including: Jim Marshall’s iconic shot of Johnny Cash flipping the bird, Barry Feinstein’s image of fans peering into the window of Bob Dylan’s limo, Frank Stefanko’s Bruce Springsteen at the beginning of his career and Harry Benson’s playful photograph of a Beatles’ pillow fight.
Led Zeppelin (In Front of Plane) New York, 1973 © Bob Gruen, Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Miami
Lets Rock, is an important photographic exhibit because it balances the grit with the glamour, the guts with the glory and the guys with the gals in all that bare truth that Rock and Roll Music was originally meant to express. Lets not forget that this was a music in touch with it's anger, in touch with it's passion, in touch with it's feelings, it's roots, it's working class upbringing. Surely Mick Jagger is the face of the Stones, but without a working class pal such as Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones might just have been another Hermans Hermits. As Rock & Roll becomes more and more appropriated by millionaires, museums and extremely wealthy non profit entities, it may be a good time to remind them all, that Rock & Roll, belongs to The People. We saw these same trends with William Shakespeare, who originally wrote for the people and Classical greats such as Ludwig Van Beethoven.We The People Own Rock & Roll, we own Rap, we own Country, we own The Blues, we own Jazz. This is All Peoples Music, much of it originated in America, so then, we own America. Take pride in great music America, you made it happen. It's Yours : Lets Rock.
Norman Seeff Keith Richards Los Angeles 1972 Courtesy Fahey / Klein Gallery Miami
Gered Mankowitz : Jimi Hendrix (Classic), 1966 © Gered Mankowitz, Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Miami
FAHEY / KLEIN GALLERY in MIAMI 4025 Northeast 2nd Avenue Second Floor Miami Florida 33137 U.S.A
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