[Leica] Great environmental portraitists

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

Absent the flamethrowing, the current discussion of environmental
portraiture, both in and of itself and also vis-a-vis photojournalism,
is a topic that interests me far more than endless maundering about Ted
Grant's underpants and similar techie asides, never mind tiresome talk
about scotch, beer, watches, _et cet. ad naus._

I can see both Dan's and Eric's points. Just for fun, I went to my
library and pulled down some books that contain what I think of as
really first-rate "environmental portraiture." I confined my searching
to people who were primarily Leica photographers (legitimately, now!),
to avoid offending the more delicate sensibilities here. This of course
leaves to one side the very greatest master of the genre, but you all
know who he is.

I mention some of these examples knowing full well that not all of you
will have access to all of these books in your own library; nor would I
have access to all of your choices.

First, Alfred Eisenstadt, _Witness to Our Time_ (I do presume everyone
has this). Eisenstadt is, to my mind, the most people-centered of all
the great photojournalists; a great number of his news photos verged on
being portraits. I'm sure a number of examples will spring to everyone's
mind, but for one, I love his portrait of Roger Tory Petersen on page
217, which is both funny and noble at the same time. And is that a
Contax or a Leica Petersen is sporting?

Around here somewhere I have a small monograph of mostly nudes done by
Ralph Gibson of one of his girlfriends. I'm not sure the book was ever
for sale; I got it from Gibson. In any event I can't find it, but many
of his studies in that book strike me as perfect environmental
portraiture.

Lee Friedlander is surely among the greatest "Leica photographers," if
you must. His book _Portraits_ has a wonderful example of the genre on
the cover. His great picture "Self-Portrait, Haverstraw, New York,
1966," picturing him behind the wheel of what looks to be a pickup
truck, sullen and disgruntled, with the town splayed out on the hillside
behind him, is one of my favorite photographs, never mind environmental
portraits. In fact, how Friedlander manages such consistent brilliance
is one of the great mysteries of the medium of photography to me; there
are two dozen outright masterpieces in this book if there is a single
one. (And you can see my buddy Arnold Crane, photographer / author of
the _On the Other Side of the Lens_, in plate 63! No slouch as an
environmental portraitist himself.)

There's a little Friedlander book put out by the Smithsonian, in the
"Photographers at Work" series, called _Maria_ that offers a more
extended series of environmental portraits. Friedlander's own book of
self-portraits has recently been reissued, I noticed last time I was at
Border's. If you don't have it, _get it now_. Truly one of the greatest
books of Leica photography. Surely, projects such as these are where
great enviromental portraiture as Dan was defending it, and great
photojournalism as Eric and Bob were defining it, come together.

Aperture put out a book in the mid-'80s by Inge Morath called
_Portraits_ that makes a high tide-mark in the genre (if you ignore the
silly mask pictures, her version of Kertesz's house-of-mirrors pictures
that he never should have allowed to see the light of day). A very high
standard, and some very lovely portraits.

Gisele Freund was perhaps a better writer than photographer, a claim
that still allows room for her to be a very fine photographer indeed.
And what a cast of characters...how would you like a chance to
photograph Walter Benjamin, Paul Valery, Herman Hesse, Andre Gide,
Collette, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Wolff, Jean Cocteau, Andre
Malreaux, and Matisse? Environmental portraiture was her stock in trade,
and she did it very naturally, with an unforced elegance. The wan hues
of early color films helps enormously to add appeal to her color work.
I'm referencing the Abrams monograph from 1985.

I stumbled across an ancient little paperback called _Women Are
Beautiful_, by Gary Winogrand...1975...pictures of fully clothed women
snatched from life, on the streets. The best critique I ever heard of
this book (and one of the great three-word critical appraisals I know
of) was from a young punk I showed the book to in an art school a dozen
years ago. He flipped through it thoughtfully for a while and then
commented: "Guy dug chicks." Yeah! The book sold tepidly, and when
Winogrand wanted to threaten to do another commercially non-viable
project, he'd talk about doing a sequel called "Son of Women Are
Beautiful." The best of these are surely environmental portraiture at
its most pure and guileless.

Saving the most special for last: I don't know how many of you have even
heard of her, but one of my very favorite books, and favorite books of
environmental portraiture, and favorite books of Leica photography, is
Jack Woody's serendipitous _Alice Springs: Portraits_, published under
Jack's Twelvetrees imprint. See if you can't get a look at this
sometime, by hook or by crook. Alice Springs is the wife of a  drekky
and forgettable glamor / fashion photographer named Helmut Newton. In
the book he doesn't give her much credit for having much in the way of
skills; but her portraits are remarkable and beautiful, certainly helped
by being so beautifully reproduced as here. I've been led to understand
that the book was made in the course of some sort of Machiavellian
machination involving several parties (including, I think, a gallery)
jockeying for some sort of position or other relative to Newton--I
forget the story. Whatever; it got published, which is what counts, and
at least half of it is marvelous stuff of the first water, with some
stone masterpieces included. A great portraitist. All of it done with a
Leica, I understand, which, I hope, helps keeps this post on topic.

- --Mike