Re: [Leica] ELEKTRONIX

[Johnny Deadman <john@pinkheadedbug.com>]

on 8/13/01 7:09 PM, Henry Ambrose at henryambrose@home.com wrote:

> So what do you guys expect from titles?
> What would you expect to see in my new books (just for ths conversation)
> "The English" or "In The South of France"

well I would very much like to see your book 'The English'

I think one decodes these things as "The English' by Henry Ambrose

as in Henry's view of the English

not "the final word on the English'

(you are possiby quite right about publishers deciding titles by the way. I
once wrote, produced AND directed with blood, sweat tears and more a series
of films which were transmitted as 'Ian Hislop's School Rules' because the
executive producer, god bless him, decided it would look better in TV Times.
I no longer care what he thinks of me which is why the truth can now be
told. Ian Hislop was (almost) as upset as I was. Only not quite.

Robert Frank shot his eyeball-burning photographs as Robert Frank. He
wandered the country and shot what fixated him. Who are we to second guess
him? It was his view of the country. I bet the fact that he was a Swiss Jew
had a lot to do with him experiencing it differently to H Ambrose or anyone
else resident in Tennnessee (no putdown intended at all, Henry). My first
exeperiences of the US were radically re-orienting and still I have problems
with the notion of Manifest Destiny which I dare not express even in liberal
US society for fear of upsetting mine hosts.

But in the end all that matters is that R Frank bagged the Guggenheim and
hired the car and shot the damn pictures. I remain convinced that the only
really valid criticism of photography is other pictures. Does Eve Arnold's
'In America' answer Frank? Hardly. Which does not mean that a passionate
advocate could or should not put another point of view. But you have to go
and shoot the pictures and then we will be all ears (eyes?).

Ditto Avedon. I love "In the American West" very much. Others see fashion
photographs, I now realise, but that is a brutal way to categorise a very
passionate photographer. Avedon is no fool and the pictures are deeper than
that. But, you don't like his work? Do better. And then show it to us.

FWIW I find HCB"s american photographs very unsatisfactory. The nearest I
can find to an alternative to Frank's dystopic vision is actually O Winston
Link, or perhaps Robert Adams, or even straying from photography Hopper is
the real answer. Personally I have recognised more Hopper in everyday
America than almost any other artist's vision, dystopic or utopic or
whatever. And let's not forget Disfarmer.

- -- 
John Brownlow

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com

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