Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/05/18

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Subject: [Leica] Arbus revisited
From: charcot at comcast.net (charcot)
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 08:39:06 -0600
References: <E1M5nfc-0006mQ-Hf@elasmtp-masked.atl.sa.earthlink.net> <6CC3F3F9-4561-4372-AC42-2AB561A9D11E@comcast.net> <1E4F2EC9-4EBC-4E98-A39A-9BA9D4307309@usjet.net> <8A2F074E-63E9-4832-87AB-AE80EA6E1191@comcast.net> <4D828201-97C5-4400-8DE4-8F38D1B1D8EA@usjet.net>

Robert many thanks for the info - I wonder if she ever met Arbus as  
their paths may have crossed?

ernie
On May 18, 2009, at 8:33 AM, Robert Meier wrote:

> Elsa Dorfman (born April 26, 1937) is a portrait photographer who  
> works in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is now known for her use of a  
> Polaroid 20 by 24 inch camera (one of only 6 in existence, according  
> to her web site FAQ,[1] from which she creates large prints. She has  
> photographed famous writers, poets, and musicians including Bob Dylan.
>
> Her principal published work, originally published in 1974 and out  
> of print but now available on her web site, is Elsa's Housebook - A  
> Woman's Photojournal,[2] a photographic record of family and friends  
> who visited her at 19 Flagg Street in Cambridge when she lived there  
> during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many famous people,  
> especially literary figures associated with the Beat generation,  
> were in her circle of acquaintance and as a result are prominent in  
> the book, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and Peter  
> Orlovsky, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, and Robert Creeley, in  
> addition to people who would become notable in other fields, such as  
> radical feminist Andrea Dworkin and civil rights lawyer and  
> Foundation for Individual Rights in Education co-founder Harvey A.  
> Silverglate (who would become Dorfman's husband). She has also  
> photographed staples of the Boston rock scene such as Jonathan  
> Richman frontman of The Modern Lovers, and Stephen Tyler of Aerosmith.
> Portrait of Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, 1975.
>
> As Dorfman explains in her Housebook,[3] she moved to New York City  
> in 1959 and found a job as a secretary to the editors at Grove  
> Press, a leading Beat publisher. When she later moved home to  
> Cambridge to pursue her master's degree, she called herself the  
> "Paterson Society" and began arranging readings for many Beat  
> authors who had become friends, maintaining an active correspondence  
> with them as they traveled the world. By 1962, she was teaching  
> fifth grade; poet Paul Blackburn visited her in school one day and  
> read to the children "to the shock of the very straight principal."  
> A year later, in 1963, Dorfman began working for the Educational  
> Development Corporation whose photographer, George Cope, introduced  
> her to photography in June 1965. She made her first sale two months  
> later, in August 1965, for $25 of a photograph of Charles Olson  
> which was used on the cover of his book The Human Universe. Due to  
> economic limitations, she did not buy her own camera until 1967,  
> when she sent a check for $150 to Philip Whalen who was then in  
> Kyoto, Japan, and he in turn enlisted Gary Snyder, who could speak  
> Japanese, to purchase the camera and mail it to her. In May 1968,  
> she moved into the Flagg Street house which would become the basis  
> of her Housebook.
> On May 18, 2009, at 8:41 AM, charcot wrote:
>
>> Robert - who is Elsa Dorfman?
>>
>> ernie
>> On May 17, 2009, at 10:30 PM, Robert Meier wrote:
>>
>>> From a review of Bosworth's biography by Elsa Dorfman:
>>>
>>>
>>> The book abounds in what I suspect is improvisation, hearsay and  
>>> undocumented speculation. The standards of language and accuracy  
>>> (let alone interpretation) are very low.
>>>
>>> Bosworth keeps on reminding us that Arbus was only interested in  
>>> the aberration, off-beat sexual practices, tortured sexual  
>>> identities, and physical and mental deformities of her subjects.  
>>> She suggests that Arbus was purposely exploitative and  
>>> sensationalistic. Ironically, this is precisely Bosworth's own  
>>> approach to her subject. She is obsessed with real and imagined  
>>> aberration, speculates about what she considers offbeat sexual  
>>> practices, imagines tortured sexual conflicts...Diane Arbus eludes  
>>> Bosworth completely.
>>>
>>> The interesting questions are left unasked, let alone, unanswered:  
>>> How did this woman, brought up in the most constricting,  
>>> conventional environment, come to have such a unique personal  
>>> vision in which style and subject-matter were perfectly matched?  
>>> How did she produce so much valuable work in just eleven years?  
>>> Why was she so insecure and uncomfortable with her talent? Was her  
>>> insecurity and lack of self-esteem (as reported, I suspect  
>>> accurately, by Studs Terkel) related to her narrow, ungenerous  
>>> vision? Was she afraid of her own success? And finally, why did  
>>> she, like Sylvia Plath before her in 1963, end her life?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 17, 2009, at 5:43 PM, Charcot wrote:
>>>
>>>> Robert - if you come up with the discredited parts or Bosworth  
>>>> let us know.  I read it and assume that it's true so anything you  
>>>> come up with I'd be interested.
>>>>
>>>> ernie nitka
>>>> On May 17, 2009, at 3:13 PM, <photo.forrest at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> That's what I was going to say, why does it really matter what  
>>>>> cameras she used? Contax, Nikon, Leica, Mamiya, whatever. She's  
>>>>> Diane Arbus and her images are some of the most beautiful ever  
>>>>> made. She could have used a Diana & they would have been just as  
>>>>> powerful. Its just a box with a hole on one side and a recording  
>>>>> medium on the other.
>>>>> Phil Forrest
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>
>>>>> From:  Michiel Fokkema <michiel.fokkema at wanadoo.nl>
>>>>> Subj:  Re: [Leica] Arbus revisited
>>>>> Date:  Sun 17 May 2009 4:59 pm
>>>>> Size:  1K
>>>>> To:  Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>>>>>
>>>>> Who cares? Why a keypoint?
>>>>> It's the image that counts.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>> Michiel Fokkema
>>>>>
>>>>> Robert Meier wrote:
>>>>>> I think Bosworth's biography has been discredited on many key  
>>>>>> points,
>>>>>> but I don't know the details.  Needless to say, whether she  
>>>>>> used a Leica
>>>>>> or not would be a very key point.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On May 17, 2009, at 2:21 PM, Tina Manley wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> At 03:00 PM 5/17/2009, you wrote:
>>>>>>>> Found this on photo net:
>>>>>>>> "
>>>>>>>> Diane Arbus never used a Leica for her work.
>>>>>>>> The guy gives off the air of knowing what he's talking about.
>>>>>>>> I mean when you get that specific....
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Mark William Rabiner
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> From her biography by Patricia Bosworth:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> page 108 ?hated the big 8 x 10 camera; she preferred the Leica.
>>>>>>> page 124 ?anyway-she always had a camera, usually a Leica, in?
>>>>>>> page 127 She would still record the sessions with her Leica for?
>>>>>>> page 195 ? Leica for years, but in 1962 she changed to a  
>>>>>>> Rolleif?
>>>>>>> page 231 ?cameras. She still missed the lightness of her Leica,?
>>>>>>> page 246 ... D I A N E A R B U S novative work with a Leica  
>>>>>>> (that sm?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Searched on Amazon.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tina
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tina Manley
>>>>>>> www.tinamanley.com
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Leica Users Group.
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>>>>>>> information
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
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In reply to: Message from photo.forrest at earthlink.net (photo.forrest at earthlink.net) ([Leica] Arbus revisited)
Message from charcot at comcast.net (Charcot) ([Leica] Arbus revisited)
Message from robertmeier at usjet.net (Robert Meier) ([Leica] Arbus revisited)
Message from charcot at comcast.net (charcot) ([Leica] Arbus revisited)
Message from robertmeier at usjet.net (Robert Meier) ([Leica] Arbus revisited)