Book review

Touring the ancestral manse the other day, it occurred to me to see which photographers’ work graced its many walls. Well, I found only three. Dozens of my own pictures (I like my work, so there), one signed by Lucien Clergue and two others. And those two are by the great photographer Norman Parkinson. My mum chose one, I the other. The one above has found its home on one wall or another for some thirty years now and with good cause. My mum’s choice happens to feature the same model.

The year is 1951. England has won the war and lost the peace. In his infinite wisdom, Ike had determined that America had better recapitalize Germany first for, given half a chance, the bastards would try again. Poor old England would have to wait another thirty years before getting a leader who would fix things. But by then I had left her for the new world for there seemed to be nothing but despair to look forward to. (Note to voters: Elect more women).

This picture speaks to my youth and to England’s end of empire. The sophisticated woman holding the umbrella in that offhand manner is Wenda Rogerson. The wool suit is by the fabulous Hardy Amies – the last couturier to dress the Queen properly. And the location is a tired Hyde Park Corner, one know well to me. There is no traffic. The sky is grey. The blasted, leafless tree speaks of darker times. Yet Rogerson’s demeanor shows that resolute will and quiet determination which speaks so highly of the British back then.

Years later (I was born in the year Parkinson took the picture) I would come to know the spot well as my nanny frequently wheeled me through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, two locations that would feature heavily in my first book of pictures. These are magical places.

In the late ’40s and early fifties, when women were ladies and hands wore gloves, there were but two supermodels as the modern vernacular would have it. One was Wenda Rogerson, the other Lisa Fonssagrives. Now while your chances of being recognized as a great fashion photographer are undoubtedly better if you are homosexual, these two magnificent women showed it need not be so. Rogerson became Mrs. Norman Parkinson and Lisa Fonssagrives married Irving Penn. Both marriages lasted. And Penn often photographed Rogerson, with Parkinson returning the favor with Fonssagrives.

It’s an interesting comparison. At one end of the spectrum the severe, carefully controlled, studio lit and never less than original Penn, who continues to this day, aged 90. At the other, the electric Parkinson, his snaps seemingly unposed, the model invariably outdoors, an impressionistic vision. And never less than original. The classical and the romantic. In earlier times the comparison was between Ingres and Delacroix. Later Degas and Monet. And in the fifties it was between Penn and Parkinson.

It is unfair to refer to Parkinson’s work as fashion photography. Certainly, beautful women, clearly much loved by the photographer, are in all his pictures. And yes, the fashions are there to be seen. But what is also there is a perfect sense of timing and composition, rivalling Cartier-Bresson at his best but a whole lot more fun to look at. I don’t know about you but I would far rather spend my time gazing at pictures of the world’s great beauties than looking at snaps of fat guys jumping puddles.

One of the best ways to explore Parkinson’s work is in the book Norman Parkinson – Portraits in Fashion where his work is set out in decades. Sadly, the faded color originals have not been corrected (a poor editorial decision) but the sense of the work remains undiluted. And you wonder why I like his work? Well, just look at that outrageous cover.

If this book is not in your library I have but two words for you: “Why not?”

Book review

You know how you remember the first of anything? The first book you read, the first music you heard, the first glass of wine, and so on? Yes, that too.

Well, the first fashion photography I remember was by the French master Guy Bourdin. Sometime in the early 1970s when I had a subscription to British Vogue.

He is not a mainstream name in fashion the way that Beaton, or Hoyningen-Huene or Horst or Bailey or Klein or Testino are. (Click here to see all my Book Reviews). Yet his imagery is so startling, the compositions so perfect, the point of view so different, that he can probably lay claim to having influenced more photographers clandestinely than anyone. His images simply change the way you see and think. Everywhere the influence of Man Ray, with whom he apprenticed, is to be felt.

The picture I have scanned from the book, above, is just one example. I had never seen it before and found myself spontaneously expostulating “Goodness gracious!” when I first saw it.

For fifteen years Bourdin had the most extraordinary relationship with the haute couture fashion house of Charles Jourdan. He took the snaps. They published them without question. No crops. No rejects. What they got they ran. They made shoes. Bourdin, you might argue, is a photographer of shoes. And the Ferrari is just a car. And Sophia Loren is just a woman. And the Leica is just a camera.

Do yourself a huge favor. Buy this book.

Book review

No finer example of Chim Seymour’s photography can be found than this wonderful picture from the set of Funny Face, with a very young Richard Avedon showing Fred Astaire the ropes.

One of the founders of Magnum, the apochryphal story has it that Chim and HC-B met on a tram in Paris, with HC-B asking innocently about the Leica around Chim’s neck. The rest is history.

Oh! yes, Astaire could dance and sing a bit, too!

Chim died aged 45, shot during the Suez crisis. The monograph is available from Amazon.

Book review

Pure joy.

That’s what I’m feeling, looking at Robert Doisneau’s magnificent pictures of Paris.

It’s impossible to adequately convey the pure joy of his photography. So many scenes from the Tuileries, goodness. A setting that elevates all those who traverse its perfection. I’m not well travelled enough to pontificate on its world standing but I fancy one might be hard pressed to find its equal in any city anywhere. I can state with certainty that New York isn’t in the running. New York is about money. Paris is about beauty.

And the passionate quality of his writing. He speaks of cameras as “Machines with insect eyes that are hostile to bombast”.

Of the Eiffel Tower he writes: “Going up the Eiffel Tower offers a panoramic view of Paris, which itself is no longer recognizable, since it lacks the all-important silhouette of the Eiffel Tower”.

Betraying his Marxist sensibilities (which in no way encroach on the pictures) he says: “I don’t much like the ritzy neighborhoods, where rebel barricades have never been erected”.

Just a very special photographer. Where, with Elliot Erwitt you smile to yourself often, enjoying the champagne in his vision, with Doisneau most of what you hear is your own belly laughs as another shot of tequila vision invades your brain.

No street photographer can live without this joyous book on his shelf. Next time you feel down, just pick it up. Cheap psychoanalysis.

Book review

It may be the most extraordinary creative partnership in the history of photography. The master, George Hoyningen-Huene and his pupil, companion and life long friend, Horst P. Horst (actually Horst Bohrmann, but as an American resident at the time of war, you would have changed your name too).

The Baron (Huene’s father had been the chief equerry to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia) and the young Horst met in the late ’20s, with Huene having been Paris Vogue’s Chief Photographer since 1926; an immediate attraction saw Horst become Huene’s photographic assistant. Horst’s photographic work began to be published in 1932 and Huene’s influence is palpable. When Huene blew off Vogue in a tiff in 1937, preferring to spend increasing amounts of time at the vacation home the two had built in Tunisia, Harper’s Bazaar snapped him up and Horst segued into his still warm spot at Vogue.

So you had the two best fashion magazines of the time – French Vogue and Harper’s – with the two greatest fashion photographers of the time. And the style they created – it’s often hard to tell Huene’s work from Horst’s – was to last until the 1950s when a brilliant, young British photographer named Norman Parkinson took fashion photography out of the studio onto the streets.

The cover picture of this magnificent book is of a lovely Jessica Tandy, every pore of her perfect complexion exposed. My favorite is the picture of Joan Crawford, demonized in a witch-like black number, and doubtless happy with the result. Horst had that way of getting below the surface of his famous subjects, unknown to them – note the backdrop, a huge photograph of Greek antiquities from Horst’s collection:

No wonder that Huene left his photography collection to Horst in his will. If you love the work of Irving Penn as much as I (Penn married Lisa Fonssagrives in the 1950s, a favorite model both pre- and post-war for both men) check out the photography of Horst and Huene to see just how they influenced modern ways of seeing.

The book is an essential in any photographer’s collection.