The Color of Wildness – book review

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Porter’s work changed how we look at the outdoors, moving away from the mundane, overrated monochromes of that adept darkroom manipulator Ansel Adams, and seeing the details in all their beauty. And yes, the emphasis in all of Porter’s work is beauty, greatly aided in this case by the well reproduced, large format pictures.

The book includes a fascinating essay by John Rohrbach explaining how Porter moved from black and white to color, despite snide asides from Adams and his set of toadies. It has long been my contention that Adams rejected color owing to his lack of ability in the medium, hiding behind the mistaken belief that if it’s monochrome, it’s Art. And it doesn’t hurt to print on fancy paper using ridiculous assortments of chemicals to emphasize the fact.

The modern version of this idiom is the growing reference by photo sellers to ‘giclee’ prints, as if association with something French must be a good thing. What they mean is that they printed on an Epson ink jet. Making a virtue out of necessity. Sounds sexy and mysterious, it has to be said.

In Porter’s own words ‘I believe that when photographers reject the significance of color, they are denying one of our most precious attributes – color vision.’

Highly recommended.

Not just your average queer.

I cannot remember a time when I was not aware of the multi-talented Englishman, Cecil Beaton (1904-1980). Photographer, writer, designer, he did all of these at the highest level.

Whether it was 1964 when My Fair Lady hit the big screen (Beaton designed all the gowns) or 1971 when his landmark show An Anthology of Fashion premiered at the Victoria and Albert museum in Kensington, or 1962 when at the tender age of ten, I first read his book, Photobiography, Beaton has always held a special place in my growth as a photographer.

Central to his development was a surpassing interest in fashion, and it has to be said that the classic Vionnet, Schiaparelli and Gres costumes on display at the V&A show were breathtakingly well exhibited. The Gres and a couple of magnificent Balenciagas stick in my mind even today. How did women fit in these? Beaton, of course, had all the right connections to secure loans of these high flights of couture from their rich and famous owners. Sharing an alma mater with Churchill (Harrow School) and a Cambridge graduate, Beaton occupied the rarefied, dandified world of fashion and aesthetes from day one. Even as a boy, he experimented, using his sisters and relatives as models, with exotic lighting and backgrounds, the latter of his own creation as often as not.

And before you dismiss him as just another pansy in a cultural subset seemingly dominated by them, take a look at his pictures of war torn London and you will see the work of a great, tough photographer, unafraid to risk life and limb. How can one look at his pictures of the ruins of St. Paul’s even today, and not feel hatred towards the German Master Race?

None of this is to deny that Beaton came in for his fair share of ridicule during a long life. His epicene manner did not help. In 1971 David Bailey made a vicious television documentary named Beaton by Bailey, where Beaton comes over as nothing so much as a tired old fag, none of this helped by Bailey’s reference to him as Cecily in a newspaper interview of the time. Not for nothing was this hatchet job dubbed ‘Beaton by Bailey’ soon after its showing.

Then there was the ridiculous ‘love affair’ with Greta Garbo. A homosexual and a lesbian. Straight out of the Tchaikovsky playbook and just about as successful. Add accusations of being a relentless self publicist and publicity hound – how else does one get known for heaven’s sake? – and you might view the man with faint ridicule. Yet just one look at the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady or any one of hundreds of his great photographs of royalty and fashion (no confusing those two!) and you see the work of a great and original artist.

Hunt down some of his work. It’s worth it.

There’s a lot to learn from this great photographer.

Whenever I get tired of reading yet another homage to Ansel Adams, that most glorified of darkroom technicians, I turn to the work of a real photographer who also happened to be a competent technician. The difference is that visualization never takes second place to darkroom technique with Erwin Blumenfeld.

Another in a long list of German outcasts, Blumenfeld (1897-1969) chanced upon a darkroom in his retail store in Berlin and a lifetime’s addiction started. Changing careers, he made his at Vogue and Harper’s during and after the war and was given remarkeable creative freedom.

His influence spread wide, his work a mix of the abstracted and the expressionist.

The other day I was rewatching the greatest Western film ever made, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West and there, right in the middle, is a jaw dropping shot of Claudia Cardinale, whom the camera observes from above and through a screen atop her four poster. Now every image of Claudia Cardinale is an occasion for rejoicing, it’s just that this one immediately says that Leone was a Blumenfeld fan, and the movie is nothing more than a succession of glorious still images. Blumenfeld’s net of influence was cast wide.

The book’s cover picture is but one example of where less is more. Appearing on the cover of Vogue in October 1952, it personifies glamour, class, sensuality and eroticism yet nowhere are the model’s eyes to be seen. Seldom has a Jacques Fath dress or a gorgeous neck been done greater justice.

And as you leaf through this slim book, just the right length to prevent overload, you realize that Blumenfeld’s compositions are what makes the pictures so striking, never mind the peerless technique.

It’s a whole lot more fun than those wretched Adams prints.

The man was a God, but why the pretentiousness?

Proving yet again that there’s no money to be made in Art Books, I splashed out the princely sum of $31.50 on “Irving Penn Platinum Prints”. This book had no expense spared at the altar of authenticity.

Now before you accuse me of being unduly critical, a quick check of my earlier piece on Penn’s fine book “Worlds in a Small Room” may be found here.

The man, clearly, is a God in the history of twentieth century photography.

So when I decided to blow serious coin on “Platinum Prints” it was not without foreboding. I have always eyed anything which purports to apply Secret Sauce to a common or garden process with deep suspicion. And, sadly, skepticism was more than justified in this case.

Yes, the famous pictures are all there – that old fraud Picasso, the future Mrs. Penn (well, at least the guy was straight, or it was one hell of a cover), that great black and white Vogue cover of the mesh vail, the Harley Hell’s Angels disguised as Greek gods, the mud people, Cecil(y) Beaton, all those neo-Sander portraits of horny handed sons of toil, those foul/smelly/gorgeous cigarette butts. In other words, Penn’s finest. No question, the reproduction quality of the prints is beyond criticism.

Then, over that height of civilized existence, the evening vodka Martini, I chanced on the back cover of the book only to see the following solemn inscription: “Over the years I have spent thousands of hours silently brushing on the liquid coatings, preparing each sheet in anticipation of reaching the perfect print. Irving Penn”.

Phew!

So the guy:

1 – Despite working for Vogue with all its resources, values his time so little that he has to make his own prints. Something a trained monkey can do reasonably well.

2 – He elects to waste thousands (thousands – do you believe that?) of hours in a darkroom rather than share more of his great vision with the world.

3 – An exotic process is clearly involved. Do I smell snake oil?

I yield to no one in my admiration for Irving Penn. Unlike his fake contemporary, Richard Avedon, Penn had an eye for what he believed in, not for what would sell. He was the Real Thing.

But then he has to go and tell the world that he is using some inane, archaic process to make his prints. They are no better for the fact that he wasted thousands of hours on them, and that means they really are awfully good. Buy the book, disregard the blurb.

Just because the printing process is complex does not mean the print is a good picture. Thank goodness Penn’s work transcends the nonsense this book propounds.

The English satirical magazine Private Eye has long published a column named Pseuds Corner where pretentious nonsense is reprinted in all its glory. For example:

“The sheer courage of these pieces is breathtaking. The space inside, the gap between the walls, narrows, widens, breathes in and out (if you can speak of massive iron “breathing”, which in Serra’s work you can) and eventually rewards you with an inner chamber, from which you have to follow the same route out each emphasizes the ancient Greek philosopher’s Zen-like adage: hodos ano kato mia kai hote, “the way up and the way down are one and the same.” A maze would be fussy; it would interfere with the stupendous directness and logic of Serra’s spatial language. Robert Hughes on the Richard Serra installation at the Bilbao Guggenheim.

Phew!

Well, I never cease to be amused by the vast volume of Pseuds’ Corner prose that the world of photography attracts. Here are some recent examples – the names of the authors and publications have been suppressed to protect the pretentious.

“After a small quantity of test rolls (about 25 in all), both my regular Tri-X, some Lucky 400 made in China and Fuji Acros my personal feeling is: If you already have a later version of the Summicron 50 (and who doesn’t) or a clean 50DR Summicron you would not see much difference on your negatives (from pictures taken with the lens under review).”

From a a self-proclaimed Leica “expert” whose claim to fame seems to be ownership of dozens, if not hundreds of lenses for his Leicas (such fame is certainly not based on the quality of his photographic output).

“As W became better known, he was forced to try to explain in words matters that he knew could not be explained at all, but that might with luck be demonstrated in pictures.”

From the introduction to a book of photographs of a vastly overrated machine gun shooter whose demise caused many a moist eye in the accounting department at Kodak.

“Dualities have always been a feature in M’s life and work. He speaks of a “dark Manichaean flavor” in his earlier urban subjects, but that is not an element in his landscape work.”

From the notes to a book of M’s landscape photographs which prove without a shadow of a doubt that he should have stuck to street shooting.

“E’s affection for photography began at the time when he was starting a new life of sobriety. It is almost as if photography, with its directness, truth, and poignancy, became symbolic of this new life.”

From the introduction to a book about a manic collector of seemingly every famous photograph under the sun.

“Michael works in a special place; on the edge of darkness and light. His images hold a mirror to each viewer’s soul and conscience.”

From the introduction to a book of photographs by a darling of the collector set who has basically taken the same photograph a thousand times over the past twenty years.

“For his simplicity and his unbridled passion for his art, for all that has gone before and for all kinds of other reasons, a lot of which have nothing to do with photography, but a lot to do with art, and for never knowing when to stop chasing rainbows, B is a hero to his own generation and beyond.”

Introduction to a book of photographs by a famous fashion photographer.

“Technical fetishism also has its theoretical counterpart, namely the art of photographing.”

Introduction to a book of one of the most famous street photographers.

* * * * *

I didn’t make these up. Honest. I just went to the largest photography books in my library. The larger the format of the book the more of this sort of clap-trap is to be found in its pages. That does not mean you should stop buying large format books, only that you should look at the pictures and disregard the turgid prose. And remember – no Pseud ever took a good picture.