A questionable categorization

I came across a book named ‘Women Photographers’ the other day and couldn’t but wonder at the arrogance of the title. To in some way suggest that gender distinction was worthy of a book simply raised my hackles. A good photograph is just that. A good photograph. To try to ladle distinction on a subset of the species just because it happens to include pictures made solely by women seems specious.

But it did get me thinking, I confess. Click on ‘Photography Books’ below and you will see what’s currently in my library. I see monographs on Barbara Morgan, Germaine Krull, Joyce Tenneson, Imogen Cunningham, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, Mary Ellen Mark, Regina Relang and Tina Modotti. Yet not a one of these was bought because the photographer was a woman. They were bought for the simple reason that the photography was special and unique.

Strangely I seem not to have anything by Dorothea Lange, so here’s a reminder of what she did and a mental note to fix that omission at the earliest occasion.

Migrant Mother. The most famous Depression era picture

Lange snapped this in Nipomo, CA, just a few miles south of the old estate. Lange was a great photographer who just happened to be a woman.

A fitting tribute

While it’s the very last place to go for objective investment advice – unless you are a ‘pump and dump’ broker (aren’t they all?) – Fortune magazine has championed great photography over the years and has published a fitting tribute to Kodachrome on its web site.

This picture by Walker Evans, a rare color effort, says everything you need to know about capitalism. Heavy steel with a mendicant living under the bridge. Click the picture for more.

Walker Evans and American steel

A photographer’s photographer

Sam Abell’s book, ‘Sam Abell: The Photographic Life‘, is out of print but after reading the copy in my local library I tracked it down and bought a used one. It is that special.

I mentioned his work earlier when I reviewed his book Seeing Gardens. The Photographic Life, by contrast, is just that. An autobiography by a man who seemingly has done nothing but try and satisfy his fascination with the medium throughout his life, starting at a very early age.

This book is special. He relates how his father educated him in photography and how he risked his life time and again for a picture, not because he wanted to but because the drug of photography had him in its thrall. Later, as his father developed Alzheimer’s and could no longer recognize his son – what a cruel affliction this is – he still photographed him. It’s at once shocking and deeply moving.

In 1971, aged 20 and poor as a church mouse, I was desperately saving every last penny for my first Leica – an M3 that was to be my constant companion for 35 years when I finally bought it in 1973. Yet, when I saw this issue of Camera at the newsstand, savings were forgotten and my pennies deposited on the counter at W. H. Smith in Kensington because I simply had to have the picture on the cover. Yes, that cover, which haunts me to this day, was by Sam Abell and remains in my library. It also appears in this wonderful book.

Colinet, Newfoundland, April 1971

It’s one of his first color photographs and its appearance in this book brought back a flood of pleasant memories.

Did his work influence me?

Thomas Pindelski, Arizona, 1988. Leicaflex SL, 50mm Summicron-R

Thomas Pindelski, Burlingame, CA. July 6, 2009. Panasonic LX-100.

A very personal book by a very special photographer.

My used copy, through Amazon, was $84. Not a lot when it’s so important.

A master of color

This picture by Ernst Haas (1921-1986) is the earliest ‘art’ photograph in color which I recall, having probably seen it in my early teens.

Talk of starting at the top!

While abstraction pervades his work, Haas never abstracts just for the sake of doing so; rather, the context is always clear, the vision insightful and the feel warm and sympathetic.

Check out more of his work in the book Ernst Haas – Color Photography – hard to get, expensive and worth it.