Irving Penn RIP

Photographers

The greatest passes.

Mrs. Irving Penn – Lisa Fonssagrives

Irving Penn has left us at age 92 and is doubtless, even now, arranging the set just so for some new work featuring his renowned high aesthetic sense in the afterlife.

No photographer of the Twentieth Century can match his all around greatness. His superb taste, his extraordinary originality, his sense of design and his exceptional technical skills – all these left one breathless. He truly was a man who proved that talent is distributed anything but evenly across the population.

He has left a prolific oeuvre which all photographers can enjoy and from which we can only learn how woefully inadequate our talents are.

Quote: “The camera makes me nervous. It’s like a razor blade. I’d like to protect myself from the incisions it can make.” There are very few images of Penn, but many by him, which is as it should be.

Two horses

Photographs

An all time classic.

This lovely Citroen 2CV, nicknamed the Deux Chevaux since time immemorial for it’s modest power, is one of the great automotive classics. History has it that the design brief included the ability to carry eggs over a newly plowed field, unbroken, a reflection of the agrarian focus of France’s economy.


Citroen 2CV, in Carmel. G1, 33mm, f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 100

This one is doing stout work in Carmel, CA as an advertising platform for a local antique store. You can read the fascinating history of this engineering masterpiece here.

Make mine a pint

Photographs

Nothing beats a good bitter.

Though I may have brought in five successful zinfandel grape harvests from my vineyard in years past, I confess wine does nothing for me. I like the gross profit margins of the growing business but do not care to consume the product.

No, when it comes to a favorite dinner drink, a nice pint of warm English beer hits the spot chez Pindelski. This snap is from the nautically themed Crown and Anchor pub in Monterey, a town I became familiar with a while back.


Crown and Anchor. G1, f/5, 1/3, ISO400

The city of Monterey may be distinguished by some of the worst summer weather on the California coast and maybe that’s why it is such a magnet for expatriate Englishmen. I don’t miss the weather but I do miss a good pint and there are several English pubs in the town.

If you are there, make sure to check Camera West, an old line camera store just around the corner from the Crown and Anchor. If film gear is your thing, be it Leicas or Nikon rangefinders (a huge selection of both), medium or large format, there’s a good chance you will find what you want at this collectors’ emporium.