Photography from the Classics -

#4 - 15.02.2009

Try to guess the author's name till next Sunday night, the 22th, (maybe also the decade it was taken), when I'll reveal his/her name .

You may post your guess since now! Suggestion: if you are convinced you really guessed, please let the master's name initials, instead, as well as for someone well known in his/her pictures) for others to go on trying! Thanks.

I'll post 3 pics from each photographer to show different views from himself, and to make it easier to guess. After his/her name revelation, I'll post at least some more photos just for your extended pleasure, as well as a new Master work for a new turn in the game ;)

You may choose, also, to make some comments on the pics themselves, both in a "woophyan" way as you do in your comments [don't hesitate to criticize a Master, for bad or good;)], or in a more general point of view, if you like. Thanks and enjoy!

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Oh, please have a new look at the previous 3 posts as they have a new more pleasant layout, thanks to Lali who told me about the trick (horizontal rule) to get it!

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#1.
Arnold Newman_Igor Stravinsky_1946_

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#2.
Arnold Newman_Red Brick Wall_1948

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#3.
Arnold Newman_Alfred Krupp_1963

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[Sorry for being so late: too much work and some desillusion about what Nonkel Duvel writes at the Forum in the Ruden Fretsbo's topic - lack of "respect" from some members (happily a few!)!]

And the answer is: Arnold Newman

Some quotes and thoughts from the Master:

Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world. - Arnold Newman

I am convinced that any photographic attempt to show the complete man is nonsense. We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals. The inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even the man himself. - Arnold Newman

I am always lining things up, measuring angles, even during this interview. I'm observing the way you sit and the way you fit into the composition of the space around you. - Arnold Newman

Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals photography. Each must hold it's own; if it doesn't, the thing collapses. - Arnold Newman

The photographer must be a part of the picture. - Arnold Newman

I don’t think any student, any photographer, any person should take pictures the way I take pictures. I build them because it’s the way I am, and that’s the way I should be. If I try to be something else and try to take pictures or talk to you humorously because I think I’ll get a few laughts, no. Somebody else, like Duane Michals might be basically funny. He is that way, he makes me laugh all the time. But he is being himself. A writer must be himself, a painter, all of us – or else suddenly we lose what we have. - Arnold Newman

There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece. We know that's impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants. - Arnold Newman

Fantasy is like poetry; it can point to the truth. - Arnold Newman

We don’t take pictures with cameras – we take them with our hearts and minds. - Arnold Newman

Influences come from everywhere but when you are actually shooting you work primarily by instinct. But what is instinct? It is a lifetime accumulation of influence: experience, knowledge, seeing and hearing. There is little time for reflection in taking a photograph. All your experiences come to a peak and you work on two levels: conscious and unconscious. - Arnold Newman

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ARNOLD NEWMAN
(1918-2006)

American photographer, master of portraiture, Newman has produced indelible images of people from all walks of life. He is best known for his portraits of celebrities, particularly artists, whom he depicts in the contexts of their profession, identifying the sitter with his or her accomplishments. Among his subjects have been such figures as John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Marilyn Monroe, Alexander Calder, Carl Sandburg, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Born in New York City, Newman grew up in Atlantic City and Miami Beach. As a teenager he displayed a marked aptitude for art and pursued art studies at the University of Miami, studying painting and drawing with an introduction to Modernism. Financial problems led to Newman's leaving school and taking a job offered by a family friend in a Philadelphia photo studio, making 49-cent portraits. His time there taught the importance of interacting with his subjects and allowed him to develop his technique.
As he learned the craft of photography, his interest in the medium replaced his ambition to become a painter. He was able to support himself as a portrait photographer while pursuing his personal vision, experimenting with cut out images, assemblage, and other modernist design possibilities. On trips to New York he met Alfred Stieglitz, Beaumont Newhall, and Dr. Robert Leslie of the A D Gallery, who offered him his first exhibit.
In 1938 Newman moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and worked in a portrait studio. In 1939, Newman worked in Philadelphia and Allentown, Pennsylvania and Baltimore Maryland for the Leon Perskie studio. From 1939 to 1941, Newman was the director of the Tooley-Myron Photo Studio in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Newman moved to New York at the opening of the exhibit in 1942 and at this time conceptualized the basic philosophy of his future work, "to take pictures of people in their natural surroundings with a little stronger feeling about not just setting it up." In 1946 he worked on assignments for Alexey Brodovitch, and Harper's Bazaar and Life were his major clients. He took some of his most famous portraits at this time, including one of Igor Stravinksy sitting at his piano, which ironically Brodovitch, in one of the most noted gaffes in photo history, rejected.
In 1954, Newman travelled to Europe to photograph for Holiday and Life magazines. In 1958 Newman photographed in Africa, and in the next year he photographed in Israel.
Newman's assignments from magazines have taken him around the world. He was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in London to photograph major British figures in the arts and politics. A film about him, The Image Makers - The Environment of Arnold Newman, was produced in 1977, and he has won numerous awards, including the American Society of Media Photographers Lifetime Achievement in Photography.
Newman's work has been exhibited in one man and group shows worldwide, in museums that include the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. Selections of his work have been published in One Mind's Eye (1974) and Arnold Newman, Five Decades (1986).
Newman was a visiting professor of photography at Cooper Union in New York City for many years. He died at his home in Manhattan in 2006.
Text organized by me, A.Miguel Oliveira with extracts from The Photography Encyclopedia and Getty Research

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Text by Arnold Newman, "A Life in Photography", from Arnold Newman

As a "portrait" photographer I know there is no final definition of a portrait, nor can there ever be one. Yet one thing is certain - a good portrait must be a good photograph, or image, whatever the medium might be. One must be a good artist before becoming a good photojournalist, or a good still life, fashion, sports, landscape, portrait photographer. The only difference is one's own interests, passions and the ability to communicate. We do not take pictures with our cameras, but with our hearts and minds. Good art cannot be defined. There is only great art that creates new ideas and then there are imitations of varying degrees. There is no best way or only way. We learn from the past, in order to understand the present. The past is our foundation, the springboard into the future. Tradition and past ideas are important bases to begin with, but can be traps if misunderstood.
Ideas, conceptual and visual, are what all forms of art are about. Everything else is nothing more than subject matter and technique, which is easily learned. It is not what we photograph or assemble physically or digitally that counts, but how we create our images. Cezanne used only traditional materials and subject matter, still lifes, people, landscapes, but it was his ideas that revolutionized the 20th century art world and laid the groundwork for modern art, including photography. It was not what he painted but how he painted. It is the same for photographers. It is how we photograph that matters not what we photograph. Too often exotic or unusual subject matter is confused with good photography and extolled by the public as well as by artists and critics, regardless of the quality of the interpretation.
As for myself, I work the way I do because of the kind of person that I am - my work is an expression of myself. It reflects me, my fascination with people, the physical world around us, and the exciting medium in which I work. I do not claim that my way is the best or the only way, it is simply my way. It is an expression of myself, of the way I think and feel.
Generally, I build my images carefully, even if they are created in just a moment. They are based on my experience, intuition, and my background as a painter, both by natural inclination and by training. When I switched from painting to photography in 1938, it was first from financial necessity in the middle of the Great Depression, and then from love. Immediately I realized the creative differences - conceptual, visual, as well as technical and proceeded from there.
Mostly I seek ideas, visual concepts, and the vague and preconceived images that have begun to form in my mind, and then (hopefully) find them. One should be flexible and open to discover the unexpected, which is an integral part of this medium. The unexpected often reveals new ideas and unexplored paths. Therefore, one must learn to "look." Nothing should restrict one's manner of expression as long as "it works." No amount of words can describe a photograph or create one. Frequently, we "find" without seeking, acting upon Pasteur's expression "Chance favors the prepared mind." That is why so many great "accidents" seem to happen to the better photographers.
I prefer the risk of failure in experimentation to the alternative of safe repetition and boredom. I do not change for the sake of change, but for experimentation that may lead to new visual ideas. Inevitably, there must be a great deal of the photographer in his finished work. In other words, the photographer must be a part of the photographic process. However, continuous exploration of a single theme in the development of a visual concept should not be confused with repetition. Ideas do not always reveal themselves immediately, and their pursuit often takes a longtime. But it's fun to try!
Rigid rules, regulations, official schools and current trendy "with it" styles needed by the unimaginative are deadly to creativity. History is full of "Golden Rules," laws of composition and other indispensable guidelines. Yet not one great image has ever been created through their application. Style is a natural result, not an aim.
Equally destructive are the schools of "anything goes," of shock, technical flamboyance, self-indulgent, grandiose ideas, or of size for the sake of size. These are all too often labeled the "cutting edge," devoid of lasting meaning or information, and championed by some for their own personal acclaim or interests. Yet new and original voices always emerge to once again open up new paths not thought of by the theorists. Original voices will always emerge.
Unaltered, or traditional, photographs are not real at all. They are flat in a three dimensional world. Color is distorted by a real lack of control. Black and white photography is further distorted or abstracted in a world of reality. Straight photography is not real at all - it is an illusion of reality, sometimes forming into fantasy, abstraction, or any other form the photographer wishes to create. Altered images, such as collages or digital images, are newer forms for the creative mind. It is these illusions and fantasies that we create our own private worlds with. What are they? The truly innovative artists create ideas and images unrelated to anything we have experienced or seen before, new ways of seeing and thinking about our own familiar worlds. This is the real creative artist we all aspire to be. I have been fortunate to photograph the great, the fascinating, the famous and sometimes infamous all over the world and in all walks of life. But most of my subjects are not famous. And just what is fame? One can be famous on one side of an ocean and totally unknown on the other side - or in one country or city, but not in another. And just how long does fame last? And what is fame when it is used to describe a person of true accomplishment? How is it different from the "celebrity" syndrome created by public relations as grist for the media and an obsessed public?
For me, I am interested in what motivates individuals, what they do with their lives, their personalities, and how I perceive and interpret them. But of equal importance, or of perhaps even greater importance is that, even if the person is not known or already forgotten, the photograph itself should still be of interest or even excite the viewer. That is what my life and work is all about.

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Some extra photos:

#4.
Arnold Newman_Andy Warhol_1973

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#5.
Arnold Newman_Picasso_1954

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#6.
Arnold Newman_Woody Allen_1996

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#7.
Arnold Newman_Bill Clinton_1999

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#8.
Arnold Newman_Francis Bacon_1975

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#9.
Arnold Newman_Formerly Condemned Political Prisoners, by British, in Gallows Room_1967

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#10.
Arnold Newman_Shelagh Delaney_1961