Youth on Wall – a Chris Killip Masterpiece

15 years ago, I bought my first photograph by Chris Killip.  The photograph represents a time in history, where a committed, but impressionable 30 year-old Killip witnessed the bottom of an economic cycle in Northern England, when industrial manufacturing was dying, and poverty and despair were the order of the day.  

Killip, Chris – Youth on Wall, Jarrow, Tyneside, 1976

I relate to the photograph in my own personal way, as I am pretty sure that the young man in the photograph is more or less my age.  It is difficult to say exactly, as Killip has not said anything about his subject, other than naming the photograph: Youth on Wall, Jarrow, Tyneside, 1976.  In 1976, I was 15 years old, much the same, I think as the young man in this photograph.  My father always said that I should always remember that we do not pick where we are born.  The Youth on the Wall grew up at a time when things were tough, factories shutting, unions being busted, and the industrial heartland of the United Kingdom gutted. 

The young man is wearing a warn jacket – half a suit, I think, that has seen much better days – with pockets appear to have held clenched fists for a very long time, and perhaps a rolled up tweed cap.  We can see a couple of stripes at the bottom of a sweater, which to me looks like part of a former school uniform.  We cannot see what he wears under the sweater, but I would guess a not-so-white undershirt.  His trousers are black and suggest that they have been worn a lot.  Long wool socks connect the trousers that look shorter than they probably should have been at the time, with the massive worn boots, that seem impossibly big, or at least several sizes larger than what this otherwise gaunt young man should need.  But what really grabs me, aside from the great photographic composition, are the clenched fists pressed against the young man’s forehead, and the lines emanating from his closed eyes, and across his forehead below the very short hair, no doubt cut quickly with a machine.  It is as though the youth wants to will himself to disappear.  To vanish from the trials and tribulations that form his seemingly endless reality. 

The composition of the photograph reminds me of Ruth Bernhard’s nudes in boxes.  It is as though the young man is making himself as small as possible to fit in a tiny space identical to the photographer’s frame.  His clothes remind me of the grafters that would show up every day looking for backbreaking work in the docks of Liverpool, or Belfast.  Men hoping to be picked by the crew bosses for a day’s work loading, or unloading ships by hand.  Colin Jones’ work comes to mind.  I can imagine that the youth has a rolled up cap in his pocket and could easily fit in among the thousands of day-labourers hoping to stave off the greedy landlord for another day and buy the basics for a simple meal for himself and his family.  Of course, Killip’s youth is much too thin and weak to ever get called upon by the crew bosses. 

Chris Killip passed away on Tuesday.  He was 74.  He is best known for his work in North England in the mid-1970s.  He created a body of work that was collected in one of the most important photography books of the period: In Flagrante.  Killip lived among his subjects, shared their loss and their despair and understood the context of his photographs – if not yet the importance – such that he was able to vanish into the background and show the raw reality of what was happening at a time in history that was cruel, hard, and for many an endless fight to simply survive.

I look at this photograph every day when I walk into my living room.  It reminds me that I should take nothing for granted and should be happy to be alive, healthy and eager to take on the day.

Chris Killip (1946 – 2020) Rest in Peace, and thank you for the daily reminder.

Harbel 

Note: First published on The Eye of Photography: https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/in-memoriam-chris-killip-1946-2020-by-soren-harbel-dv/

Probably the Most Important Living Photographer in America – Shelby Lee Adams and his Appalachian People

One can only stand back and admire Shelby Lee Adams and his commitment to a full and honest presentation of the people of Eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains.  For nearly 40 years, he has been doing this with a large format 4”x5” camera, a heavy tripod and repeated visits that have made his sitters close friends, who look forward to his visits, and the photographs that he brings, as a gesture of thank you for letting him make their photographs. 

I think of Shelby Lee Adams as a contextual portraitist.  A photographer who includes enough circumstance and environmental content to not only portray the image of the person, but who also includes references to where the sitter comes from and what they are about.  I could perhaps refer to this as the antithesis of the Irving Penn Worlds in a Small Room photographs.  Where Penn photographed in his mobile studio against a neutral background, Adams works hard to include the references around the sitter to help the viewer better understand the subject of his photographs.

Shelby Lee Adams: Brothers Praying

I understand that Adams walked and drove with his uncle, a retired physician, who after a year of retirement in Florida came back to Kentucky and in a WWII Willy’s Jeep did many years of house calls in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern Kentucky.  Often riding with his uncle, Adams earned the trust of the many families he met, and one could say, earned the right to return with his heavy and cumbersome tripod and lights.

The photographs that Mr. Adams makes are of course anchored in a long tradition of great photographers.  The list is long and you can no doubt come up with everyone from Disfarmer, to Evans, Dorothea Lange and so forth, but when you take the time to study Adams’ work, you realize that he is different.  The Farm Security Administration set out to document migration and the lot of those that suffered during The Dust Bowl of the 1930s and started the slow move West.  The mostly anonymous people in the FSA archive, who may from time to time be identified with a short description following a quick exchange with the photographer, before they moved on to the next shot, remain largely unknown. FSA photographs are documents, or proof of a certain suffering.  Adams’ work is different. 

Adams’ sitters have a glow in their eyes, an affection that comes across only when the sitter is a close friend, beyond just being a subject.  Adams has spent many, many hours with the families, has shared meals, drunk good home made sour mash and enjoyed the company of these largely forgotten people that somehow the American Dream left at the doorstep.  Proud, free and honest, often grounded in a strong Christian faith, the people of Shelby Lee Adams’ photographs come to life in a way that can only happen when you can feel an intimacy between the person with the button and the person in front of the lens. Adams says: “I can’t emphasize enough how vital a non-judgmental eye and sincere recognition is…. Kindness and empathy contribute on this journey. “

Shelby Lee Adams: Mary, 1989

Shelby Lee Adams of course is also a master printer.  His work comes across in beautifully toned prints on paper that is the best available.  I am sure, he would have dreamed of having some of the papers that were available 50, or more years ago.  There is a classic elegance to the work that would have been perfect on a warm 1930s paper.  However, we live in the 21st century and we work with what is available and Mr. Adams does a wonderful job presenting his subjects in a manner that can only be described as timeless, reverential, but honest and true to the circumstances under which the people live in the Hollers of Eastern Kentucky.

When still available, Shelby Lee Adams worked with a Polaroid back for his 4”x5” camera and used to give the Polaroid to the subject of his photograph, before organizing himself for the actual exposure.  Taking home the film and developing and printing the images in his studio at the very north tip of the Appalachian Mountains, Shelby Lee Adams returns a couple of times a year to visit and share the resulting images with his friends, who greet him with a smile and a hug.

You can feel Shelby Lee Adams’ photographs.  This is rare and wonderful and justifies my nomination for the title the Most Important Living Photographer in America.

Harbel

Franco Fontana in Modena – Colour Photography Defined

“…the world you live in is colour: you must re-invent it in order to show, as the colour becomes the very subject of photography, it is not a mere recording…” – Franco Fontana

The work of one of my favorite colour photographers is on display in Modena.  After almost 60 years of work, Franco Fontana is given no less than two exhibitions across three venues.  I saw a retrospective of a reasonable size, maybe 100 photographs in Venice a few years ago.  But the Modena exhibitions are supposed to be the main event.  I hope to go there in the coming weeks.

At 86 years of age, Fontana keeps working, the quality and the eye remaining intensely strong.  In a recent interview by Paola Sammartano, Fontana talks about his work.  I found it enlightening.  As you can see from the quote above, making colour photographs is challenging, as what we all live and see is in colour – well most of us anyway – and in order for this not to be just another postcard, enter the magician’s eye for composition.

Fontana, Franco – Havana 2017

Fontana explains that what the colour photographer has to do, is turn the colour of the everyday into the subject itself.  To a photographer – me – who tries hard to see the world in black and white and shades of grey, this is profound.  Fontana does not look for a particular composition of everyday life, as I do, he looks to take colour and turn the colour that he sees into the subject of the photograph, not actually setting out to record the object or scene that is in front of him.  Fontana has a different way of seeing.

I first knew Fontana from books.  He has done a lot of books.  Still does.  A few years ago, I bought a Polaroid by him, which I proudly framed.  And more recently, I added a second photograph.  It is one of Fontana’s most famous photographs taken in the south of Italy. The rolling landscape and the single tree are brought together by clear lines of precise colour coming from each field. Note that there is no horizon and aside from the tree, which could be large or small, there is no indication of scale. It is a wonderful colour composition. It works.  Much better in colour, than it would have in black and white.  This is a photograph of colour, not a tree, nor a landscape. This is pure Fontana.

Fontana, Franco – Basilicata 1978

Fontana says that: “….what you see is colourful and has to be reinvented [by the photographer] because the colour itself must turn an object into a subject.  If it remains merely an object, then I think the film, and not the photographer, is managing the colour.”

To me this explains why in his most successful photographs, Fontana is not making colour saturated, beautiful postcards, but is using the colour that he sees to create compositions that are about colour itself.  Colour separate from what is actually before him when he takes the photograph. 

I think many would probably suggest that Fontana’s most successful photographs have an abstract quality to them, showing fields of colour that together with other fields of colour create a splendid composition.  Fontana is asking the viewer to think about colour for its own sake.  Some will seek to find, and in most cases can make out the original object of the photograph.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to understand the origin of genius.  It is to better understand what it was that Fontana saw, and reinvented, so well.

Among today’s hyperactive selfie-nation there are surely phone owners who can make Fontana photographs, either by chance, or by computer. But, I admire that Fontana with film, camera, lens and available light, repeatedly can produce profound statements of colour that are not only recognizable and in his signature style, but also represent the finest in colour photography.

The curator of one of the two shows in Modena, the one not curated by Fontana himself says that: “His bold geometric compositions are characterized by shimmering colours, level perspectives and a geometric-formalist and minimal language”, going on to say that: “The way Fontana shoots, dematerializes the objects photographed, which loose three-dimensionality and realism to become part of an abstract drawing.” 

I like what Fontana himself says a lot better, but then, he is only the photographer.

Harbel

Note:  See the exhibitions at the three venues in Modena through August 25th at:

Palazzo Santa Margherita, Sala Grande, Corso Canalgrande 103

Palazzina dei Giardini, Corso Cavour 2

MATA – Ex Manifattura Tabacchi, via della Manifattura dei Tabacchi 83

Henri Cartier-Bresson and The Decisive Moment on the Run

In a recent article, Agnes Sire, the Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson discussed the legendary photographer – by most collectors and enthusiasts of photography simply referred to as HCB – setting out to explain some of the magic that has surrounded the photographer for more than three quarters of a century.  Here is my contribution:

In HCB’s seminal book, in English called “The Decisive Moment” and in French “Images à la Sauvette” (1952), HCB assembled a selection of his photographs of various subjects, in a novel style that was made possible by a small, nimble hand-held camera, in the hands of a master, who had a great eye and a classical background in composition.  The book has come to be, perhaps, the most important book ever published in the field of photography.

The HCB paradox, in my mind is one of reconciling the idea behind the two titles of his book.  In English The Decisive Moment, in French translated into English Images on the Run.  Arguably HCB did both, he found the exact moment to take a photograph. He did so with great composition and great command of light and shadow.  However, the concept of the decisive moment is based on perfect composition and perfect content, but to make a photograph at the decisive moment, you have to wait for the decisive moment.  You have to be patient.  You compose your image in the view-finder, you set the graphic elements and ensure that the light and shadow elements will work in the final black and white print, and then you wait.  You wait for the right element to enter the photograph, usually this is people, a dog, a car or another moving object and you press the shutter when the moving element is in the perfect position in the composition you have prepared for it.  This is the Decisive Moment. 

Henri Cartier-Bresson – Hyères

A good example is the bicycle rider in the 1932 image from Hyères in the south of France.  The graphic elements of the staircase, the position of the photographer above the subject, and the stairs, walls and building all round, create the perfect setting.  The perfect light and shadow elements form the perfect frame for the lone bicycle rider that comes along the cobble stones on the road below. 

Images on the Run, on the other hand, suggests that you lift the camera, compose the image on the fly and capture the moving elements perfectly within the field of the viewfinder.  All in a fraction of a second.  This requires not only incredible luck and intuition when it comes to the compositional, or graphic elements, but also the moving elements have to be just perfect.  While I would argue that this happens, it does not happen often, and certainly not every time.

Henri Cartier-Bresson – Behind the Gare Saint Lazarre

A prime example of this would be HCB’s Behind the Gare Saint Lazarre, which captures the jumping figure and his reflection in the standing, perfectly still water, with a poster in the background of a circus artist in a strikingly similar position as the jumper in the foreground.  There would have been only a second or two to anticipate this shot and certainly no time to prepare.  Lucky?  Perhaps, but it still takes a great eye to make this come together.

The contradiction in these two photographs is that in the first, the one from Hyères, it is 99% sure that the composition was created, and the shutter pushed down only when the bicycle appeared below.  Arguably, HCB might have seen a bicycle come across the field, followed by him setting up the shot and waiting for the next bicycle, however, unlike the Saint Lazarre image, where HCB could see in advance that the figure was going to come across the boards and would perhaps jump, giving him time to raise the camera and press the shutter at the perfect moment, the shot with the bicycle could not be anticipated, as the bicycle  would have come from behind the building to the right at some speed, and there simply would not have been time to even raise the camera.

This interpretation of the two book titles, perhaps illustrated with the two examples above, creates part of the mystique around HCB.  He nursed this mystique.  It is said that he buried a small box of negatives – individual negatives cut from whole rolls – in his garden before the outbreak of World War II.  The mystique is augmented, as some of these negatives are among his most celebrated.  They date from the 1920s and 30s and are in many cases iconic.  However, in saving individual negatives only, as opposed to entire rolls of film, you cannot see, if he took 30 photographs to get the one with the bicycle…. Perhaps there was one with a pedestrian, one with a pram, one with a car, and so forth, and he selected the one with the bicycle.  There is no way of knowing how the decisive moment was achieved.  How many shots it took before the  bicycle came along.  It is more than likely that there would have been several photographs from the same spot before the bicycle came along.  We will never know, and I am convinced that HCB liked it that way.  The box of individual negatives contributed greatly to the legend that he became and cemented in his followers his incredible ability to compose every frame perfectly every time.  We will never know how many photographs of the same scene would have appeared over and over again with variations in the key moving elements, until the right one came along and the decisive moment occurred.

Why is this important you ask?  Well, I think the majority of HCB’s iconic images are actually very carefully composed frames with moving elements captured just at the right time.  As opposed to simply lifting the camera at the right second and by magic shooting at the same time as designing the composition within the frame, as would be the case with the ‘photographer on the run’.

This is by no means a scientific analysis of the master’s work, nor is it a critique of the man’s incredible skill and his wonderful photographs, it is my interpretation of how he nursed his own legend and at the same time suggested that compositional, framing elements were everything, but that the fraction of a second when the decisive moment happened was also everything and somehow the compositional elements came together with the moving elements in a decisive moment, in a spontaneous, not pre-planned fashion.  This is pure fabrication.  Perfect composition, lighting and the moving elements do not just come together in the 1/125th of a second that one might shoot in today, or the 1/50th of a second that HCB would have shot at in the middle of the last century.  Yes, it can happen.  Yes, experience will help with the composition elements.  But it is not something that happens over and over again and just for HCB.

I am not suggesting that HCB’s photographs are not mind-blowing and that the sheer volume of his incredible photographs are not awe-inspiring for any photographer, what I am saying is that a great number of his photographs are carefully composed in advance and taken once the moving, critical element entered the frame in exactly the right position and the shutter was pushed.  Of course, lots of HCB’s photographs are absolutely taken on the run, but often the compositional elements are not quite as strong, and the action, or the moving elements, as I call them, tend to be a little more centered in the frame, as would be natural, if you see something happening, you raise and point your camera, and press the shutter, all in a matter of a split second.

In conclusion:  HCB did both the well-composed decisive moment photographs and the images on the run photographs.  So, perhaps it is appropriate that his collection of photographs published to such great effect in 1952, in a somewhat convoluted manner had both titles.  The result is a collection of both carefully composed images, where behind the scenes, an entire roll might have been committed to get just the right moving element, and images that were a result of a split second decision to shoot, where a roll might actually contain 36 completely different photographs.

HCB was superb at supporting his own legend, and had a reputation for harshly critiquing mentees who broke his rules for strict composition and perfect timing for the moving elements.  He was a great photographer, but the legend that all his photographs were split-second decisions, where he just happened to be exactly in the right place, in the exact right position, in the 1/50th of a second where the whole thing came together in his view-finder just so, is entirely the stuff of legend and a carefully nurtured legend at that, which HCB seems to have enjoyed thoroughly.  His writings, his quotations, his legendary privacy, hatred of having his picture taken, all have fed the reputation and formed the iconic legacy that he enjoyed during his lifetime, and beyond.

One of his more famous quotes reads:

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to ‘give a meaning’ to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry – it is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression”.

 This is the stuff of legend, and for the average photographer the kind of stuff that makes the knees knock and the hands tremble.  And while it can certainly happen, it is the exception rather than the rule, because as a rule with HCB, composition came first, and more often than not, the moving elements were the result of patience and multiple efforts before achieving the final result.  The quote is revisionist, and designed to further fuel the legend.

It doesn’t diminish the value or the incredible number of magnificent photographs that the master produced during his long career, but it does make him human.  At least a little more human than the legend might otherwise suggest.

Harbel             

Remembering Ara Güler – The King of Istanbul

I met him once. He sat in his café-cum-bar at a corner table by the window. He was the belle of the ball, the one that everyone in the know was looking at discreetly, or in some cases staring at wildly. A legend. A celebrity. A man who managed to capture the essence of Istanbul.

Sure, he claimed he was much more than that, when asked. He would talk about all his travels, where he had visited and photographed, how he was hand picked by Henri Cartier-Bresson to join Magnum, but the legacy persists: He was the king of Istanbul, the pride and the living visual memory of the great city.

His photographs are atmospheric and truly sensitive to what it means to see Istanbul for what it is and what it was. The cross-roads, the cradle and the mystery that is the front door to Asia, the legendary city of sultans, the gateway, mysterious and wonderful. Any photographer would have given their eyetooth to make some of the photographs that Ara Güler so amazingly did over and over again, day after day. Orhan Pamuk’s words and Ara Güler’s photographs in many ways define Istanbul.

Ara Güler had a great eye and was an early riser. His photographs reflect some of the things you could only possibly experience when rising at dawn and making your way to the port, where your friends and people that you could relate to, allowed you to travel with them on their boats and make photographs of tough lives well lived, witnessed by someone who was there, but was also himself one with them. It seems to me he photographed like the invisible man, making photographs that bear witness and simply shows what daily life was like only a few decades ago in a city that has changed so much.

It always impresses me when photographers have a body of work they are famous for, as opposed to a single image or two. Ara Güler doesn’t have a signature image, at least not one that I would willingly identify as such. I recognize a lot of his images that I saw in his little gallery upstairs from the café in Istanbul, or in his several books. But unlike many of his peers, he created a feeling and an atmosphere with his photographs, which nobody else seems to be able to capture. Many have tried photographing Istanbul at various times over the past 100 or so years, but I always end up comparing them to Ara Güler and I always conclude that they are good, but not quite as good as those made by the King of Istanbul.

He who wanted to be remembered for so much more, will always be the one who photographed Istanbul: Ara Güler, the one who did it better than anyone else.

Ara Güler (August 16, 1928 – October 17, 2018) was fittingly born in Istanbul, and passed away in Istanbul, may he rest in Peace.

 

Harbel