Sunday, August 24, 2008

Previously unpublished photo of Garry Winogrand at work

© 1976, 2008 by Mason Resnick

I recently came across this old photo of Garry Winogrand. I took this shot during a 2-week Master Workshop with Garry at the Germain School of Photography in August, 1976. Our classroom was the streets of lower Manhattan, and I took this shot of Garry on Broadway. While it many not be the most interesting photo visually speaking, it's reminded me of one aspect of Garry's working methods.

First, notice that he has no camera strap. He's simply holding the camera in his hand.

Second, look at his camera bag, which is covered with strips of white tape (see detail). These were labels, and every time he finished a roll he'd jot down basic info about the lighting conditions and ISO, then put the strip on the roll of film before dropping it into his bag. Later, he would refer to this information and adjust film processing to best fit the shooting conditions. You could call it pre-digital EXIF data.

Inside the camera bag was dozens of rolls of film, and a spare Leica M camera.
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5 comments:

Dennis McGuire said...

Speaking of Winogrand's working methods, if he were alive today and working, do you think he'd still be using his Leica's or shooting digitally? I remember an interview, in Afterimage, I think, that he said was thinking about getting an 11" X 14" camera and shooting color film, but he might've been putting the reviewer (and readers) on.

Mason Resnick said...

I remember that interview, too. I think he was serious. My take on it is that he felt he was in a rut and needed to try something different to shake things up.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess about digital--Garry was never predictable!

Vladimir Zharov said...

Thank you! http://www.photographer.ru/cult/theory/4889.htm

Vladimir Zharov said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Excellent