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February 08, 2007
[ LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS ]
THE TWO MOST COMMON QUERIES that come dpexpert's way are: what camera should I buy and, more plaintively, how can I improve my pictures?
The answer to the second question is to look and learn. Here’s the sad truth. In the art of photography there are very few true originals who dare to take photos that break old rules and set new ones. The rest of us are imitators.
dpexpert has spent the past 50 years imitating Ansel Adams, Wyn Bullock and Philippe Halsman without much success, but at least the greats have given inspiration and set some standards to aim for.
In just this spirit we travelled up to Bendigo last week to see what we could learn from the exhibition at the art gallery of “The world’s most photographed.”
This collection of photographs of Queen Victoria, Garbo, Hitler, Gandhi, James Dean, J F Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn originated at the National Portrait Gallery in London and is on show in Bendigo until 25 March, after which it moves to the Newcastle Region Art Gallery for three months.
Each subject is represented by a group of photographs from different photographers, taken at different times in their lives. Do we learn anything?
First, you improve your chances of getting the great shot by taking as many pictures as possible. All of the photographs in the collection are by professionals working with film and silver halide chemistry. Nevertheless they did not stint when it came to clicking the shutter. Albert Wertheimer recognised an up-and-coming star in Elvis when he approached him with his camera in 1956. He took 4000 photographs in one extended shoot.
Most of Wertheimer’s pictures are banal. Were it not for the fame of the subject we wouldn’t even be looking at them. But what makes them interesting for imitators is that most of them were taken with available light. Or, as the photographer says, “available darkness”, using just the room lighting or a ray or two through a window, probably using the fastest black and white film he could get. Had he used flash the intimacy of the photos would have been destroyed.
If 4000 pictures sounds a lot spare a thought for Hitler’s official snapper, Heinrich Hoffman. From 1939–1945 Hoffmann and his assistants took 2.5m photos of the Fuhrer. Still the best picture in the Hitler group is a casual snap of him looking out of the window of a plane at the Stalingrad catastrophe. It was taken by Walter Frentz and is an example of the opportunistic photograph taken because the camera was at hand and ready.
The most famous of the posed photographs in the exhibition are Irving Penn’s picture of JFK in his rocking chair, Marilyn Monroe’s studio nude shot that became Playboy’s first centrefold and James Dean slouching through Time Square with a fag in his mouth and his shoulders hunched against the cold. Only the Dean picture is memorable for its own sake rather than for the fame of its subject, so that is the one that teaches us most about light and composition.
The most beautifully composed and lit photo in the exhibition is Margaret Bourke White’s superb image of Gandhi at his spinning wheel. Apparently she had intended to use three remotely controlled flash bulbs to light the scene but two were duds. She was lucky. Had the scene been evenly lit it would have been ordinary. As it is the dramatic side lighting from the one bulb that fired is startling. And the lesson for the amateur imitator is never admit that your great shot is an accident. Pretend you know what you’re doing. It won’t hurt.
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Posted by terry at February 8, 2007 10:20 PM
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