Nil Santana's Archive

Lee Friedlander on Self and Work

Here’s a quote by photographer Richard Benson on Lee Friedlander’s approach to photography (from his afterword in In the Picture: Self-Portraits, 1958-2011):

Lee has often worked without a specific project in mind, simply making pictures of what he saw, in order, as Garry Winogrand said, to see what it looked like photographed. This way of working led him to look at his contact sheets (of which there have been an astonishing number) to find out what was there that he might not have expected. His shadow, and more clearly defined versions of himself, turned up with regularity. At some point early on Lee realized that he was making self-portraits along with many other photographs that were defining a new landscape for all of us who saw his work. There is a great lesson in this for photographers of today who dedicate themselves to one project or another, failing to understand that the best work might come from an obsession with the medium rather than the personally oriented choice of what might be done with it. Lee always has a camera with him and is constantly making pictures. How much better the work of today might be if all the young and dedicated photographers took up this habit.

If you’re in a creative rut and can’t think of a “project” idea, don’t worry — just be obsessed with photography itself and constantly be ready to photograph what interests you.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. Simply amazing – enough said!

from Architect’s Brother series

This is a hilarious and playful example of photography and interactivity. A portrait of multiplicity.

Historical references:

Duane Michals

A few samples of contemporary double-exposure shots.

By Jon Duenas

By Suzy Allman

By Dan Mountford

By Jasper James

By Florian Imgrund

Born in Madrid, Eugenio Recuenco is now one of the most important Spanish photographers on the international scene. Endowed with a brilliant sensibility for chiaroscuro, he is considered as a true heir of the grand masters of Spanish classical painting like Goya, El Greco and above all Zurbarán. He produces highly evocative scenes, and his photos reveal a mysterious world from which you cannot escape once you stared.

Besides the successful fashion or commercial photographs he signed for well-known brand, Recuenco has had numerous exhibitions in the main galleries in Spain: Circuit 8 (art and fashion), Tras el espejo (Spanish fashion) in Centro de Arte “Reina Sofía”, BAC (Barcelona Arte Contemporáneo) in CCCB of Barcelona, in ABC gallery from ARCO show where he won the first prize of photography, not to mention an exhibition in La Santa (experimental place for contemporary art) in Barcelona. He received for his work Concepción, Parto, Juego y Educación (Circuit, 2003) the ABC Prize of photography, while he was awarded the Lions d’or and de bronze in Cannes festival 2005 for his prints for Playstation. Eugenio Recuenco has recently directed a TV commercial for Nina Ricci. He also conceived the 2007 LAVAZZA calendar, just like Erwin Olaf and David LaChapelle did before him.

http://www.eugeniorecuenco.com/

Annie Leibovitz
Another favorite photographer, for her versatile, daring and crafty style. I was able to see her exhibition: A Photographer’s Life, and many of her original prints in Paris a couple of years ago.

I have one of her books (American Music) in my office in case you’d like to look at. Follow this link for some images from the series.

Now we start looking at more contemporary photographers. Dan Winters is one of my favorite commercial/editorial photographers. I had a chance to meet him while attending a workshop in Hunt, TX a few years ago. Really a great guy, and an excellent eye for “light composition.” He is now based in Austin.

Diane Arbus was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of “deviant and marginal people.” Her found street portraits besides documenting the social, are very intriguing, depicting people of various classes, and backgrounds. (click on image to see more of her works)

Also, read this article from LOMOGRAPHY website.

Richard Avedon
Born in New York on may 15, 1923 of russian-jewish immigrant parents. He attended Dewitt Clinton high school in the Bronx, but never completed an academic education. In 1940, at age 17, Avedon dropped out of high school and joined the Merchant Marine’s photographic section, taking personnel identification photos. Later, he went on several missions to photograph shipwrecks. Upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer in a department store. Initially, Avedon made his living primarily through work in advertising. As a staff photographer for Harper’s bazaar and later for Vogue, Avedon became well known for his stylistically innovative fashion work, often set in vivid and surprising locales.

“if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.” he said in 1970.

http://www.richardavedon.com/

Look at his portraits under: Archive