Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Gerry Winogrand

Gerry's work was known as part of the "Decisive Moment" movement as he shot from the hip with a wide angle lens.  He was known as a rambler, taking his camera everywhere he went and shooting everything he saw.  I think his work is interesting because he took chances and displayed controversial images.  I really appreciate the image of the bus bench because although the scene may be innocent and purely by chance it exudes the attitude of the sixties.  To me, he really creates the decisive moment technique and allows me to get a better grasp on the abstract idea.  We discussed seeing his contact sheet because his photos seem too good to be true, almost staged.  Sadly, he only had thirty years behind the lens before his untimely death.  In his time his work was not looked upon highly because it dealt with a subject that was not yet main stream.
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I also have to mention the photograph of the African American male, White female and the monkey.  At first glance the photo seems to spark a racial tension that would explode to a nation wide movement.  I think his work was very cool due to his use of the environment to capture everyday things and arrange them in the photo so that they tell a story, or in some cases a bad joke.

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