Street Photography from one of the greats

bdcolen

Christmas as seen through the brilliant, twisted, eyes of Lee Friedlander

black mamba

Thanks, BD, for sending this link along our way. Kind of a bummer for me, though. Here it is the Holiday season and these pictures have got me thinking I know very little about photography. Friedlander, as far I can tell, is certainly a revered figure. Yet most of of the pictures I saw in this link leave me kind of flat. I believe that if the 10 shots I saw were submitted to this forum over a period of time, and not identified as to who shot them, they would receive quite a few less than complimentary slings and arrows thrown their way. Like I said, Christmas is right around the corner and here I am....thinking something must be wrong with me. Bummer.

Tom

aj986s

I actually like the picture series. I think it nicely conveys the very humble essence of Christmas in a small town. Maybe one of the other things that impressed me was how simple the images were....given that they were taken during a period of film only. I've been a photog hobbyist since my HS days in the mid-70's. At that time, photography was either expensive (you paid a shop to process your prints) or time consuming and slightly less expensive (you did your own processing in a real or make-shift darkroom). Its so much easier nowadays to snap away with a digital camera, and simply delete the outtakes. Back in my early days, you generally had to think more about what your were about to shoot, and weren't so cavalier about exposing that film. Some of the shots in the series made me think that it took some real insight and imagination to risk exposing those precious negatives; I dare say many of us would not have considered those images worthy at that time.

Angelo

black mamba wrote: »

...most of of the pictures I saw in this link leave me kind of flat. I believe that if the 10 shots I saw were submitted to this forum over a period of time, and not identified as to who shot them, they would receive quite a few less than complimentary slings and arrows thrown their way...

RSL

Tom and Angelo, I agree that a single Friedlander series this short is likely to leave most people cold, especially if they're not familiar with the work of people like Winogrand, Frank, Evans, etc. But you need to get a Friedlander book and go through it, become really familiar with what the guy's trying to do. It's quirky stuff, as BD pointed out. Flip on over and take another look at Jennifer's "A new personal reality - redux," which, at the moment is over in the second list of threads. You'll see the influence of Friedlander in that one. In this kind of photography quirky is good as BD pointed out in a different thread,

torags

black mamba wrote: »

Thanks, BD, for sending this link along our way. Kind of a bummer for me, though. Here it is the Holiday season and these pictures have got me thinking I know very little about photography. Friedlander, as far I can tell, is certainly a revered figure. Yet most of of the pictures I saw in this link leave me kind of flat. I believe that if the 10 shots I saw were submitted to this forum over a period of time, and not identified as to who shot them, they would receive quite a few less than complimentary slings and arrows thrown their way. Like I said, Christmas is right around the corner and here I am....thinking something must be wrong with me. Bummer.

Tom

Nothing is wrong with you Mamba. When you die you're going to be a legend...

Richard

The MOMA has small renderings of 300 of his pics on its Web site, in case you're interested. I love his urban work, but the landscapes are so-so and I think the monument series is a monumental bore. As always, YMMV.

RSL

I surely agree about the monument series, Richard. Landscapes -- so-so.

richardman

I actually do not like Friedlander that much normally, but this series is very good. It's not Christmas as we normally think of Christmas. It also shows the power of a series, even if it is a short one. I disagree that a repost of any single image will get less than complimentary sling (*), but it is true that you will need 3 or more photos to see what he's getting at.

(*) Feel free to bring up any post that bad feedback as a counterpoint.

Quincy T

aj986s wrote: »

I actually like the picture series. I think it nicely conveys the very humble essence of Christmas in a small town.

I agree, aj, I felt some did not really say much, particularly the first with the intersection, but some of them were really great representations of small town Christmas. I'm from a Kentuckian town of 15,000, and I feel so at home looking at a few of these shots.