I did a post earlier on Winogrand (here) and everytime I see new videos of him working I am amazed again. He did many great pictures (and some of you might now that I’m hard to please with photo journalism / reportage style – but maybe he was just a documentary photographer?) though maybe even more his attitude, the way he works, the way his passion for photography dominated his life impresses (and shocks!) me most. He did what he had to do, and though it’s not easy to live a life like that it was probably the only way for him.

You find a transcription from both videos via this post at 2point8 blog.

Here are some quotes:

“I don’t lay myself down on the couch to figure out why I’m a photographer and not this or that. Whatever it is, I can’t seem to do enough of it. It’s a pleasure.”

“I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability. Any of ‘em. They do not tell stories – they show you what something looks like.”

“The nature of the photographic process – it is about failure. Most everything I do doesn’t quite make it. The failures can be intelligent.”

Related to the first Winogrand videos, see also this one of Joel Meyerowitz, with german comment only.

Contact Press Images have re-designed their website and they have a bunch of  “digital exhibitons” online now.

I especially liked the Contact/s exhibition where photojournalists show their actual contact sheets on whom they made their edit.

Honestly, before Paul Graham in his lecture in Essen mentioned the name of Garry Winogrand (who Graham says has influenced him a lot), I had never heard of him. Big mistake!

I found an interesting interview / video on youtube, unfortunately undated, must be from the early 80’s or even late 70’s. Especially in the last minute of the video you can see how obsessed Winogrand was. Obviously, he didn’t care what people thought of him when he took pictures of whatever he saw – he just did it. Found that quiet inspiring.

*** This youtube clip is part of a movie called “Comtemporary photography in America” from Michael Engler, 52 min, 1982, read more here . ***