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Greg Gorman - The Past Year
Summary:
Greg Gorman is a famous American photographer who is mostly known for his photographs of celebrities and nudes.
Greg Gorman kindly agreed to talk about his life and work with FotoTV. What he said can be seen in this five-parted video series.
In this third of five videos, Greg Gorman relives his past year for us and talks about the projects he did and his newly found hobby of making his own wine.
If you want to find out more about Greg Gorman, watch the other parts of this video series, too, to learn all about his early years, how he works, some anecdotes about celebrities he photographed and in the last video take a tour around his exhibition.
Eikoh Hosoe II
Summary:
In the second part about the Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe you learn more about him and his life.
Hosoe reports on many interesting facts and background information relating to three of his books. Especially, he talks about his third book called "Kamaitachi". In that work he attempts to describe his memories of the war and the way of trying to keep hold of it.
In his whole work Eikoh Hosoe distinguishes between conceptual and intuitional photography: He has developed a theoretical system for keeping balance between both aspects.
That and much more you'll see in this film.
Eikoh Hosoe I
Summary:
In this FotoTV interview, famed photographer Eikoh Hosoe talks about his early beginnings in photography and his work during his career. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality. Hosoe was always interested in something new and something strange in photography and he wanted to show the core existence through photography.
Through his friendships and artistic collaborations he is linked with the writer Yukio Mishima and 1960s avant-garde artists such the dancer Tatsumi Hijikata. With Mishima as a model, Hosoe created a series of dark, erotic images centered on the male body, Killed by Roses or Ordeal by Roses (Bara-kei, 1961–1962). The series positions Mishima in melodramatic poses. Mishima would follow his fantasies, eventually committing suicide in 1970. With Hijikata as a model, Hosoe created Kamaitachi, a series of images that reference stories of a supernatural being that haunted the Japanese countryside of Hosoe's childhood. In the photographs, Hijikata is seen as a wandering ghost mirroring the stark landscape and confronting farmers and children. The Kamaitachi series was published in book form in 1969.
Hosoe's approach to photography is philosophical, His work has been exhibited in such significant institutions as the International Center of Photography and Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Nikon Salon, Tokyo; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Smithsonian, Washington D. C. Published works include: Man and Woman, 1959, Embrace, 1971, The Cosmos of Gaudi, 1986 and Eikoh Hosoe, 1986, among numerous others.
Steve Schapiro
Summary:
In this FotoTV. interview, photographer Steve Schapiro sits down to share his poignant stories and to discuss working with iconic individuals of the 1960's and 1970's.
Schapiro began his career during the golden age of photojournalism. He has worked on films such as "Taxi Driver" and "The Godfather", which gave him the opportunity to work together with Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Jodie Foster and Francis Ford Coppola.
Schapiro has worked for Life Magazine. He shares several personal stories about working for the magazine and the monumental personalities he photographed. He was afforded the opportunity to work with Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy during a time of the 1960's when news changed from 15-minute daily reports to 24-hour news coverage.
Three elements of a photograph important to Shapiro are emotion, information and design. Shapiro recommends that it is important to photograph images that are close to a photographer and meaningful. He also goes on to say that we are now in an age when the camera might become obsolete as more and more people use smart phones to photograph live events. Schapiro’s use of the black and white medium gives an eternal sense of classic photography as his images convey an emotion stronger than that of color. "Today people don't think in terms of black and white", Schapiro says. A collection of his work can be found in the book "Shapiro's Heroes" or "Heroes” as Schapiro humbly calls it.
Greg Gorman – How he works
Summary:
Greg Gorman is a famous American photographer who is mostly known for his photographs of celebrities and nudes.
Greg Gorman kindly agreed to talk about his life and work with FotoTV. What he said can be seen in this five-parted video series.
In this second of five videos, he will talk about how he works and what his work is like. He talks about some photo shootings and his projects.
If you like have a look at the other parts, too, to learn everything about Greg Gorman’s early years, some anecdotes about celebrities he photographed and in the last video a tour around his exhibition.
Greg Gorman – A Portrait
Summary:
Greg Gorman is a famous American photographer who is mostly known for his photographs of celebrities and nudes.
Greg Gorman kindly agreed to talk about his life and work with FotoTV. What he said can be seen in this five-parted video series.
In this first of five videos you can learn more about Greg Gorman’s early years, how he started his career and how it developed.
Make sure to watch the other parts, too, to learn everything about his later and most recent years, some anecdotes about celebrities he photographed and in the last video a tour around his exhibition.
Robert Lebeck 7
Summary:
In this last installment about photojournalist Robert Lebeck he will share stories about his work after retiring as a photographer.
During the 1980’s Lebeck’s career was nearing its end, despite that he did work up until he was 66 creating and photographing numerous stories for numerous magazines. 65 was an age when people normally retired.
In the early 80’s Lebeck had his biggest Photo-story for Stern Magazine. It was entitled Germany in March. It was his biggest photo-story because he received 12 double pages published in the magazine. That had been the most that Stern had published of Lebeck’s work at one time. The double spread was shot in Hamburg at the fish market there. Lebeck’s subject was a young man eating used fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk. The image was so stark and had so much to say just by looking at it, Stern made it the double page opener of the story.
Lebeck also talks about his retirement from the photo industry, while still remaining involved in photography, overseeing several exciting book and exhibition projects to coincide with his 70th and 75th birthdays. Even though he was out of the business as a photojournalist he was still creating opportunities for him to show his work.
Robert Lebeck 6
Summary:
The 1970’s were a time when photojournalist Robert Lebeck was a staff photographer at Stern Magazine. Despite being successful he left this position due to changes at the publishing house, but only a short time later to get the position back. How that came about and on which projects he work on until the late 1970’s we will learn from Lebeck in this 6th installment of the mini-series, Robert Lebeck and his life as a photographer.
Lebeck’s first work for the renowned Magazine GEO started in the 1970’s. His assignment was to photograph a woman of the Moluccan Islands (Spice Islands). He was sent a photo by telex, but he couldn’t quite make out the photo, but still he thought it was an assignment he could and did successfully complete.
At this time in his career Lebeck started work as the photo-editor of GEO, a new magazine. Rolf Gilhausen collected the best topics and kept them from everybody else until it was announced to Stern Magazine that Gilhausen would use these stories in GEO magazine. Gilhausen had to be careful that Henry Nunn did not find out the plans of Gilhausen because he was not to keen on the idea of having to compete with GEO. Lebeck was appointed photo-editor on a trial basis. He could pick out all the stories and control how the magazine was designed optically. He passed the trial period with amazing results, but he longed to be a photojournalist again. At 50 years old Lebeck thought at first his career was over due to the physical challenges that came along with being a photojournalist, but he soon longed to be a photojournalist again. During this film Lebeck talks about working for Stern Magazine, then GEO as photo-editor, then back to Stern with a high profile shooting: Khomeini and his trip to Tehran. Lebeck would be one of the first ever photojournalist to succeed with photographing Khomeini without his turban, having lost it after a wild greeting and rush from the people on the streets of Tehran.
Robert Lebeck 5
Robert Lebeck 1
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Robert Lebeck 7
Summary:
In this further installment on the great photojournalist Robert Lebeck, Lebeck will cover his passion for collecting post cards and photographs.
Lebeck began collecting photographs at a time when collecting photos was not seen in context with art or business. Mostly at that time photos were bought or traded at flea markets. And that is exactly what Lebeck did, he dug through thousands of photographs and with his salary growing as his career moved on he was able to make bigger purchases from places like the London Auction. He began collecting 19th century photography because he found it to be very unique. He also chose early photography because it fascinated him because he never formally learned photography he was therefore interested in the early years of photography.
What did Lebeck do when he collected everything he could collect on a specific topic? He went on to collect new things. Much can be said of his private life as well since he remarried every 12 years or so, one could say he
collected wives, but probably his travel and constant dispatching to far away places on assignments led Lebeck to remarry so often.
Mary Ellen Mark
Summary:
Having majored in painting and art history she got a scholarship to study photojournalism at the excellent Annenberg School for Communication in Pennsylvania. Here it was possible to borrow any kind of photographic equipment one might want and to have all the paper you needed to print the results – “a fantastic experience”. Mary still uses various formats, each with it’s own particular feel. And she has stayed true to her photojournalistic roots, photographing people and using film rather than digital.
To those of her students who use digital, she recommends that they tape up the backs of their cameras. It is only possible to judge if an image works, she insists, when it’s printed, not directly on the screen of the camera. Most of what is now produced in computers changes the reality of what you are seeing, she says. It is photo-illustration, not photography.
The business of photography has changed over the years and Mary sees some of changes critically. There is now less interest in long stories and less respect for documentary work, for reality and for great portraiture. Potent, iconic images are what Mary Ellen Mark creates and these images, in her words, “have to be made in the camera”. “You have to find the picture and that’s the way it is.” Your job is to translate what you are looking at into an image.
On the technical side, Mary says that she almost always uses Tri-X. And in shooting situations she says, “you have to take control. The subjects must feel that you know what you’re doing.”
Mary Ellen Mark is as active as ever and describes here some of her current projects and the workshop that she will be running this year for the fifteenth time in Mexico.
Her words of wisdom are based on enormous photographic experience and a lifetime of work with people: “Don’t be pushed into being what you’re not”.