Masters of Photography

Summary:

Jim Brandenburg is one of the world's most renowned nature photographers. He worked for many years for the “National Geographic” and traveled the world.

We all know his pictures from a great number of publications, from exhibitions or from documentary films, he did for television. FotoTV had the opportunity to do a detailed interview with him.

Part 1 shows you how he managed to make his way from the rural areas of America in Minnesota, to get reputation on an international level. He tells us why he quit his arts-degree - for his artistic vision – and how his encounter with a wolf changed his life.

Enjoy the film.

Summary:

John Davies is one of the most important British photographers. Born 1949 in Sedgefield, UK, Davies became famous for his detailed views of the english industrial landscape. His black and white photographs tell stories about processes, changes and transformation of Great Britain. He describes his works as documentary landscape photographs.

In the mid-70s, John Davies began with the analysis of wild and natural landscapes of the British Isles and its changes caused by the climate before he decided to devote himself to the documentation of british cities. Here he concentrated on the changes provoked by the industrial and post-industrial landscape.

Some years ago, John Davies started the Metropoli project, to document the major post industrial cities in the UK from high vantage points to reveal the architectural infrastructure and topography of the city. Those tales from topographic cities were shown during a retrospective at the PhotoEspaña in Madrid and the National Media Museum in Bradford.

Summary:

Fashion photography has had possibly its best time in the eighties. The photographic style of this era has been characterized by photographers like Sante D'Orazio. Everyone has seen his pictures of stars and supermodels like Naomi Campbell. They made history on the covers of glossy magazines such as Vogue and Elle. His nudes were shown regularly in playboy.

We met Sante D'Orazio at his exhibition 'Double Cross' at the NRW Forum in Dusseldorf. One half of this exhibition deals with photographs taken in the eighties 'behind the scenes'. The faces of the people in those pictures showing the excessive lifestyle of the fashion scene were scratched out to make those photographs publishable.

The second parts of the exhibition shows Sante's new work in which he portrays the high priests of modern art.

Summary:

Araki Nuboyoshi is perhaps the most famous and controversial photographer of Japan. Araki breaks all the rules: His photography is very subjective and direct, it might even be too close for some people.

The interaction of sex, death and beauty has found its place in the works of Araki Nuboyoshi. In his country, he is a pop star. We were lucky to meet him for this interview during his exhibition "Araki Gold" in Rome.

Summary:

From the 'War photographer' website:

A film about the American photographer James Nachtwey, about his motivation, his fears and his daily routine as a war photographer. If we believe Hollywood pictures, war photographers are all hard-boiled and cynical old troopers. How can they think about 'exposure time' in the very moment of dread?

Swiss author, director and producer Christian Frei followed James Nachtwey for two years into the wars in Indonesia, Kosovo, Palestine... Christian Frei used special micro-cameras attached to James Nachtwey's photo-camera.

We see a famous photographer looking for the decisive moment. We hear every breath of the photographer. For the first time in the history of movies about photographers, this technique allowed an authentic insight into the work of a concerned photo-journalist.

Christian Frei, the author and director of this film gave us the permission to make our own 10min FotoTV cut which we are presenting here.

Summary:

The first part of our interview with Albert Watson is about the person behind the camera. This second part is about his photographic works.

Amongst other things, you will learn what the portrait of Alfred Hitchcock means to Albert Watson and why Hitchcock and Watson's father inspired him to photograph Mike Tyson.

Albert Watson also talks about the genesis of the first nude photograph of Kate Moss and the analogue portrait of Mick Jagger.

Summary:

Albert Watson, blind on one eye, has made a name for himself as one of the most successful fashion and advertising photographers in the world. Born and raised in Scotland, Watson studied at the Royal College of Art in London. Since the early seventies he lives and works in New York.

His photographs were used on more than 250 Vogue covers and numerous other publications such as Rolling Stone or Time Magazine.

Many of his pictures are classic portraits of celebrities such as Alfred Hitchcock, the Rolling Stones member Mick Jagger or actor Johnny Depp. But Albert Watson does not only shoot the rich and famous, he also documents his travels around the world, works on still lives and art projects.

We met Albert Watson in Dusseldorf at his exhibition at the NRW-Forum Kultur. In this film he tells us about his life and the versatility of his photography.

Summary:

Ralph Gibson is a master of photography. Born in 1939 in Los Angeles he started his photo career in the U.S. Navy and worked as an assistant to Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank. We met up with Ralph in his parisian gallery where he told us how he works in both black & white and colour with his Leica and why he doesn't believe in digital photography.

Summary:

After studying art, Douglas Busch worked as an assistant to Morley Baer and worked with Al Webber and Ansel Adams. Early on, Busch interrupted his photographic career to join the family business and become a jeweler. But some years later his addiction resurfaced and he founded the de Golden Busch Inc., where he started to build the largest portable camera in the world.

His works ranges from early "Street Photography", to large format black and white photographs with extraordinary landscapes and cityscapes to bizarre portraits. His latest work is a highly abstract series called "Waves."
Douglas Busch's photographs can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art, NY (MoMA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Getty Museum.

In this interview, Douglas Busch gives an overview of his artistic works.

Summary:

Richard Kalvar is an American Photographer and Magnum member since 1975. He has served as vice-president and president of this legendary photo agency.

"Kalvar's photographs are marked by a strong homogeneity of aesthetic and theme. His images frequently play on a discrepancy between the banality of a real situation and a feeling of strangeness that emerges from a particular choice of timing and framing. The result is a state of tension between two levels of interpretation, attenuated by a touch of humor." (Magnum homepage).

During the show presenting his current publication “Earthlings” in Paris, we had the chance to film this interview with him.