James Cook
New member
James,
All these are wonderful additions and each covers a different experience in photography. Can you identify any particular qualities or way of working of all these photographers works that you have managed to have guide and inform your own work.
I've always had a passion for documentary photography so I appreciate those that portray an era and/or have the (accidental?) foresight to record things that will tell those of the future about what has been. To me, that includes people and portraiture (Riis, Lang, Karsh...) when the photo shows how the famous looked and the unknown lived.
Combine that with an artistic skill and you have it all in my thinking. Arnold Newman drilled on the need to know art history because you can only know what's new if you know what has been. Yet nothing is really new.
Today is tomorrow's history. I long to leave a photographic record that is also seen as art.
Tenneson obviously fits outside the documentary circle, but her art, and especially her strong personal style have provided great inspirations and aspirations. I know where she was in 1970 and have seen her succeed through hard work and a strong belief in herself. I recall being offended by her harsh classroom critiques and her failure to recognize how great ;-) my first images were. She caused me to become much better than I would have been.
The common denominator of them all is their ongoing devotion to their vision in building a body of work that will continue to be an influence for many years to come.