Trying to step into a room showing black and white photographs, I didn't know I was going to Garry Winogrand's exhibition. The staff told me I was going to the wrong way and the entry was somewhere else.
I barely know the great street photographer. Robert Capa, Henri Bression and Vivian MaierI barely know the great street photographer. Robert Capa, Henri Bression and Vivian Maier are my top three. Street photography has been obsoleted nowadays since Kodak wasn't doing so well and film is an essence of street photography. Nonetheless, the story behind every street photograph has a very interesting interpretation when you actually gaze at one. Winogrand's photo gave me the same feeling that I am inclined to know more about the people in the picture. He was born in New York and has been widely considered as the greatest photographer in the twentieth century.
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| The famous shot by Garry Winogrand |
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| Coney Island, New York, 1952 |
When my audio explained one of his photo, Coney Island, I didn't feel the same way. It said that the photo addressed the sexuality between the male and the female and captured the madness of the Mad Men Era. Are we able to understand the photograph taken a long long time ago? The book, Ways of Seeing by John Berger, brought up a idea that the things seen by people are mystification of what they really are.
"An image is sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved - for a few moments or a few centuries. For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph, we are aware, however, slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights. The photographer's way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject Our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing."
The way the photographer saw will going to be different from the way we see it, according to John Berger's opinion. We may never be going to understand the true meaning behind the photograph even if we fully understood the story of the photographer. The moment captured by the photographer has been already detached from the moment that was happening on the site. The interpretation made by other people (us) is recreating the recreated moment of the photographer, which is added by our own experience and stories. Therefore, technically, the audio didn't stress Winogrand's idea correctly.
Just like when I take a picture of the stranger, I don't think about it too much. Maybe the next day, I find a different trigger of why I took it. It doesn't really matter why I took it because the act of taking picture is far more fulfilling than recalling the meaning behind it or editing it.
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| New York, 1969 |
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| Radio City, 1961 |
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| New York, 1969 |
I guess there wasn't an right entry to get into the exhibition. The effort of trying to get in was already the mystification.
For more Garry Winogrand's information, please see
National Gallery of Art
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