Irving Penn whose idealized perfect images brought photography to a new level died this week at age 92. He was a
lucky man -- his first photo landed him on the cover of Vogue. He began his photography career in the l940's just as advertising was really hitting its stride. He had a lifelong career at Vogue, revolutionizing the shooting of fashion. He also traveled and put together museum shows. He constantly explored the boundaries of photography as evident in his stunning imagery. "Thirteen of Mr. Penn's photographs are being auctioned Thursday at Christie's, including "Guedras in the Wind," a 1971 image of two Moroccan women, with an estimated pre-sale price of $40,000 to $60,000. One of Mr. Penn's photo, "Cuzco Children," sold for $529,000 last year, including an auction house premium of 20%. Mr. Penn further developed his austere style that placed models and fashion accessories against clean backdrops. It was a radical departure at a time when most fashion photographers posed their subjects with props and in busy settings that tended to draw attention from the clothes themselves," says
Mary Panzer from the Wall Street Journal. Well-known for his fine black and white palladium prints he also did color work for clients such as Clinique.
"Woman with Roses on Her Arm (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn,) 1950," by Irving Penn. Read more about Irving Penn:
www.wsj.com Why am I writing about this here? I am a great admirer of Penn's work and sometimes despair when I hear art fair photographers discuss mass producing their images and how much it costs to have this done at Costco. Photographers like Penn led the way in turning photography into art with his fine sense of illusion and careful lighting and imagination. Call me old-fashioned. I still believe in the hand made image, carefully crafted and matted and framed under glass. Do you agree?
Black and white darkroom work is very different than color darkroom work. Color is much more precise and much easier to mess up. So most color photographers working in film will send it out to a lab. One thing digital has given me is control back over my own prints.
Connie: You have hit a hot button with me on this subject. As a photographer that uses digital equipment by choice, and then chooses to "finish" my composition in the digital darkroom, I hear no lack of commenty from my booth visitors. The obvious one is "this is photoshopped" which I can usually deal with nicely with an exchange of basic information, but because my work is not of the usual landscape, still life or wildlife genre I don't hear the "I could do that" snide remarks that seem to be the norm.
Still, I see more and more photographers complaining about each other pricing (there was a thread on Bermans site from a woman accusing another shooter of low end product he could possibly produce himself, the story turned out he actually did do the work himself) and attempt to "better" ourselves by finding cheaper ways to produce the same common work rather than find our own vision.
There really is so little craft left from the analog days, I have to wonder how many photographers would be able to creat an image if they were handed a film camera without auto focus or a program mode. I wonder how many would add "Costco does all my prints" on their artist statement, and admit their framing comes from Bed Bath and Beyond.
There seems to be so much more competition these days, finding cheaper ways to produce our work strikes me as just another way to be lemmings rather than artists. Small wonder we receive so much grief!
In photography the artistry is in discovering and capturing the image with all its attendant nuances. Studio photographers carry it a step further in controlling the lighting and composition. Once the image is captured by the camera the photographer makes the final decisions in refining the image for the final output.
Although the darkroom is more labor intensive and time consuming, it does not in itself add any more magic to the image than a computer. The idea of a person working in the darkroom, however, tells you the final product is more labor intensive and the production of prints more physically limited. The value added is from the knowledge that more time was spent making the image.
My bachelor's in photography was earned at Rochester Institute of Technology in the wet darkroom, both color and BW. The black and white darkroom was fun and rewarding, but the steps were time consuming and often unnecessarily repetitive. The color darkroom was very limited in creative latitude since the final output was largely determined at the time the shutter was triggered.
Irving Penn's images would look just as good in computer generated form as in wet darkroom output.
Darkroom prints are more valuable simply because you can't make as many of them in the same amount of time.
At this point film photography can still outperform most digital capture when done in large format sizes of 2 1/4 or larger.
Most of the photographers work in color this days. Until now it was never advise to do your own color print since the chemicals are very toxic to drain in our household water system. Most of the labs take the silver out of the color developer and then they are suppose to dilute the rest before draining the rest. Black and images are great but in my experience they do not sale as well as color images. I have not see that many mayor collectors at the art fairs and believe that we should stay with things that give better odds. The market is hard is nothing wrong with trying different things at the end we all need to make money if not what is the point of putting great image if I can support me and my family.
I do agree Connie. I had an appreciation for photography and it started before I knew it. When I was VERY young, too young to talk, I remember my dad disappearing in our basement for an afternoon behind a closed off area with draped crazy cloths and such with red light emitting from it. I was too young to realize it, but my dad only only had a passion for taking photographs, but developing them too. It was when I was in Junior High I was in a class where we learned so much about taking photographs and developing through a lab at school - we thought it was the best thing on earth we all thought. It was fun, beauty and some students had such an eye I think a professional photographer would have been jealous. Having had that experience as I am sure others have too during their school days, creates more of an appreciation for that work. This is why when I hear artists (photographers) today say they develop their own work, created their own style of creating pottery, do glass blowing from scratch (where by the way where are all the glass blowers, I hardly see this at shows any more), it makes ones work all the more valuable. I can't see for sure how some people who take their images to a developer (as I understand not everyone can create their own dark room), but price them the same way or more as those who develop their work on their own. As an added bonus, my dad became a great framer (called his shop Ron's Photo Framing) after doing photography, still have some of his work displayed and all, but since gave that all up years ago after he's had health issues. I will be honest, I don't recall hearing the name Irving Penn, but am familiar with his work - just never knew it was his. Thanks for sharing this info with us, it is nice to learn about other people here and their contribution to the art world.
a lot of famous photographers, painters, sculptors, etc have had companies ("studios") make their work for them. i don't know if any of them were named costco. maybe cosmo. or costello.
or columbo.
Comments
Black and white darkroom work is very different than color darkroom work. Color is much more precise and much easier to mess up. So most color photographers working in film will send it out to a lab. One thing digital has given me is control back over my own prints.
Still, I see more and more photographers complaining about each other pricing (there was a thread on Bermans site from a woman accusing another shooter of low end product he could possibly produce himself, the story turned out he actually did do the work himself) and attempt to "better" ourselves by finding cheaper ways to produce the same common work rather than find our own vision.
There really is so little craft left from the analog days, I have to wonder how many photographers would be able to creat an image if they were handed a film camera without auto focus or a program mode. I wonder how many would add "Costco does all my prints" on their artist statement, and admit their framing comes from Bed Bath and Beyond.
There seems to be so much more competition these days, finding cheaper ways to produce our work strikes me as just another way to be lemmings rather than artists. Small wonder we receive so much grief!
Although the darkroom is more labor intensive and time consuming, it does not in itself add any more magic to the image than a computer. The idea of a person working in the darkroom, however, tells you the final product is more labor intensive and the production of prints more physically limited. The value added is from the knowledge that more time was spent making the image.
My bachelor's in photography was earned at Rochester Institute of Technology in the wet darkroom, both color and BW. The black and white darkroom was fun and rewarding, but the steps were time consuming and often unnecessarily repetitive. The color darkroom was very limited in creative latitude since the final output was largely determined at the time the shutter was triggered.
Irving Penn's images would look just as good in computer generated form as in wet darkroom output.
Darkroom prints are more valuable simply because you can't make as many of them in the same amount of time.
At this point film photography can still outperform most digital capture when done in large format sizes of 2 1/4 or larger.
or columbo.