Irving Penn dies at 92

[John H. Maw]

Sadly Irving Penn died earlier today (Wednesday) at the age of 92. The New York Times has the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/ar...gn/08penn.html

[Ian]

Re: Irving Penn dies at 92

Sadly Irving Penn died earlier today (Wednesday) at the age of 92. The New York Times has the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/ar...gn/08penn.html

Hi John, Welcome to the DPNow forum, and thanks for posting the link.

As I have stated previously here, my knowledge of classic photographers' work is not strong, and although I had heard of Irving Penn, I wasn't that familiar with his work. As is so often the case in the world of art, the death of the artist is the catalyst for increased interest in their work, which I find rather bizarre!

I have been googling around and have found quite a few examples of Penn's imagery and it's interesting.

But I do ask myself - what differentiates someone like Penn from the thousands of very talented amateurs we can now find easily through the medium of the Internet?

Ian

[John H. Maw]

Re: Irving Penn dies at 92

Hi Ian, and thanks for your welcome. We did meet at the Adobe HQ just after the launch of CS3.

Two points. As they say, "That was then, this is now".

Penn's work was pre-internet (or at least the mass user involvement that we see now). To be influential as a photographer you couldn't just take a few pics (good as they might be) and pop them up somewhere and get recognition. You had to make a career of it. Penn was a very influential photographer at a time when being a photographer meant learning a craft, both in terms of picture taking and in the darkroom. It was harder to take good pictures with the cameras that he used and it was harder to get a finished result in terms of producing a fine print.

The other point about was he "special". Clearly that is a matter of subjective judgement, but two things occur to me. First is that he had a style. A consistent and recognisable feel to his images, and remember that most of these were taken as part of his work. It is easy for an amateur to take what they want and cherry pick their subjects, but someone doing it for a living has to pay the bills. He turned out brilliant images as a daily part of his working life.

Secondly, I think that he had a superb knack of simplifying his images. A graphic grasp of composition that I admire and envy (Yes. I'm envious as hell).

I agree that there is a lot of talent out there in the world of the enthusiast photographer and I admire that (as well as working as a photographer I strongly consider myself to be an enthusiast), but I think that we can all learn from Penn as people like him.

PS. If you can get to see some (ideally quite a bit) of his work in a gallery I think you will see that the internet doesn't give you the full story. There is the world of difference between judging a fine fibre based print and an image on a screen.

All the best.

John

[Ian]

Re: Irving Penn dies at 92

Completely agree - there is nothing quite like viewing great photos that have been printed well. I'm sure that many images that look fantastic on a Web page would not print particularly well and the reverse is almost certainly true for many great prints.

In the end, though, I have to say that the popularity of a given artist, is often down to an almost mythological status that builds up (or not!). If a few authoritative people like a person's work, that rubs off on others and if you are lucky there is a snowball effect.

I like some of the images I have seen by Penn, but I'm not in awe of his work. I find myself feeling the same about most famous photographers.

Ian

[John H. Maw]

Re: Irving Penn dies at 92

Many good points there. Firstly, about seeing your work in print. I take the contrary view (while agreeing with you at the same time) that if many people who put up images on the web were to go to the trouble of having them well printed (emphasis on "well") then they might be even more impressed with their own efforts and motivated to strive even harder.

I also take your point about reputations being formed sometimes almost by chance. There are photographers who's work I don't enjoy but who have reputations to be envied (Richard Avedon is one such for me - went to an exhibition of his and only liked two pictures - he managed to make Groucho Marx look mundane) but know enough people who really like his work and are unlikely to be influenced by popular opinion to that extent, so I have to just put it down to personal preference.

I think that viewing images from another era is different from viewing contemporary images. I find that it takes me longer to appreciate them and I have to see more, but once I spend enough time I find the rewards considerable. Some highlights for me have been seeing exhibitions of the work of Eve Arnold (much prefer her B&W work to the later work in colour), Diane Arbus (Haunting. Took a group of adult students to that one and one really hated her work, but I could hardly get another one to leave) and George Rodger.

I think (actually I'm sure) that my favourite portrait of all time is the one of Sir John Herschel taken by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1867 (best viewed at the V&A, not on a monitor near you). I wonder what the Flickr community would make of it.

[Ian]

Re: Irving Penn dies at 92

Are there any famous amateur photographers, or are fame and professional status obligatory partners?

At last year's Sony World Photography Awards I felt the winner of the amateur category was considerably better than the winner of the professional category, and the overall winner is only selected from the professional ranks.

Ian

[John H. Maw]

Re: Irving Penn dies at 92

Oh, that is such a good question - so good it is really irritating me because I am sure there are some famous amateur photographers, but I just can't bring any to mind yet. Give me time. I am determined to find some. The only people that I can think of are famous for something else and also take photographs which, as a result, get attention that they would probably not get had they been taken by someone obscure.

Until recently, pretty much the only way to get your photos in front of a large number of people was to be published in a newspaper or magazine, and so it was normally professional photographers who achieved fame.

Of course, in our new world of electronic publishing (via the internet) maybe it will not be long before that situation changes, but it would still need something remarkable to make an image or photographer attract sufficient attention to achieve true fame for the photographer.

Your point about the Sony World Photography Awards it a good one, but then how often have you seen the results of a photographic competition and not agreed with the results. As someone who has been both an entrant and a judge (both on my own and as part of a panel) I am aware how subjective these decisions are. Possibly if all the photographers in that competition had either been amateur of professional, you (and possibly I) would still have disagreed with the result.

Oh well. Must go now. I'm off to search for famous amateur photographers.