Customer Reviews

Winogrand: Figments From The Real World

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A very good retrospective of Garry Winogrand's career. All my favourite Winogrand photos are included, and the quality of the printing is excellent -- the images are not too dark nor too contrasty, with plenty of detail.

Gary Winogrand came out of the generation of street photography inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson that included Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and Joel Meyerowitz. He worked at framing the "decisive moment" as he filled his black and white composition with split-second accuracy and detail. His subjects are caught mid-flight in candid moments of personal introspection, or engaged in social activity. There are photos of secretaries walking back to their Manhattan mid-town offices after lunch. There are photos of couples dancing, holding each other's gaze and unaware that the camera has recorded their intimate glance into each other's eyes. He shot the famous at night clubs, and took photos of passengers arriving and departing international airports. Wherever there were people on lines at movies, at airports, or walking down crowded city avenues, or stopping at store windows, or entering and exiting revolving doorways of skyscrapers, or of people waiting at street corners, kids hanging out, the elderly on benches, the young in love in each other's arms, Winogrand was there with his camera.

What you see through his lens is his version of America, of who we are, and what we look like, and how we fill in the spaces we inhabit from small towns in America out west, to the big city streets of Los Angeles and New York. He captures us as we work and play, he records how we gape as spectators at rodeos or at stippers at strip tease clubs, or at movies, or at square dances and Fourth of July parades in small-towns. He captures us at home, in our yards, in our cars, at zoos and at ball games and in our rooms isolated and alone.

Winogrand captures the soul of a nation. He is artful in his use of black and white in that he cuts a slice of reality and presents it as a full meal for our eyes to feast on. You can enter his composition from any angle and find a way into his image.

Winogrand is an American master, and this collection gathers the best of his many exhibits and shows and books of photographs and lays them out in chronological fashion, from the early 1950s to the the early 1980s in order that we can study the development of his genius over the course of his career.

You won't regret putting this one in your collection. Garry probably lost the plot out there in tv land toward the end but Moma maestro plucks 20 or 30 pictures out of the dead zone to give us a treat. Frankly liked the post-humous stuff just as much and the book gives you a super buzz if you like that good ol' street stalker stuff. Don't even think about it ...whack it in the collection or send it as a gift...it's a great book.

Book is not available in Europe. Purchased from Strand books. Book was brandnew. It is a pleasure to look at the pictures taken by Winogrand.

Winogrand is in Europe not so well known as in the US.
This is great, inspiring work. And a nice view of the States in the 70's.

a wonderful collection of images from street photographer garry winnogrand--this collection if from all over the country during the 50's, 60's and 70's