Photographers - Our Man in Boston

The Coffee Table • Power to the Peaceful

Having studied with Gary Winogrand and been critically well-regarded (by Susan Sontag, among others), photographer Mitch Epstein early eschewed the artsy conceit of black-and-white photography to experiment with and perfect his use of color. This concentration is first in evidence in his early works and books created from his travels in Vietnam and India. His latest tome, American Power (Steidl), completes the personal trilogy he began in the mid-’90s with The City and then followed in 1999 with the second volume, Family Business. From 2003 through 2008, spurred by the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and Hurricane Katrina, Epstein traveled around the United States to sites producing all types of energy—fossil fuel, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. The purpose of this “energy tourism” was to exhibit some nexus between electrical and political power. The 64 color plates in this monograph are his eloquent portrayal of 21st-century America: a culture at a critical crossroads.

A New York Times reviewof an exhibit of the photos included in this book offers this:

What is interesting, beyond the haunting, complicated beauty and precision of these images, is Mr. Epstein’s ability to merge what have long been considered opposing terms: photo-conceptualism and so-called documentary photography. He utilizes the supersize scale and saturated color of conceptualism… [These] images [also have] a look that is at once real and unreal—or, as people who witness a catastrophe say, “surreal.”

By now it should go without saying that this Steidl photo book is well published and includes an essay by Epstein, who ponders the role of the artist in a crucial time. And it should be noted that while the photos are well reproduced, the originals measure 70x92—quite an eyeful. —Robert Birnbaum, Oct. 23, 2009

» View images from American Power.

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The Coffee Table • Eyes Have It

The Scott Dadich-designed Periodical Photographs (Aperture) by award-winning editorial photographer Dan Winters collects and features 90 full-color images (some of which have appeared in New York, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times Magazine), including such diverse subjects as Gwyneth Paltrow, Denzel Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bono, Eminem, Willie Nelson, Joyce Carol Oates, Heath Ledger, the Dalai Lama, Fred Rogers (and separately, his trademark red cardigan), Barack Obama, Tom Waits, an American eagle, and some startling miscellaneous images.

In her concise preface, Lynn Hirschberg points out that “photographers like Winters are a dying breed: One of the current problems with celebrity portraiture is the tendency to turn the photograph into a brand-oriented fashion picture”—a development she lays at the feet of Tina Brown (of her Vanity Fair incarnation) and by extension, celebrity celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. Hirschberg goes on to claim that “this sort of fashion/celebrity photography may help the bottom line but it has been largely detrimental for portraiture.”

Winters, who moved to Driftwood, Texas (pop. 27) in 1993 after his son Dylan was born, clearly eschews the unfortunate commercial drift mentioned above, as Hirschberg concludes:

…he seems like a small town guy with a multitude of interests. If you look at the photo of his desktop [which faces the text of this essay], a still life that he changes and curates regularly, you get a sense of his fascination with the last 60 years of America. The photographs in this book have the same historical resonance: They are true evocations of people and things that define their time. The power of these photos is their ability to trigger emotion, identification, and finally a sort of collective memory.

—Robert Birnbaum, Oct. 9, 2009

» View images from Periodical Photographs.

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The Coffee Table • It’ll Last Longer

Photography has changed dramatically in the past 20 years—beyond the mutations caused by digital technology. In the ’80s, advertising led by fashion and lifestyle products began to look for a more editorial feel and impact, and so portraiture broke out of a formalist straightjacket. This was also true of fashion photography, and to complement this transformation there were all kinds of hip and exciting magazines that showcased emerging photographic talent: Interview (when Marc Balet was the art director), Big, L.A. Style—hell, I even published such a magazine in Boston (Stuff). Brigitte Lacombe’s career roughly parallels that boom. Though she did both commercial and fashion editorial work, it was through her chance encounter with Dustin Hoffman and Donald Sutherland at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival that led to career-long devotion to her first love: portraiture (seen here and here).

Thus she has worked on countless film sets with renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese, Alan Pakula, Mike Nichols, Sam Mendes, David Mamet, Spike Jonze, Stephen Daldry, Anthony Minghella, and Steven Spielberg. Brigitte Lacombe: Anima / Persona (Steidldangin) is a 420-page retrospective monograph of 192 photos that includes portraits—many in black and white—of Barack Obama, Viggo Mortensen, Nicole Kidman, Francois Truffaut, Brice Marden, Joan Didion, Kate Winslet, Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Miuccia Prada, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi (under house arrest in Myanmar), Claude Lévi-Strauss, and the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. Like most Steidl titles, Anima / Persona is beautifully reproduced and elegantly designed—it does cause me to speculate how long publishers will continue to make such marvelous and to-be-treasured books. —Robert Birnbaum, Aug. 26, 2009

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About Our Man in Boston

When Robert Birnbaum was an adolescent, his mother took him to the Chicago Public Library every week, and he would leave with armloads of books. Ever since he has been an avid reader—except in the cultural sinkhole era of the ’70s (think Saturday Night Fever).

Illustration by Witold Ridel

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Friday, March 19, 2010