DVDs about Photographers

Having a fair amount of books of the monogram variety on

photographers, and having recently seen a movie on William

Eggleston, I now have the itch to see some more "video" on

photographers. Does anyone have a decent list of DVDs that they

would care to recommend? More biographical the better. But, history

of photography would also be welcome. I understand that most of

these would be of the PBS variety....that's quite fine. What I

don't want is any dvds of the "how to" variety........that's not

what I'm interested in right now.

 

thanks in advance.

I don't know if this qualifies for what you are looking for but have you looked at Lens Works?

 

Hope this helps you.

 

Best to you in '06.

There's a great DVD about Avedon.

<p>

Although not about a photographer, I watched <i>How to Draw a Bunny</i> yesterday, about the great artist Ray Johnson. Definitely worth getting.

The doc about James Natchwey is very interesting. War Photographer is the title.

thanks so far....yeah, I browsed Amazon before I posted this and saw the Avedon and Natchwey dvds, and kinda had them on my list, think I might just start with those 2.<br><br>

 

that How to Draw a Bunny looks interesting too, Jeff...although like you said, not photography, but an alternate to Warhol's Pop Art would be welcome.<br><br>

 

Anybody know anything about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DG012/ref=wl_it_dp/002-4759409-6609662?%5Fencoding=UTF8&colid=1EKOADEIDX21L&coliid=I36JQFB3ZMQGKQ&v=glance&n=130"><u>American Photography</u></a><br><br>also, Amazon is limitted sometimes to mainstream........any Independent film makers do anything like this?

Got this just the other day:<p>

 

Contacts.1 : The World's Greatest Photographers Reveal the Secrets<p>

 

The world's greatest photographers reveal the secrets behind their images in this collection of short, personal films. Using images (contact prints, proofs, prints, or slides) with commentary by the artists themselves to uncover the artistic processes of the greatest contemporary photographers from an original perspective. The viewer is thrust into the secret universe of creativity and into the heart and method of the evolution of a photographic body of work. Volume 1 includes Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Raymond Depardon, Mario Giacomelli, Josef Koudelka, Robert Doisneau, Edouard Boubat, Elliott Erwitt, Marc Riboud, Leonard Freed, Helmut Newton, and Don McCullin.<p>

 

See <a href="http://www.diabooks.org/diabooks/item.jsp?itemID=21001">http://www.diabooks.org/diabooks/item.jsp?itemID=21001</a>

I have a couple items on video tape. I imagine that they're available at this point of DVD as well. One is "W. Eugene Smith--Photography Made Difficult." This one is good. On the other hand, "Helmut Newton--Frames from the Edge" made Newton seem a surprisingly dull man, at least to me. There is a really interesting DVD on Araki called "Arakimania" (or something like that). He comes across as a kind of endearing, if manic, innocent. Another fascinating DVD is on the guy from a 'holler' in Appalachia who photographs holler residents. I can't remember his name but someone here will. This is a 'don't miss' DVD. Entirely missable is the 2 DVD set, "The Adventure of Photography" published by Kultur. It's a hurried look at dozens of photographers from the beginning of photography to the present. Most annoying is its narration, the script being read very quickly by someone who sounds as if he had never seen it before it was handed to him at the recording session and who has the unusual ability of reading words while simultaneoulsy thinking about something else entirely. To his credit, he does pronounce many of the words correctly. njb

More at http://www.pbs.org/arts/arts_photography.html

thank you Nacio....should keep me busy for awhile, not to mention slightly broke ;o)

This Appalachian photographer whose name I couldn't remember is Shelby Lee Adams. The documentary about him is "The True Meaning of Pictures." Totally gripping. njb

Thomas,

 

Here's a partial list I posted on another forum:

 

"Richard Avedon: Darkness And Light" DVD

 

"Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye" DVD

 

"Paul Strand: Under the Darkcloth" DVD and video

 

"W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult" DVD and video

 

"Walker Evans' America" apparently video only

 

"David Plowden: Light and Shadow" DVD and video

 

"American Masters: Ansel Adams" DVD

 

"Remembering Edward Weston" video, don't know if it's available on DVD

(Brief footage of Cole, Brett and Charis Wilson)

 

"Brilliant Fever" video made in Pittsburgh by Kenneth Love about W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh project.

 

"The Adventure of Photography" - 2 DVD set, I believe originally done on French TV. Lots of historical nuggets, and some errors.

 

"90 degrees South" - DVD made of Herbert Ponting's presentation of his still and moving (!) pictures from the 1911 Scott expedition to Antartica.

 

"Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life" - apparently video only

 

Hope this helps...

Yann Arthus-Bertrand's book "Being a Photographer" includes a DVD documentary that's

interesting.

A DVD about Henri Cartier-Bresson called "The Impassioned Eye" is due out

on Feb. 14, the same day "William Eggleston: In the Real World" will be

released (I assume that's the Eggleston movie you saw). They are from the

same company and are both listed on Amazon.com for preordering. Also, two

Frenchmen have also done a documentary on Eggleston. It was at the

Sundance Film Festival this month. It's called "By the Ways." I haven't seen it,

but here's a link:

http://www.mediarights.org/film/

by_the_ways_a_journey_with_william_eggleston.php

I'll have to check out that "by the ways".....thanks

 

also, thanks to Jeff for mentioning the "how to draw a bunny" about Ray Johnson. Although, as Jeff indicates, Johnson is not a photograper the movie, I also saw it on this month's Sundance channel, was simply amazing. Johnson was definitely an ARTIST. Although I can't say I like all his stuff, the way he went about the whole thing of creativity and just living his art was an amazing thing to witness....at least as far as he let the rest of the world into his own world.

 

definitely worth a watch....will probably buy it in my next go round of dvd purchases

 

I also bought the Avedon, Stieglitz, and shelby lee adams dvds mentioned above. Avedons dvd was great.....just simply great! Stieglitz was more an eye opener for me...he was MUCH more than a photographer. When they say he was the "father of photography" they weren't kidding. He did so much to make photography a recognized art form, that any of us who do photography as an "art" form owe him a great debt of gratitude. Shelby Lee was also very good, although in a very different way. You have to appreciate the plight of the Appalachian peoples to really get his pics....I do...but he was defending his pics against the people who thought he was capitatlizing on their plight just a little too much in the film....I thought, anyhow. He did grow up with these people he took pics of, and you could tell that they genuinely appreciated what he was doing. I just thought he should have let his pics explain all that. They are amazing to look at, especially along side of the films narrative about some of them.