Lee Friedlander, revisted

Last year I was looking at Lee Friedlander photos and noticed that he made

an image in Akron, Ohio where I'm currently living. I made a mental note

to wait for winter and for fun go back and document the scene, now

25 years after he made his image.<P>

 

Here is the link to

<a

href="http://www.masters-of-photography.com/F/friedlander/friedlander_factory_valleys_13_full.html"

target=_blank>

Lee Friedlander's 1980 view of Akron, Ohio.</a><P>

 

If I had come across this scene on my own I would not have been moved

to make an image. For me, Friedlander

has been a difficult photographer to appreciate, unlike Josef Koudelka

or Danny Lyon or Winogrand, but over the years much of his work has

grown on me. <P>

What's your take on his image?

<P>

I'll leave you with this:

The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

Discuss amongst yourselves.<div></div>

My favorite Friedlander collection is the "American Musicians" book. Check it out and

you'll appreciate him a whole lot more.

 

All of the photogs you mentioned are going to take a good photo most every time they

press the shutter. Doesn't mean it should be in a book though :)

 

jmp

"When Friedlander breaks the rules of "good" photography, his doing

so amounts to an insistence on photography as photography. These

rules are violated by a broad set of pictorial conventions. Take the

comprssion of foreground and background fairly common in

Friedlander's photos. It violates the tacit rule that a

representational photo shoud suggest space as we perceive it in the

world, with any deformations being easily decodable. Friedlander's

deformations are rarely result from the optics of lenses, which we

have learned to cope with. Rather, he arrays the pictorial elements

so that they may connect as conceptual units, against our learned

habit of decoding the flat image into rationalized space.

 

More importantly, spatial compression is a possibility peculiarly

inherent in photography, where such junctures can happen

accidentally. Friedlander characteristically locates the issue in

the domain of control, which he equates with insisted-on

consciousness. Once you accept that photography need not rest on the

history of painting (where, before the heavy influx of photographic

influence, at least, there had been no concept of chance imagery,

only accident and or better or worse decisions about intentional

juxtaposition), you can accept as the outcome of conscious and

artistic control photos that have the look of utter accident."

 

From "Lee Friedlander's Guarded Strategies"

by Martha Rosler, Artforum, April 1975

 

 

 

This is from an article on Friedlander that my photography teacher

had collected for use in his history of photography course...

one can only go so far when fixating on the conflict between modernist and pictorialist photography.

it's been what, 100 years since we had known for the first time that photography is not painting? Time to move on.

at least the painters had moved on.

If you have to write a Doctoral Thesis explaining why a Photo 'works' than there is a

problem.

 

jmp

Oops....I left out my smiley face

 

:)

<p><i>if you have to write a Doctoral Thesis explaining why a Photo 'works' than there is a problem.</i></p>

<p>with the thesis or with the photo?</p>

I love Lee Friedlanders "Desert seen" incredibly good, first time i saw it i thought, well let's say i couldn't appreciate it. Over time it has grown a lot, a bit like vegemite i guess, kind of aquired taste. Very al dente photography.

I keep meaning to pick up "Desert Seen". I have (and love) a Hassy SWC and I am curious

to see his usage of it.

 

Some of his other SWC stuff I saw kind of put me off.

 

It's kind of like Deepak Chopra...sure, he's a smart guy with something to say but you

don't see books with a

transcript of his order at Starbucks (not yet anyway...cat's out of the bag now..)

 

jmp

Jim, I love your re-photograph! So much has remained the same, it's amazing. Seeing how the trees have thickened up is quite moving in a way: a quarter century of effort.

Just read in the paper today that Lee Friedlander was awarded this years hasselblad prize, a very good choice in my oppinion:-)

Lee Friedlander "Nudes".

 

In the editorial afterword, byI ngrid Sischy, she quotes him on using leica. "His choice of camera echoes his insistence on the modesty of what he does. Its a Leica "With a camera like that," as Friedlander explains, " You don't have to believe that you are in the masterpiece business. Its enough to be able to peck at the world"

 

The images of the women are raw and earthy, with direct on camera flash, and taken in the models humble abodes. Madonna, The Material Girl, the singer is one, with hairy armpits and rampant genital hair.

 

They are certainly much different from the highly stylised nudes that flood the photonet portfolios.

 

The series was put together over 15 years and started when Friedlander was in his fifties.

 

First published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1991

I don't know about you, but I took an instant liking to Friedlander. Several books of

his are common in bookstores, definitely worth a look. "Stems", "Sticks and Stones",

and the aforementioned "Nudes". But gawd, I wish they'd reprint "Factory Valleys".

Hello!

I just heard in Swedish broadcasting that Lee Friedlander got the Hasseblad award for 2005.

Jan-Olof

I am not sure how I feel about his stuff, but I do get to meet him on Friday night.

ahh, cascade plaza in the snow. it's like i'm on my way to susan's coffee and tea for my lunch now.

i work in the national city building, so it's really hard to see this as something other than the daily grind.

i like the sense of history though.

I like Friedlander, although my experience basically mirrors Jim's (at first blush, his work is difficult to appreciate). It's too bad his books are either 1) prohibitively expensive or 2) out of print and even more expensive (although, I suppose these are good things from a collector's standpoint).

I love the comparison Jim! Kudos to you for taking the time and effort to do this.

 

Now if you can replicate Freidlander's light, i.e., Freidlander/s photo appears to have been taken on an overcast day, in yours the sun seems to be forcing more contrast between the lights and darks.

 

I know, I know, some people are never happy!

Isn't the whimsical point of Friedlander's photo that the central railing divides the landscape into a snowy right hand side, and a snow-free left? Is there more to it than this?

 

I didn't know this photo before. I only know a few of Friedlander's photos from collections in books, but they tend to live with me for no obvious reason. There's a very simple one of a long road and bleak landscape taken through the windscreen of a moving car. I feel sure I could have done it myself, but then I wonder...

 

The Holy Roman Empire must have been like our present day 'Civil Servants'.

I never cared much for Friedlander's Akron photo...nor for most of his other cityscapes. They just seem too random. I don't like his earlier reflection pictures, either. However, I have seen some Friedlander photos that I did like. I think he needs to be more selective.

 

If Jim had posted his 25-years-later photo without any reference to Friedlander, what would we be saying about it?

One more recommendation for his nudes. Rampant pubic hair is the obvious connecting theme.

Subject: Response to Lee Friedlander : GREAT!!!!

 

L.F. is one of the greatest American photographers imho : much better than the legions of

mother-nature-4x5-pyro-cold-light-enlarger-dramatic-prints snappers whose work is technically achieved but artistically dead boring...

His work(s) is/are fascinating : his streets pix from the 60's (the 1st time s.o. comes up with sth as challenging & intersting as the

30's HCB images) his self-portraits, his pix of T.V sets in hotel rooms, his amazing nudes, his "American Monuments" (that SHOULD be re-printed). What never ceased to impress me is he was a very good friend of Winogrand but he somehow managed to keep a distinctive style when it came to street photography.

One minor complaint : I don't think his 1990's/6x6 work is as interesting as his 60-70's/Leica pix...

Congratulations for the Hasselblad Award (previously given to Frank, Susan Meiselas, Koudelka, Avedon, Klein, Salgado, Penn, Alvarez-Bravo, HCB among others).

Lee I love you! ;-)

"More importantly, spatial compression is a possibility peculiarly inherent in photography, where such junctures can happen accidentally. Friedlander characteristically locates the issue in the domain of control, which he equates with insisted-on consciousness."

 

Doesn't anyone know how to write in clear understandable English rather than psychobabble any more?