OT: Portrait Photogarpher Arnold Newman (1918 - 2006)

[michael s.]

Famous portrait photographer Arnold Newman has died at the age of 88. <p>

 

A fairly extensive obituary is <a

href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060700144.html>found

in the "Washington Post"</a>. <p>

 

And I also found <a

href=http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0043XB&tag=>this 2002

thread about him here on the Forum</a>, with a very pleasant candid photo of

Newman included.

[vivek iyer]

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GqO5&tag=

[michael s.]

Oops.

 

I obviously hadn't seen Ellis' thread, and it did not pop up when I searched photo.net internally.

 

Thanks, Vivek.

[vivek iyer]

Michael, Thanks for your post. Your link from Leica archives is also cool.

 

The purpose of my post of Ellis Vener's thread is to add to the information and it was by no means a condemnation of your post.

 

Cheers!

[michael s.]

Thanks. Didn't take it as a condemnation at all. Just wish I'd have seen Ellis' thread.

[michael s.]

And while I'm at it, I also wish I'd have typed "photographer" in the thread title instead of "photogarpher."

[yeffe]

Newman was great in that, among other things, he pioneered using the properties of wide

angle lenses to suggest the energy of modernism in portraiture. I'm sure many of his

subjects were delighted to be in front of his lens rather than Karsh (god forbid) or Avedon.

[paul_neuthaler]

Arnold Newman was a great artist!

[EricM]

"...instead of "photogarpher.""

 

i do that one all the time for some reason.

[jtk]

Arnold Newman:

 

"Those who call themselves art photographers are pompous, arrogant, egotists."

 

:-)

[working camera]

sad news, I hadn't caught it as yet

 

I loved his stuff.

 

C.

[alan_simon]

He was truly a gifted artist, a fabulous teacher and a warm human being.

 

I had the privilege of working for him (as his second assistant) in the late 50's. It was a period right after his Joseph Welch portrait - Welch was lawyer who went up against Joseph McCarthy during the "Army hearings". I learned darkroom technique, ideas about lighting and composition from a master. And when I drove him to his assignments, I had the chance to talk to him about his rich life and my ambitions. We last met at his retrospective at ICP in NYC and shared some memories.

 

While I do not now photograph professionally, working with him influenced my love of photography forever.

 

He will be missed.

 

Alan

[EricM]

great story, Alan. that must have been great.

[peter_metelerkamp]

Without doing dishonour to someone who may have been a very nice man, I do not rank him among the great portraitists. His work is, in my opinion, facile and typical of most commercial photography, which tends to be more about novelty and establishing the "signature" of the photographer than real respect for the subject.

 

Among great portraitists I would include (to name a few off the top of my head) Hill/Adamson, Cameron, Hine, Strand, Sander, Evans, Lange, Penn (sometimes), Avedon (occasionally:- some of American West series, his dying father), Arbus, Dijkstra...

 

There is more to the encounter with another subjectivity than overt (and in Newman's case often actually fairly weak) ﾓdesignﾔ.

[andrewlamb]

"His work is, in my opinion, facile and typical of most commercial photography, which

tends to be more about novelty and establishing the "signature" of the photographer than

real respect for the subject."

 

Avedon's West was all about Avedon. The shot of the man of the man with the bees, for

example, came to Avedon in a dream and his asked he assistants to find someone who

looked like his vision. Is that portraiture?

 

As for photographs of a dying father, of course they are moving. You would have to be a

cretin not to achieve something from that. But isn't it the whole project just the tiniest bit

exploitative?

 

Cameron took portraits of her friends and her circle. All very cosy and not very

demanding.

 

I am not a huge fan of Newman but I think you are way off beam to call him facile.

Portraiture is a hugely complex subject. Do we really think that the photographer can

capture the subject's personality in one picture?

 

Newman was no fool and he realised that, at best, you can only capture a small facet of

the subject. He was equally aware that any portrait was also about the photographer.

 

Truly great portraits are hard to achieve and I think Newman produced a significant body

of work. Compared to today's pap portrait photographers, he's pretty damned good.

Certainly not facile.

[andrewlamb]

Peter, another point I wanted to make is that it isn't easy to take photographs of famous

people. They have huge egos and usually very difficult. It's not like taking pictures of

'ordinary' folk who are far more compliant and will give you more time.

[jtk]

Newman was much more graphic-design-influenced than most photographers...important contact with Alexi Brodovich. Avedon was first influenced by truth, Penn by photographic beauty. And they were also influenced by Brodovich.

 

Why not credit these photographers for their powerful life works?

 

Also, refer back to Newman's comment about photographers-as-"artists."

[jtk]

Yesterday's NY Times had an excellent obituary.

[jtk]

Peter, I appreciate your offline followup but I want to say that Newman's professionalism (an absolute virtue) and his design orientation (a learned skill) elevates him (as it does Penn and Avedon) in obvious qualitative ways from most other photographers (ie he was absolutely better)...*in the areas in which he excelled.* He wasn't a street photographer, pornograper, or Sierra Clubber, or food photographer, others were better than he was in those domains. And to my knowledge he didn't photograph cats or flowers.

 

Few "great" photographers have the remotest concept of graphic design or to the history (ie soul) of their subjects. Newman's strength, like Penn's and Avedon's, had substantially to do with personal technical skills, patience, training and influence: active learning. In my opinion :-)

 

And I agree with him...honest photographers never call themselves artists.