The best thing I’ve read in ages – Germain Greer on “The Muse“
“A muse’s job is to penetrate the male artist and bring forth a work from the womb of his mind“
She is so obssessed with penetration – in context of course! However I did find this comment rather telling “artists as different as Rubens, Bonnard, Renoir, Charles Blackman and Brett Whiteley have painted their wives over and over again, but their wives were their subjects rather than their muses.” and was thinking of local artists and their wives (as subjects) and it made a lot of sense.
I took my camera out in the weekend because there were some small scenes I wanted to capture, however I got into this big philosophical debate with myself over why we need to photograph. I guess in the raw form its just capturing things that may not last – a pure record. And then there is the artistic form where maybe a mood or a concept is being caught. Anyway I didn’t take any photos because it all seemed a little pointless. Then today I read in Peter Peryer’s blog “Sometimes even though the subject is interesting, I have nothing to say about it.”
Also through the feeds came this story about Weegee and 210 unknown photos of his found in a trunk purchased in yard sale. I dream of a find like this in my op-shopping. Of course you will probably know about him but “Weegee was the archetype of a tabloid photographer, working mostly at night in the lower-rent parts of New York City. Before the publication of his first book, “Naked City,” made him famous in 1945, he lived in a cheap room near police headquarters and was said to be so accustomed to working on the run that he once developed a picture of a prizefight in a subway motorman’s cab while rushing back to a newspaper office.” Times have changed with the advent of the digital huh? I don’t know if you could class him as a documentary photographer but he “caught” his subjects (good and proper).
The Fashionable People, [title first used for "The Critic" in LIFE Magazine], published December 6, 1943
Oh and here’s one of the most lucid things I’ve seen written about the Henson photos. The last two sentences say it perfectly.
June 5, 2008 at 7:25 pm |
What an amazing photograph from Weegee. I haven’t seen his work before, so thanks for the intro.