You could write a book on Winogrand and his short but unique life and the even more unique working process he had in creating what I think is a seminal and arguably one of the most representative bodies of classic American documentary photography ever produced.  What I find most appealing in his photographs is how full of life they are, not only in literal content, but that there is a also sense Winogrand’s brimming taste for existence in them.  Partially it comes from the archetypes that he was drawn to and how they effortlessly inspire narratives, but there’s more to it that that.  It’s as though you become Winogrand in the shots, you take on his gaze, you know his intelligence and humors, you feel as he did and see the narrative he sees.  This presence, the presence of the photographer, doesn’t ever shrink from the photographs, and thus the notion of the photograph as an artifact is also never lost.  So a strength of these photographs is that they’re clearly one man’s fiction, like they’re written in first person, opposed to most photographs that are in the third person voice.   This is amazing and bizarre to me b/c it is a specific and a rare thing.  Or at least it seems rare to me.  Like I said, a book could be written, or at least a many-paged Master’s dissertation.

Furthermore, as far as street work goes, I think anyone who has ever tried to or even succeeded in photographing daily life would be humbled by what Winogrand achieved.  I certainly am.

There’s a nice article on him, here, and for fun some pics of his M4, here.

photo: Untitled, 1950s. © Estate of Garry Winogrand

photo: American Legion Convention, Dallas, Texas, 1964. © Estate of Garry Winogrand

photo: World’s Fair, New York, 1964. © Estate of Garry Winogrand

(A side story I found interesting: when I was last at the MOMA I was with my friend, Benjamin.  He enjoys photography more than you’re average Joe but is by no means versed in it or attempts any sort of sophistication in regards to it.  In short, he enjoys whatever catches his eyes.  Well, there were prints from any number of the greats hanging on the walls, including a series of maybe 10 pictures that Winogrand had shot at the NYC Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium.  If I recall they hung between Koudelka’s early work on the Gypsies and Diane Arbus‘ later work of the mentally handicapped Halloween outing.  Imo, the Winogrand work was much more layered and much more difficult to appreciate.  I’d have expected Benjamin to be drawn to Arbus’ otherness or Koudelka’s darkness.  Yet, I watched him pass quickly over those and then come to a stand still at Winogrand’s photographs.  He found them amazing.  I complimented his taste, but I also became aware of something commonplace in Winogrands work that makes it something that anyone can be awed by, lacking pretense of high-art-conceit, which is why, I guess, I consider him the American street shooter, of the people and for the people.  (Compare this to his more inaccessible contemporary Friedlander, who, btw, Benjamin didn’t take a second glance at…))

Finally, I caught this 2 part video at the 2point8 blog.  It’s a clip of Winogrand with Bill Moyers:

First part,

And the second,