Photographers You Should Know: The Wisdom of Elliott Erwitt

(Blog Note: For some reason Google has decided to block my use of some of Erwitt's photographs, even though I posted them under fair use rules and with proper attribution and copyright notice. Sorry.)

Elliott Erwitt has a reputation as a man of few words. Yet, over the years he has amassed a formidable array of quotable quotes about photography. Let's listen to the man himself:

The Essence of Photography

"To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. . . it's about creating something extraordinary out of the ordinary. You choose a frame and then wait until the right time for something magical to come along and fill it. . . Most photographers work best alone, myself included.

"I like things that have to do with what is real, elegant, well presented and without excessive style. In other words, just fine observation. . . I appreciate simplicity, true beauty that lasts over time, and a little wit and eclecticism that make life more fun.

"Good photography is. . .just about seeing. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. . .All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice. . . You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. . . Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.. . . Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times...I just shoot at what interests me at that moment. . . The best things happen when you just happen to be somewhere with a camera."

On Learning Photography

"You don't study photography, you just do it. . . Photography is a craft. Anyone can learn a craft with normal intelligence and application. To take it beyond the craft is something else. That's when magic comes in. And I don't know that there's any explanation for that. . . It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture.

"Balance of light is the problem, not the amount. Balance between shadows and highlights determines where the emphasis goes in the picture...make sure the major light in a picture falls at right angles to the camera.

"There's no great mystique to photography. A lot of photographers like to put their hands up to their forehead and tell you how they've suffered and so forth. Well, I just rent a car and drive to the place and take the pictures. . .The main thing is to study pictures and stop listening to the pontifications of photographers. Photographers aren't oracles of wisdom. If they're good photographers, then take a good look at their pictures - what else do you need? 

"A picture should be looked at - not talked about. . .My 'work' is about seeing not about ideas. . .The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words. . . I am serious about not being serious."

On Professionalism

"I am a professional photographer by trade and an amateur photographer by vocation. . . Working myself into a position of total versatility, so that I can do anything I want to do at the time I want to do it. Whether I do it or not is another question.

"As a professional photographer I take photographs for other people to see - but I want them to see what I see. So I never assume that only a few people will appreciate what I do. At all times, the public should be able to understand what I've done, even if they don't understand how I've done it.. . Do what the client wants, not what you want.

"Somehow Photoshop and the ease with which one can produce an image has degraded the quality of photography in general. . .electronic manipulation of pictures. I think it's an abomination. I reject it all. I mean, it's OK for selling corn flakes or automobiles or for taking pimples out of Elizabeth Taylor's face, but it undermines the thing that photography is about, which is about observation and not about manipulation of images."

(All photographs Copyright 1953-2020 Elliott Erwitt.)

Blog Note: Since Mr. Erwitt's statements were made at various times during his long career, I have taken the liberty of arranging them into sequences by subject.

Soli Deo Gloria 

Photographers You Should Know: Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt: Mother and Baby with Cat

New York, 1953. Erwitt's first wife with their first child.

The Best Photographer of the 20th Century
 

I consider Elliott Erwitt to have been the best photographer of the 20th century. I did not say "greatest," because he was not a seminal photographer. He did not found any major movement in photography, as did Kertesz, Steiglitz, Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and maybe a few others. But he  worked in many different genres -- advertising, architecture, reportage, film -- and was the best or among the best at everything he did. As a commercial photographer, he was a consummate professional, good enough to own a spacious condominium in one of the stately, old apartment buildings on the West Side of New York's Central Park.

However, the area in which he excelled all others was in the genre we often call "Decisive Moment" photography. (Cartier-Bresson, by the way, did not invent the genre, although the phrase was coined for his first book. He actually built on the work of Steiglitz and Kertesz.) 

In this work of observation and documentation of human (and often, dog) nature, juxtapositions, incongruities, absurdities -- combined with razor sharp reflexes and technical skill, Erwitt is simply the best. He can size up a complex situation and make a striking photograph in an instant. And no one else comes close to producing the volume (I should say "volumes") of incisive photographs Erwitt spins out, seemingly effortlessly. 

Sometimes Erwitt's wit is very subtle,

and sometimes it's like a slap in the face.

There are others who do this work very, very well -- my favorites among them are Robert Doisneau and B.A."Tony" King, who have each produced many photographs as good as Erwitt's -- but Erwitt produces great photographs in phenomenal volume. He could walk around the block -- just about any block -- and come back with more good photographs than I could produce in a year.

Erwitt is 91 years old, as of this writing, and for the past several years has been going through his contact sheets, finding more gems, and publishing more books. Many of them are now available on the used market at reduced prices. They are all worth having. I especially recommend Personal Exposures, a large volume filled with many of his best-known photographs.

I had a large collection of Erwitt's books, but since we're downsizing and preparing to move into a smaller home I've had to sell most of them. I'm keeping Private Experience, from the Peterson Masters of Contemporary Photography series. Private Experience is not a large book and was published more than 40 years ago, but I have not found a better overview of his life and work. It's the one book I won't part with. I'm fortunate to have a copy in hard cover. Used, softcover copies are readily available for under $5 at amazon.com and abebooks.com.

I think the photograph of Erwitt's first wife and baby with the cat is one of the most beautiful photographs ever made.

Photographs © Copyright Elliott Erwitt 1953-2020
 
Soli Deo Gloria

My Final Camera

Supercamera! The Fuji X-H1 with detachable battery

grip and Fuji 27mm (42mm equiv.) f2.8 lens.

Writing about (and reliving) our experiences in Eastern Europe 30 years ago was surprisingly intense for me. The writing part was relatively easy, because I had written most of it on a yellow legal pad as we traveled. But the memories revived by the photographs and the text were, as I said, surprisingly intense.

So this is a transition post. A decompression post, if you will. From the sublime to the trivial.

The title of this blog, “A Life in Photography,” means that sometimes I’ll write about photography, sometimes I’ll write about life, and most of the time I’ll write about my life as a photographer. But today, I’m going to write about photography, and more specifically, about cameras. So if that doesn’t interest you, thanks for checking in, and feel free to move on.

In 2017, I switched to the Fuji X series of cameras. I had been using Canon since 1993, first their film cameras, and then making the move with them to digital in 2003. In 2010 I added Olympus digital micro 4/3s cameras and lenses as a secondary system because of their small size and light weight.

 

The Canon EOS 5D with the Canon EF24-85mm f3.5-4.5

lens, one of the smaller and lighter zoom lenses in the

Canon lineup, weighs in at just under three pounds.

A pair of Olympus OM-D E-M5s with an Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens

(90mm equiv.) and a Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6

(28-280mm equiv.)  lens weighs slightly more than three pounds.

 

I used the Canon system for weddings and commercial work and the m4/3s system for travel and general carry-around. The Canons were super-reliable and the image quality was great, but a pair of bodies and three or four lenses made quite a heavy package. And though at six-one and 215 pounds I’m no runt, I’ve always hated to carry more weight than necessary. The Olympus OM-D E-M5s were small and light and good for many things, but I was never completely happy with their image quality. 

Dall sheep, Denali National Park, Alaska. Olympus

OM-D E-M5, Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6.

This was taken at about the equivalent of 250mm.

100% crop from above. Maybe the micro 4/3s

image quality wasn't all that bad, after all.

(But I couldn't always get results this good.)

Enter Fuji. I had been reading about the Fuji X-system cameras for some time on various blogs and websites, and finally decided to dip my toe in the water. My first purchase was a used X-Pro-1, with the 16-50mm (24-75mm equivalent) f3.5-5.6 kit lens, which turned out to be amazingly sharp. I soon added X-T1 and X-T20 bodies, both of which I liked.

However, it wasn't long before I realized that the menus on each camera were slightly different. Not very different, just enough that before I changed a setting I had to think for a moment about which button to push or which dial to spin. Not good, in a fast-working situation.

I realized that for work I needed cameras with identical controls. I was thinking about getting a pair of X-T2s when I came across a young man who needed money and wanted to sell his X-H1, the flagship of the Fuji fleet, in like-new condition and complete with the battery grip, which will make the camera balance better with my heavy Canon flash.

It's slightly larger and heavier than my other Fujis, and the handling seemed a bit strange as first. But I quickly became acclimated, and now it feels just right. The more I use it, the better I like it. This camera is so solid and well-built that I think I can get by with just the one body, with the X-Pro1 as emergency backup.

The amazing thing is that for some reason, perhaps because it's a little different from the other Fuji bodies, The X-H1 did not sell well and the manufacturer cut the price drastically. This camera offers higher quality and more capability for less money than any camera I've ever heard of.

Michael Johnston, editor of The Online Photographer blog, which you should be reading, if you're not already, had this to say about the X-H1: "It strikes me as a simply amazing camera; virtually everything on it is well thought out and beautifully implemented, and works smoothly and effectively."

So, is this really my final camera? Probably not, since camera bodies are like security blankets to me. But it could be, because it's certainly all the camera I'll ever need.

(But if I do get another camera it will be another X-H1. Identical controls, remember?)

Soli Deo Gloria

Eastern Europe 1990: Final Observations

First Observation: Socialism Doesn't Work.

Near the Berlin Wall: a memorial to those who were
killed trying to escape to freedom in West Berlin.

One of my initial impressions was that things in Eastern Europe were not as bad as I  had been led to believe. However, first impressions aren't always correct. The people of Eastern Europe, like people everywhere, did the best they could to cope with the situation in which they found themselves, but that could not hide the fact that they were living out the consequences of a failed system. 

The meat display shelves in Sofia's largest supermarket.

Under Socialism, everyone is equal. No one has anything.

Socialism, far from providing for everyone an equal and abundant share of good things, provided endless scarcity. Standing in line to obtain basic necessities was a daily routine. In West Germany, people drove Volkswagens and Mercedes; in East Germany, people drove Trabants, a tiny plastic car with a motorcycle engine, and waited years to be permitted to buy one.
 

Standing in line for the basic necessities was

a normal way of life in Soviet Russia,

as in all the Iron Curtain countries.

 
And because Socialism requires unanimity, there could be no dissent. Since Socialism was a system invented to give man a way forward without a God who is not believed to exist, those who believe in God must be ostracized, persecuted, and eliminated if possible. Christian believers found the doors of higher education, good jobs, even decent living quarters closed to them. Even so distinguished a man as Dr. Zaprometer, a noted biochemist, was a believer in secret for fear of losing his position as a scientist and teacher.

The symbol of the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics is everywhere in Moscow.

It was even against the law in many countries to own a Bible. By 1990, it was estimated that there were no more than 250,000 Bibles in all the Soviet Union.

And religious persecution was a very real thing. All over Eastern Europe, believers met in secret, in constant fear of the authorities and their secret police. Pavelle Ignatov, a leader of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria, was arrested ten times between 1981 and 1990, lost his job nine times, was continually harassed by the government, and had his life threatened. Countless other believers lost their jobs and were denied privileges such as access to schools and better housing. Many were beaten and imprisoned. Yet, the church in Bulgaria grew 600 percent during this time.

A memorial to a young girl in Timisoara

killed by Ceausesqu's forces.

But Communism? It never worked. Any time, anywhere. It never brought anything but death. By conservative estimate, more than 100 million people lost their lives in the 20th century as a direct result of attempts to establish Marxism in its various forms -- socialism, fascism, Nazism, and communism.

Second Observation: The Hospitality Trap and the Scheduling Trap. 

Ferdinand and Lydia Karel. Gracious

hosts, but in some ways too helpful.

In all of this, we found the people of Eastern Europe to be unfailingly warm, gracious, and endlessly hospitable. So much so that the Hospitality Trap was a real hindrance in our work.As I said in a previous post, everywhere we went, these gracious people wanted to share with us the best of their food. We couldn't eat it all, but neither did we want to disappoint them. It was always difficult to avoid gorging ourselves but still return graciousness for graciousness. 

Likewise, our hosts did not understand the work of documentary photographers, as indeed, few do. Consequently, we spent too much time being treated as guests or being shown things that were only tangentially relevant to our mission, and  not nearly enough time finding and photographing the things that would help us put their ministries into the context of the life of the community and the nation. But in each country we did our best to create an accurate, although limited, portrait of the nation as we found it.

 Third Observation: Louise Jenkins is the World's Greatest Travel Companion.

 

David and Louise Jenkins at the wedding of their

son Don to Kimberly Keith, June, 1990.

(Photo by Alan Vandergriff)

It was a total delight to have her with me on this trip. Besides doing a great job as a videographer, she took every situation in her stride and was never daunted by hardships or problems. And she is very pleasant to look at.

Fourth Observation: Communism is not dead.

In the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, many people believed Communism was dead. Being a contrarian, I said, "No, Communism is not dead. The Soviet Union is dead, but Communism is alive and well and living in the faculty lounges and classrooms of America's colleges and universities."

I was right.

(Photographs made with Olympus OM and Leica M cameras and lenses, Fujichrome 100D and 400D films.) 

Soli Deo Gloria