My friend Karl loaned me his copy of 1964 by Garry Winogrand, and I've had it for some months. We've toyed with the idea of my selling it on eBay since it goes for $325-500 apparently. He said he'd give me a commission. I would decline.
In the year of the book title, Winogrand won a Guggenheim fellowship grant for a four month photography road trip. That sounds just about like heaven to me. In his application for the grant he wrote:
"I look at the pictures I have done up to now, and they make me feel that who we are and how we feel and what is to become of us just doesn’t matter. Our aspirations and successes have been cheap and petty. I read the newspapers, the columnists, some books, I look at some magazines [our press]. They all deal in illusions and fantasies. I can only conclude that we have lost ourselves, and that the bomb may finish the job permanently, and it just doesn’t matter, we have not loved life. I cannot accept my conclusions, and so I must continue this photographic investigation further and deeper. This is my project."
My friend Alek found this interview with Winogrand by Barbara Diamonstein, which is an inspiring piece, to read how unaffected he was by his fame and success.
Paraphrasing one thing he says in it is that it doesn't matter how you set up a photograph, or what kind of techniques you use processing it. And whether you prefer film or digital. What matters is what's in the frame.
I like thinking about that, using that as a mantra - for photography, and for daily life.
"I left New York in mid-June and returned late in October. The time was spent driving through the country in a slow car photographing all the time." (- Garry Winogrand)
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