Lukasz Kacperczyk, Elliott Erwitt
I ran into J.D. Salinger several times. He used to come into the Dartmouth Bookstore to shop. I made a little game of trying to engage him in casual conversation while not letting on that I knew who he was.
The reason I posted the picture of Harry Longabaugh and Etta Place a couple of days ago is that a reader recommended a film about Elliott Erwitt titled Silence Sounds Good, mentioning that it could be found on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon has a page for it, but there's a little box that says "This video is currently unavailable to watch in your location." No idea why. Although if there's one thing I've learned on Earth, it's that you have to let the money people play their games.
But if you turn on the sound (upper right on my screen), what's playing is the trailer. And in the trailer, Elliott says, "It's more practical to take pictures of famous people, because they're more likely to be published."
Of course, the photographer who took the portrait of Harry and Etta didn't know they were famous. Or infamous, I should say. Still, Elliott is right, I think. I always wanted to be a portraitist—maybe it wasn't my "best thing," but it was the thing I enjoyed the most. Is it more practical to take pictures of famous people? I think it's what I'd recommend to any young person today who wants to be a portraitist. In my "September" as a photographer, that's what I wish I'd done back in May. It would have been more work, but the reward would have been greater, too.
One advantage is that famous people would know why you want to photograph them—the people I ask to sit for me often don't. Famous people would be more likely to want to become more famous, too, by having their portrait made, so they'd tend to want to cooperate.
I didn't ask J.D. Salinger if I could make a portrait of him, because I thought I knew what the answer would be. But it might not have hurt to ask. And imagine if he'd said yes. Same thing with Jackie Onassis, whose path I crossed not once but three times. I didn't ask—her spats with the paparazzi were common knowledge. I didn't sneak a snapshot, even. Out of respect.
The picture up at the top is by Lukasz Kacperczyk, who used to translate my old "Sunday Morning Photographer" columns on The Luminous-Landscape into Polish for republication on fotopolis.pl, which was (then, at least) the largest photo-enthusiast site in that country. I was told by experts (my brother's wife's parents, who were Polish-born and native speakers) that Luka did a good job. Luka was (and still is, I'm sure) a great guy, a pleasure to work with. And hey, he had the good sense to photograph the famous American photographer who was visiting! A very nice portrait, I think.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Herman Krieger: "Rather than taking a photo of Harpo Marx, I had one taken of me with Harpo."
Kenneth Tanaka: "Herman met Harpo?! That’s not generative AI at work? Well I’m very impressed!"
louis mccullagh: "Anyone else annoyed by exhibitions by celeb photographers whose photos are very poor and are only exhibited because they are of someone famous? There seems to be no quality standards when it comes to celeb faces etc. I always feel cheated when I have paid in and find such poor images and maybe also some 'NEVER BEFORE SEEN' images which truthfully should never be seen. It's money-grabbing at its worst."
Mike replies: But doesn't that sort of prove Elliott's point? Take photos of celebrities and they don't even have to be all that good to get shows and draw crowds?
Photographs by David L. Keenan
David L Keenan: "Two of my favorites that I took of my hero. It was a priviledge to have known him."
Mike replies: I'm going to bet that the sticker in that second one is the little sticker than museums put on your portfolio when you go to visit, to show that it's been inspected? I left the one from MoMA on my portfolio case for ages afterward. Kinda like a brassy Leica. :-)
Rick Neibel: [Comment redacted, because I don't let people insult other people who are "in the room," i.e., likely to read it here. Suffice to say that Rick did not like Luka's portrait. —Ed.]
gb: [Comment redacted, because I don't let people insult ME here, either. Suffice to say that gb is unhappy with TOP. —Ed.]
Mark Sampson: "I like Mr. Kasperczyk's portrait of Elliott Erwitt. Note how each of his eyes are looking at you differently; the left eye looking on with amusement while his right eye seems to be sizing up a picture of his own.
"But this all reminds me of Bill Jay's advice on subject matter in order to become a famous fine-art photographer: 1.) Celebrities; 2.) Naked people; 3.) Naked celebrities."
Dave Jenkins: "I had a large collection of Erwitt's books, but since downsizing into a smaller home I've sold most of them. The one I'm keeping is Private Experience, from the 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 hardcover. Copies are often available quite cheaply on Amazon and abebooks.com." [Try eBay too —Ed.]
Mike Peters: "I mentor a few young photographers. One in particular is enthralled with photographing people who will get a lot of likes on Instagram. He showed me the work of those who get many thousands of likes, and the photos weren't very good, basic snapshots at best, and not very good ones at that.
"My response was, just because it's popular, doesn't make it a good photograph. He seemed unmoved by my assessment. Likes are the lifeblood of being a young photographer today. I'm out of the loop.
"And now I realize that my life as a photographer has been all wrong. I've been trying to make good photographs that are deep and interesting, and I mostly fail at that anyway.
"On a personal level, I don't care about famous people and kind of find the whole cult of celebrity in this country to be absurd. I prefer to photograph regular people, those that don't get much attention but who do the work that makes the rich richer, and makes famous people more famous.
"I am fully in touch with the error of my ways, to follow my heart and not the money. No one really cares about the people I photograph. But I do, and I'm good with that."
Mike replies: Don't overlook that the heavy note of resignation in your comment is typical of us older people. Could be that's all it is, and that actually you have created a coherent, rigorous, and principled body of work. That will outlast Instagram likes.
Stan B.: "I went to the School of Visual Arts for one year back in the day. I knew I would only be going for one year when I would fall asleep during art history class after the first twenty minutes before adjusting towards the end of the semester to only show for the last twenty minutes to proclaim 'Present!'
"One day I found myself alone in the elevator with said teacher when she asked if I had seen a particular photo exhibit containing portraits of celebrities. My nineteen-year-old self replied that the problem with such portraits is the difficulty of knowing if you were reacting to the celebrity, or the quality of the portrait itself. 'Hmm...I never thought of that,' she said. 'And I'm paying you,' I thought."
Malcolm Myers: "I once had the chance to listen to the famous UK photographer Eamonn McCabe (sadly passed now) and I asked him whether it was easier to photograph famous people because they were used to it. He seemed to think it was. After all, if you are taking a photo of Robert De Niro, then he is used to looking into a camera, whereas your Aunt Gladys isn't."
JOHN B GILLOOLY: "For some reason, this post immediately brought to mind this moment with Arnold Palmer not long before his passing—the last time I photographed him."
