Magnum’s reputation is not just based on extraordinary photography. What distinguishes the members of the photoagency, which was founded in 1947, is character. The legendary Magnum photographers Elliott Erwitt and Burt Glinn talk about moments of opportunity, courage, independence – and humor. This interview was conducted by Pia Frankenberg in December 2006 and was first published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in January 2007.
Pia Frankenberg: Since when do you two know each other?
Burt Glinn: We first met in 1952 or ´53 I guess.
Elliott Erwitt: In the morning, I think.
BG: We got introduced and I said to somebody "what's so good about Erwitt?" (grins) I am actually still asking myself that.
PF: When did you join Magnum?
BG: Roughly around the same time, I guess.
EE: ´53
BG: Magnum wasn't a very large organization then. It was... - (turns to Elliott) Oh, by the way, Marc Riboud called the other day and said he'd come across a treasure trove of letters from Henri (Cartier-Bresson, Magnum founding member) to him that he is going to edit and maybe make a book of it.
EE: Really?
BG: He said he didn't know if certain photogaphers would like to have Henri's opinion on record and I said it's okay with me (grins).
Anyway ... I came to New York in ´53 because the Queen was going on a world tour. I don't know whether Elliott did anything on that but I know Eve Arnold did Bermuda or Jamaica and I did one of the Caribbean Islands, too, and that's when I got to know some of the older Magnum people. And then, when Bob and Werner were killed (Robert Capa, Magnum founding member, was killed by a landmine in Indochina and Werner Bischof, a member since 1949, died nine days earlier in a car accident in Peru) we all sort of got together a lot in New York. For one of the most painful funeral services that I ever attended. Do you remember that? For Bob?
EE: Yeah. 1954. May 25th. I remember that because it was my fathers's birthday.
BG: That's when I met Chim (David Seymour, Magnum founding member) for the first time.
Elena Glinn: I think Burt was talking about ´52 before. The queen was covered in ´52.
BG: That's right.
PF: Do you mean the boat "The Queen" or the Queen?
EG: The Queen.
EE: There's only one queen.
BG: Oh, I don't know!
EE: There's only one queen and, huh, what's his name... it's ...
BG: Elton John.
EE:.... he did "My fair Lady". He did the costumes for that.
BG: Oh... Cecil Beaton.
EE: Cecil Beaton! That's the queen.
PF: Do you remember any assignments that you worked on together?
BG: In the early days we both worked a lot for Holiday Magazine. We worked together on an issue on Rome. We were a very strange group of photographers there. Henri and Elliott and Slim Arons and Arnold Newman...
EE: Actually the ususal suspects.
BG: ... and I remember, the government of Italy was so pleased to have a special issue on Rome that they gave what was the Italian equivalent of the Legion of Honor to the editors of Holiday Magazine. I guess we also worked together on the Krushchev tour of America.
Today we launch a new series of conversations with various Magnum photographers. For our first conversation we invited Jörg M. Colberg, founder and editor of the fine-art photography blog Conscientious and experienced interviewer, to talk to Magnum photographer Miguel Rio Branco about his work and photography. This conversation is cross-published at Jörg's own blog. I hope you enjoy the read and please let us know what you think.
Jörg Colberg: When people hear "Magnum" I think many of them will think of classic b/w photojournalism. With its use of often very vibrant colour, your work clearly doesn't fall into that category. Now colour photography has been widely accepted, but it hasn't always been this way. Was using colour an obvious choice for you? And since you have a background as a director of photography for movies I'm wondering how much that also contributed to your development of your own photographic style?
Miguel Rio Branco: Today it is possible that when people hear Magnum they are not anymore seeing just traditional black and white, since there are already some members using color in an expressive way for some time, and also I see that Magnum is growing into a dynamic creative force with many individual paths and not only in the traditional photojournalistic way.
My own work was never only about color since after painting, in the beginning I did most of the time both, black and white and color, as well as experimental films (New York 1970-72). What happened is that in 1980, while living in São Paulo, my archives burned, and what was left were mostly the color slides that were traveling with me .
And my color, when I look at it now, I see it as not being really very colorful. Most were monocromatic, with some red and sometimes some blues here and there. Never the whole rainbow. One of the things that shows is that there is a dramatic use of color, and this relates a lot to my painting background. But painting is not only the background since I am still painting again since the mid eighties .
The other link is with cinema and music.
I was never really aware of the big names in photography until 1974, and this after already six years of using photography as my main medium. I lived in New York from 1970 to 1972, and never saw one exhibition of photography; my contacts were mostly with artists and movie people. So my influences came definitely from painting and cinema.
The act of editing came from the audiovisuals that I did at the time, the framing from the movie camera, the not cropping afterwards came from that situation as well as the lack of many verticals.
So my photographic style is basically a non-linear style, which depends very much on the construction of the images, the poetic links created with the images, and not with a linear aspect of framing and use of light and color.
Why did you go to Haiti initially?
I went to Haiti because I wanted to do something to supplement my New York work. It wasn't far, it's three and a half hours direct flight from New York City. They have a Mardi Gras in February so that means people are on the street.
A very important factor is that historically Haitians weren't against being photographed. Whereas if you go to some other Caribbean countries, it would be much tougher to photograph. In other words, you'd put your life really in danger. Like Jamaica, if you don't have an 'entre' it's a tough place and they don't take to being photographed as well. If you're going to the areas I go into, you'll lose your camera or you lose your life.
But I should say, none of the pictures that I had seen of Haiti really knocked me out. There wasn't something that I saw, where I said "Wow, I love that picture so much, Haiti must be great for photographs."
What did you feel was lacking from the photographs you'd seen?
A photo either works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't it could be really horrible or it could be mediocre. That's a dialog that for me doesn't even need to be discussed because you see that it's good or it isn't. I'm not saying that everyone has my vision or my eye, but I'm pretty versed in what makes a good image.
What were looking for, visually and in terms of content?
I just go see what I get. I always work in my style but in every country that I go to I always find something a little different. I can sit there and say, "This is what I'm going to photograph" but then you get there and it's all fantasy because it's not what you thought it was.
I started, I think, in '85 during Mardi Gras and I was with my ex wife. We had a rental car and we were driving it from the airport to the hotel - the airport isn't far from downtown Port-au-Prince, lovely Port-au-Prince - and it was a Sunday night. I remember all these people were running to a soccer match in front of the car. I said to my ex wife, "Where have I been all my life?" because I just knew. It was because of all the people and all the activity and it was just great.
So with this photograph…. To me, Haiti has all the things that should make it a great country having a nice climate, being an island. But it's the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. I think if you work in a factory there, you get 3 dollars a day. That doesn't go very far.
In 2002, Alec Soth traveled with his wife to Bogotá, Colombia to adopt a baby girl. The baby's birth mother gave the new parents a book filled with letters, pictures and poems for their new daughter. 'I hope that the hardness of the world will not hurt your sensitivity,' she wrote. 'When I think about you I hope that your life is full of beautiful things.'
During the two months that the Colombian courts processed their adoption paperwork, Soth set about making his own book for his daughter. Soth recently completed this book, Dog Days Bogotá. On November 9th, an exhibition of this work will debut at Weinstein Gallery in Soth's hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Soth discusses Dog Days Bogotá with his intern, Carrie Thompson, a photography student at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Carrie Thompson: You made this book for your daughter, why did you decide to make it for the public?
Alec Soth: Wow, you're starting with the hardest question - you should be a journalist! Unfortunately I don't have a great answer. This work was produced five years ago. After Sleeping by the Mississippi was published, it didn't feel right to do this book. So I just kept it in my back pocket. After Niagara, I guess I was ready.
CT: Tell me about the dogs, how did they become so important?
AS: I was aware of the street kids in Bogotá. I mean, it is a hard thing to ignore, but I was especially attuned to it because of the adoption experience. But I was uncomfortable photographing these kids. So I photographed street-dogs instead. I guess they were a stand-in for the kids.
CT: So do the dogs have different types of personalities in your eyes - like young street children?
AS: Great question. In a way, this gets at why I was uncomfortable photographing the kids. I mean, I wasn't seeing them as individuals; I was generalizing them as a group. I don't like doing that. The dogs are all a little different, but I'm using them largely as an idea.
CT: It seems like you are searching for something in these images, was there something you were looking for?
AS: In the dog pictures or the book as a whole?
CT: All of the photos, the book.
AS: Yeah, I feel like I was looking for something...I'm just not sure what it was. But, of course, it all has to do with my daughter. Since we weren't given too much information about her background, the whole city became charged with her presence. I guess I was looking for signs of her and her background.
CT: Imagine your daughter looking at this book in five years, what do you want to see in her birthplace?
AS: I guess I want it to be a real place for her. I mean, we are already showing her the pictures (we only tore one page out of the book). We talk about Colombia a lot with her. As a five year old, it is just a mythical place. But over time, I want her to absorb it as a real place and as a real part of her history. I suspect that in five years she would be ready to take a trip there.
It's been a little over two months now that Magnum welcomed three new nominees into the circle of Magnum Photographers. Once a year, the photographers from Magnum travel to Paris, London or New York for their Annual General Meeting (AGM). The 2007 AGM took place at the end of June in New York City. One day of the AGM is reserved to look at submitted portfolios and to decide upon new nominees, associates and members.
I briefly e-mailed with them to find out about their motivation to join Magnum and how it felt to be notified of their acceptance. A more in depth look at our new nominees will follow in the future. Make sure to post your comments or questions, we will try to find responses and answers to them by our nominees.
"I love photography. it is not only a means to an end to me. I love the whole process: from the first idea, all the way to the final print. And sharing it.
I still see making a photograph as an extraordinary and magical act and those qualities make it very powerful.
I wanted to be part of a group of people that I believe still love photography, respect it, don't underestimate it, and think about why, and how they use it.
And who - needless to say - are also photographers I've long admired, many having inspired me since I was a child.
I got a glimpse of how Magnum works through meeting a few of it's members during the application process, and it seems each person receives from the agency as much as they give. Each one uses Magnum in a different way and all coincided it is a chaos, but a beautiful one.
I have to get to know the workings of it. It is all a bit abstract still. And since I'm used to working alone I have to learn how to be part of a group now.
But I do know I want to do something different from what I've been doing on my own in terms of producing. That is another reason i applied: To be surprised and challenged all over again."
On hearing about being accepted as a nominee:
"On the afternoon the voting took place I came home from a picnic in the park with Martin (my husband), my baby Catalina, and a group of friends. There was a message from Susan Meiselas welcoming me to Magnum. So I went right back out, soaking wet on the E train, and celebrated at the MoMA!"
"After having worked a number of years with personal documentary photography, I was looking for a group of photographers, whose aims and ideas I could identify with. Some of the Magnum members have been a great inspiration to me during the creation of my own personality as a photographer, and now that I feel I have developed my own language within photography, I decided to apply for Magnum.
A strong and passionate interest in people and the subjects and a will not to compromise are some of the qualities which has made Magnum an attractive place for me to become part of. It is a very exciting process for me, because I have always worked alone, and I am just getting to learn how photographers can be individuals and still work as a group to obtain common goals."
On hearing about being accepted as a nominee:
"I did not have some crazy reaction, because I was alone with the news, and it seemed a bit unreal. One of the members called me shortly after the decision was made. I was in NY myself to show my work to galleries and a few members before the voting. I received the phone call at a friend's house in Queens, when I was taking a nap on this couch filled with an enormous amount of cat hair. At first I wasn't sure if I was still a sleep or not....
Becoming a nominee at Magnum was a goal that I had aimed for, and now reaching it, at first I didn't know what to do with the news. Then I called my girlfriend in Tokyo, my twin brother in Bangkok and my mother in Copenhagen. The people who always supported me... And their reactions made me understand it was for real. Afterwards I went on a round trip to visit them and celebrate."
"Since I started working as a photographer, I have always been represented by galleries rather then by agencies. The freedom that this has allowed has, I think been very important to my work. I haven't had to do assignments in order to make a living or fund work. Instead, I have done this through print sales. This has great advantages in some terms as it allows me to spend almost all my time on long-term personal projects rather then 1-week assignments. I also very much like the exhibition as a form of getting work seen as I think it allows for a very particular and very special form of contemplation of images. In an exhibition, one looks at photographs in a very physical way due to the fact that one walks through an exhibition rather then paging through it. I have also organized exhibitions in interesting and varied locations such as Nelson Mandela's old cell in Pollsmoor Prison, the South African Constitutional Court, and the Italian Parliament. This is also very important to me in ensuring that the work can be seen by a wider audience then just those who attend the more elite commercial galleries and museums.
So, while I am very happy to continue working in this way, I also want my work to be seen as widely as possible in different contexts too. I chose to apply to Magnum because I was attracted to the idea of being a part of an organization with such a strong tradition of engaged photographic practice. It made sense to join an agency for editorial photography, and Magnum was the obvious choice, as it seemed to be the best one. I also share a deep affinity and respect for most of the Magnum photographers and feel attracted to the shared quality of social engagement that seems to define Magnum.
I was given the wrong date for the portfolio meeting in New York, so the physical portfolio that I had gone to some lengths to prepare never arrived on time. When I realized this, I thought, ah well, thats it - no chance now. But Magnum already had a disk of my work which I had sent a few months previously for the preliminary selection at the London office, and somehow I got chosen on the basis of that."
On hearing about being accepted as a nominee:
"I received emails from Martin Parr and Jim Goldberg, I smiled to myself, and was really quite surprised after the portfolio problem. I then carried on preparing for the assignment that I was about to start.
While I am obviously delighted and honored to be chosen for Magnum, I really don't see it as changing anything in the way I work, except hopefully to help me to produce better work and get that work seen. But I don't want to allow anything, especially not the new attention that my work is receiving with the nomination, to distract me from my focus on long-term, sustained, and engaged projects."
Continue reading 'The Imagemakers'
