A Photographer’s Welcome - Catalunya Music Palace , Barcelona 2008

My exhibition, “Energy” opened at Kowasa Gallery in Barcelona on 9 April and will be on the wall until 31 May.

The day before the exhibit opened , Elaine and I were visiting the Catalunya Music Palace and were planning to have lunch in the courtyard. There were no chairs available and one of the other guests at a nearby table went inside and brought us chairs. I said gracias and gave him an invitation to the exhibit. Then I went to make a phone call.

When I came back this was my reception . The gentleman and his daughter came to the opening…she is a photography student.

Almost everyone agrees that having one shot of scotch can be a pleasure, but ten shots will be a disaster. The same can be said of taking photographs.

I am not talking about photographers who are on assignment.. they have many demands that have nothing to do with wonderful photographs and yet they very often they produce wonderful photographs.

I am talking about serious photography, either amateur or professional. I am talking about a serious connection with your subject and serious understanding of when the elements are in place for your photograph.

Digital diahhrea is a disease for which there is a simple cure. Take one frame of a scene. It is exquisite training for your eye and your brain. Try it for a month. Then try it for another month…then try it for another month…..

I have always wondered why Garry Winogrand left this world with a filing cabinet full of undeveloped rolls of film. (That’s him with his hands up.) I told John Szarkowski that he would not have wanted them developed, but I was overruled. That’s ok.

In the early days we hung out together. He always wanted to see what a day’s shooting looked like. In the fifties, we just used a magnifier to look at the negatives as soon as they were dry…contact sheets were a pain and we could read negatives.

Now I think I know why he left those films. I won’t be presumptuous and say I do know, but will offer this explanation because I am experiencing it myself.

After more than 60 years of shooting it is difficult to rationally add another roll of negatives to the binders in my fireproof safe. I print my own work and am ten years behind. You could suggest that I get a printer but that is not my style. I believe that Garry had a printer, but at one point even that doesn’t matter. It’s the old fashioned equivalent of the massive amount of information you get on your computer. You just can’t process it.

I still see photographs, but I don’t necessarily shoot them. Garry kept on shooting. Maybe he was more of an optimist than me.

I have enough chosen negatives to keep me busy for years to come…I hope!
I wish that he was here to have the same option.

george
montreal 2008

ps: Don’t believe everything you read. [I was shooting this afternoon.]

I have lived with her for 53 years and am still interested in what she has to say.
If you would like to know, go to : elainezimbel.com
It is a very interesting trip. …george

When I photographed Leonard Bernstein at his Connecticut studio in 1968 he didn’t want to talk about music..he only wanted to talk political strategy. He was an advisor to Eugene McCarthy and it seems that Eugene didn’t want the advice. I remember Bernstein complaining to New York Times reporter Joe Lelyveld that he had coached McCarthy for his entrance to a big rally and “then he got out of the wrong side of the car, shielded from the crowd! ”

He would really enjoy the drama of the current political scene in the U.S.

John Cleary was up to his Texas boots in photography. His wiseness about the art photography world was inspirational to many of us who labor in that corral. He was just good to be with. At the gallery, at Aipad, or a barbecue table in Houston there were always interesting words coming from him. I think he would have liked R.I.P. to mean “Researcher of Interesting Photographs”. I am honored to be in his “kids” collection.

The Goose, Bronx New York 1958 ©George S. Zimbel 1958/2008

[Signed prints by gsz available.]

Being able to capture spontaneous action in a work is unique to “still photography”.  To me, “The Goose, Bronx New York 1958″ incorporates this idea.  I’m not blowing artsy here. I am serious. . The use of spontaneous action is a special thing, and can’t by definition, be “created”.

Words don’t explain a photograph, so look at “The Goose.”