Garry Winogrand, Martin Parr

Garry Winogrand

There is article in Aesthetica #51, pp58-71 about the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) exhibition of photographs by Garry Winogrand.  I was very interested in the photographs reproduced in the magazine; they seemed to be my kind of picture: street, unposed, capturing people doing odd, interesting, revealing things.  One in particular stood out, New York World's Fair 1964, which showed a row of six young women, sitting on a bench.  They're very active and animated, which is attractive in itself, and doing different things. There's a man at each end of the row, providing static, calm, bookends to the excited girls.  There's the sense of an overall story of this group of girls enjoying themselves (though one is crying) together with the individual stories of what's happening to each.  That one of the men is black, and being talked to by a (white) girl, is interesting, given the 1964 date.
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=53834
I don't intend to visit this exhibition, but I have bought the catalogue.

Martin Parr

I attended a lecture From Late Modernism to Post-Modernism, given by Fergus Reid, lecturer at Shrewsbury School, on 13th April.  Among the Post-Modernists he mentioned Martin Parr.  I remarked on the similarities between the Winogrand above, and Badminton Horse Trials, Gloucestershire, England, from 'The Cost of Living'.  Here again the women are young, active, and doing different things.  They're even book-ended by a serious young man and a person of whom only the drab coat is visible.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8723045/The-foibles-of-the-world.html

At Dr Sketchy's

Here's my own photograph, taken at Dr Sketchy's at The Victoria, Birmingham, on 25th May.  The young women are all doing different things, but there's no connection between them.  I liked this; they could be having a conversation, but they're all distracted.  The girl on the right is lost in her thoughts, connecting to no one.  The image is book-ended by the women left and right, who both look towards the centre.
Only a fraction can be seen of the sixth girl, but she's the only one responding to the camera.  I thought that this part-image was a fault, but find that the eye continually returns to her smiling teeth.

The subjects are: Mysti Vine (burlesque artist), Frankie Lynn (burlesque artist and emporium proprietrist), and M/s Lynn's four models.  That's not my 50mm f1.4 lens on the table, BTW.