Study the masters (and the women who excel)

Study the masters (and the women who excel)

I’ve been thinking about myths, and there may well be a blog about one or two of my unfavourite photographic ones in the next week or two: things that I hear photographers say as if they’re laws of physics, when they actually have their roots in some historical anomaly, or even the prejudice of a particular club member.

But today, I’m going to suggest that you sit down, and watch TV. But not just any old channel: HERE is a specific link to a website that will happily sell you masterclasses – and also makes a variety of programmes available that will fascinate and delight the keen photographer.



I’m not sure there’s any original material there: but a link to a BBC4 documentary on David Bailey’s work in the Seventies on YouTube, for instance, is well worth having alongside a National Geographic programme about Steve McCurry shooting the last roll of Kodachrome ever made and a recreation of shoots in which Charis Wilson and Edward Weston made beautiful images that changed the world of art nude photography, combined with footage of Wilson, at the age of 90, commenting on the whole process. (That’s the one I’m watching today!)

I’m not quite sure why the slightly bombastic name, Masters of Photography, is undented by the inclusion of Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange.

I don’t think that there will be a lot of techie talk in any of the programmes: a certain level of competence underpins every great photographer’s work, but it’s not what they’re about. It may be a willingness to take physical risks to photograph extraordinary places or events, or deep empathy that allows someone to bond with their subjects, to bring out their humanity.



Or even a level of deception – as I saw yesterday in a YouTube video about Platon (full name, Platon Antoniou) and portraits of the powerful… He talked to Vladimir Putin about the Beatles, before shooting a portrait every bit as chilling as Arnold Newman’s image of Alfred Krupp.

But here’s my suggestion for today – have a look at one or two of these wonderful, available and instructive videos. If you learn nothing that will improve your own photography, you will certainly see some fine pictures, and broaden your cultural base.

The nature of the beast is that the pictures here are random stuff from my own work: I’m encouraging you to seek out far better images!