PHOTO MEETING BARCELONA ’10 OJO DE PEZ

During the 15, 16 and July 17 Barcelona was placed again on the map of world photography thanks to International Photo Meeting organized by La Fábrica. That meeting was a big success. Let’s hope that initiative to become a classic and to be repeated year after year. I won’t write an exhaustive chronicle.

The portfolio review was conducted by many well known locals as Silvia Omedes, Jessica Murray, Rafa Badía or Fernando Peracho.

SILVIA OMEDES

Among those who came from abroad I would highlight Christian Caujolle, Vu agency founder and one of the most important theorists of photography in the world, and Robert Pledge, to whom I took the opportunity to say hello. Bob, for his friends, is a photographic legend alive. In the golden age of photojournalism, he founded Contact, the photo agency in 1976. An agency that distributes the work of photographers like Annie Leivobitz, and who employed mythical photographers as David Burnett, Frank Fournier or Alon Reininger, all World Press Photo winners and with photos included in the list of the 100 photos of the century. I worked closely with Frank and Alon in Madrid in 1982, covering the Spanish general elections won by Felipe Gonzalez. There, Alon Reininger gave me my first lesson about how to use portable flashes. Those interested will find here the story.

ROBERT PLEDGE

I attended to the Susan Meiselas’ and Oliviero Toscani’s conferences. I was particularly interested in the so-called “conversations with”. For half an hour, a dozen people could have a conversation with photographers as emblematic as Susan Meiselas and Alex Majoli of Magnum. We had to book in advance and I was lucky. I attended with David Monfil. Both are preparing a project with Nacho Rodriguez and the talks were very useful. Both Susan and Alex gave faith of the unstoppable interest in documentary photography, but recognized that the golden age of magazines were over. Both are experiencing with multimedia media images, in which they mix photos, video and sound. As already explained Pepe Baeza, the future of photography lays there.

I didn’t know well the work of Alex Majoli, an Italian who is one of the promising young Magnum photographers, but much better Susan Meiselas’, especially the photos she took in the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. La Fábrica had just released her book, but I already had bought it in London in 1981. I asked Susan, how no, to dedicate it to me. She saw the book and said. “Oh! It’s the old one!

FOTO: ORIANA ELIÇABE

Alex said something very important. He said you must take into account what the market needs. You can do a thorough job on your wife and then complain that you don’t get it published with all kinds of excuses, he said. Everybody wants to go to photograph Afghanistan to, but the media can only publish a couple of stories, not eighty. Instead the media is searching stories on the economy, on the crisis on Wall Street, etc. In short, if we want to get published we need to know what is being sought, not only photograph what interest us.

ALEX MAJOLI

Finally, although the lectures were the most interesting, we photographers always get distracted by small details that attract our attention.

/ CARTIER-BRESSON : THE MYSTERY OF THE "MISSING" PHOTO.

Henry Cartier-Bresson, Berlin 1962

It was one the first books that I bought when I was beginning my photographic career. The title was "The world of Henri Cartier-Bresson”; the careful printing was done in Lucerne, Switzerland, and the Spanish edition belonged to Lumen. Fascinated, I kept on admiring his pictures: "On the banks of the Marne 1938", “Behind Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris 1932", "Hyeres" ,"Dimanche Matin"... But I had a favourite one, five children playing besides the Berlin Wall, an image that Cartier-Bresson took in 1962. This photo was printed full-page as one of the importants in the book.

The years passed by and I had plenty of chances to meet again with the work of Cartier-Bresson: in Paris, in London, in the Piazza del Duomo in Milano, in Amsterdam, in the exhibitions in Barcelona at the Picasso Museum, at Caixa Forum ...I reviewed all the books that kept showing retrospectives of his work, but never went back to see the photo of the children playing near the Berlin Wall.

XAVIER MISERACHS & PETER PAN

On Thursday, December 11, Teresa Gimpera, Colita and I presented in La Casa del Libro the book Memòries de Barcelona, with photos of Xavier Miserachs and Colita, published by Lupita Books. The book is an extraordinary document of life in Barcelona in the fifties, sixties and early seventies until the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. In addition to the magnificent Colita portraits of the people in the so-called Gauche Divine, made up of writers, artists, actors, models, film makers, photographers and architects, in which the two authors were moving like a fish in water, the book is a tribute to the Xavier figure. I would like to highlight the emotive words of Colita to finish his speech that reminded me of the figure of Peter Pan. Colita said Xavier Miserachs have not died and will never do.

This day we remembered him, said Colita, because his daughters, Arena y Mar, had participated in the edition of this book where his spirit was very present through his fotos. But that when they will become older, their descendants would be those who would take over, as well as the children of these, always using the immortal Miserachs photos as a testimony of a past and extraordinary time.

I could not help but to draw a parallel with the work of James M. Barrie. An adult Wendy, that has forgotten her adventures as a child, discovers that Peter Pan, whose age remains unchanged because he lives in Neverland, has visited her daughter entering through her window. And in the same way, the figure of Xavier will continue living and unchanging over time through his particular Neverland: his photographs. And the generations behind us will keep smiling at the aspiring Davis Cup players in their improvised tennis courts, at the man in the hat on the scooter and at the dog that acted like the humans

IS ROBERT FRANK’S “THE AMERICANS” THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK?

ROBERT FRANK. NEW JERSEY 1955-1956

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On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Americans, the National Gallery of Art will organize an exhibition of Robert Frank at Washington, San Francisco and New York in 2009. Speaking of this important show, responsibles for the National Gallery described the Robert Frank work as the single most important book of photographs published since the Second World War. And in a recent article, published this month in The New York Times by Philip Gefter, entitled Snapshots from the American road, emphasizes:”No one has had a greater influence on photography in the last half-century that the Swis-born Mr.Frank, though his reputation rests almost entirely on a single book published five decades ago.” In the Spanish recent reissue by La Fábrica, they went even further and described the book as "the work summit in the history of photography." Despite my admiration for the photography of Robert Frank, I have serious doubts about this assertion.

The Americans was published in France, by Delpire, in 1958 and in America in 1959, but before that, in 1952 in Paris and 1954 in New York, Henri Cartier-Bresson had already published his The Decisive Moment. Aside from the importance of the creation of the Magnum Photo Agency, Cartier-Bresson brought a new style of photography based on the new 35-mm rangefinder cameras, as Leica, and his theory of The Decisive Moment is still in force today. I agree that the principles of the French photographer could not remain immutable forever, but, don’t the images of Frank, that I show here, remember quitte a lot to the ones Henri Cartier-Bresson took a few years earlier?

ROBERT FRANK. CHICAGO 1955-1956

CARTIER-BRESSON. NEW YORK 1947

ROBERT FRANK. INDIANAPOLIS 1955-1956

CARTIER-BRESSON. LOS ANGELES 1946

ROBERT FRANK. LONDON1952

CARTIER-BRESSON. NEW YORK 1947

And as someone who does shatter the style of the founder of Magnum, I would distinguish William Klein and his New York book published in France in 1956, 2 years before than the one of Robert Frank.

NEW YORK 1954-1955. WILLIAM KLEIN

NEW YORK 1954-1955. WILLIAM KLEIN

NEW YORK 1954-1955. WILLIAM KLEIN

And, even though it is also a personal opinion, I would stress also Sweet Life the book that the Dutch Ed Van der Elsken published in 1966.

SWEET LIFE. ED VAN DER ELSKEN 1959

SWEET LIFE. ED VAN DER ELSKEN 1959

SWEET LIFE. ED VAN DER ELSKEN 1959

It is true that the photographic historians suggest that Robert Frank introduces what they call the perishable moments instead of the decisive ones. But I think one of the other reasons for the consideration of Frank's book lies in the excellent text by Jack Kerouac, one of the leaders of the Beat Generation, which accompanies it. Kerouac wrote: "after seeing these pictures you end up finally not knowing any more whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin”. Is a very bold phrase, but, is it so good the jukebox photo? Does that photo really hit us in the same manner as Eugene Smith’s Tomoko in the bath or Country Doctor, for example?

JUKEBOX. ROBERT FRANK NEW YORK 1955-1956

COUNTRY DOCTOR. EUGENE SMITH 1948

TOMOKO EN EL BAÑO / TOMOKO IN THE BATH. EUGENE W. SMITH 1972

In my personal rating I would place first in The Decisive Moment, followed by New York, Sweet Life and, finally, The Americans.

THE OUTBREAK OF THE HOUSING BUBBLE IN SPAIN

Students and young photographers ask me, very often, which subjects could do and many believe that if they go to exotic locations will be easier to sell their photos. Today I want to show this fine story about the outbreak of the housing bubble in Spain, planned and photographed by Xavier Cervera, as a clear example that you don’t need go to the other side of the planet to find great subjects. Xavier worked in advance previewing that this story will be of a capital importance and used all the photographic resources (composition, the quest for the best lights ...) to develop it. This story was published in La Vanguardia Magazine and the text, accompanying the pictures of Xavier Cervera, was written by one of the most prestigious Spanish journalists, José Martí Gomez.

It got to happen. While the whole world praised the rapid growth of the Spanish economy, far above the European average, I sensed serious problems due to the foundations of that growth.

Much of the development was based on Spanish construction. The flats and apartments rose in price, well above inflation, and people was buying them for investment. "To buy apartments and houses is the safest investment; their prices can’t never go down” they used to say. The price of the soil to build was revaluating without stopping. The city councils got money to finance them converting agricultural land into building land, which generated huge profits and big gains which shared political, brokers and builders. The international mafias bleached their dirty money in land while Spanish politicians looked to the other side. All corrupt and all happy. Everyone? While that happened, the flat prices were going skyrocketing out of the reach of young people, who were seeking to leave their parents home, and that earned low salaries; the apartments were also too expensive for the emigrants who served as cheap labour, to continue building non stop, and that crowded together in small flats.

The global financial crisis exploded and damaged, especially, countries like Spain or Ireland highly dependants of the building industry. Nobody wanted to invest in flats anymore, neither the rich nor the mafia, and the people who really needed them to live in or had no money or was unemployed or the banks did not lend them money to pay the mortgage, and ,besides all that, there are a million empty apartments in Spain. For the same reasons people was not buying cars and there were massive lay-offs in the major Spain industries: construction and automotive where many workers were fired. As these industries were losing money, they stopped investing in advertising that is what sustains mainly the written press. Newspapers and magazines, especially, were affected by this publicity cut off, stopped contracting freelances and started firing staff journalists and photographers. Should I go on…?

All this sad story has already face and eyes because of the story of Xavier Cervera and José Martí Gomez published in The Vanguardia Magazine.

ALON REININGER AND THE PORTABLE STROBES

I met Alon Reininger in Madrid in 1982.He was the first person who taught me how to use strobe lights. In those days all the world's attention was focused on Spain. We were to have the second democratic elections after Franco's death and for the first time since 1936, a leftist political party, the PSOE led by Felipe Gonzalez could win. A few months ago, Jordi Socías and Aurora Fierro had created the Cover agency, in the likeness of the French Gamma. Jordi had chosen me to follow Felipe González.

FELIPE GONZÁLEZ. MADRID 1982

Other photographers also used Cover as headquarter, including Alon Reininger and the French Frank Fournier, who was his assistant then; Alon and Frank worked for the Contact press agency and had a very well paid assignment to photograph the elections for Time magazine. Alon showed me his portable studio strobes (I had never seen strobes like these before). He wanted to take a very well lit Felipe Gonzalez portrait for the cover of Time.” I do not have too much practice” he explained me” but there is a fellow in the agency, David Burnett, who uses them very well and, thanks to them, is winning a lot of money with his portraits and his work for multinationals" told me Alon while he was teaching me how to use them . "I don’t want to spend a lifetime travelling all over the world "he said," I also want to be able to photograph well-paid jobs without leaving the United States” he said.

When I returned to Barcelona, once the elections were over, the first thing I did with the money I got for my work was to buy a case containing two Multiblitz strobes, Minilite model. It’s been ,by far, the best investment in equipment that I've done in my life. 25 years after the strobes still work perfectly and I've done a large number of portraits and numerous magazine covers with them. Here are a few examples.

ARTUR MAS


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CARLES CHECA ISAAC ANTIC


JOSEP FERRER. FREIXENET

RUBERT DE VENTÓS




JOAN PUJOL "GARBO"

FERRàN ADRIÀ

MANUEL MELER

ANDONI ZUBIZARRETA

ANGEL GORDON

A few years later Alon Reining rose to fame by winning the World Press with an in-depth reportage on AIDS. And, also, Frank Fournier won another World Press with his impressive portrayal of the Colombian girl Omaira, shortly before she died trapped by the debris left after the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. Finally, Felipe González won the elections that year. And my professional experience was invaluable because, in addition to working side by side next to Alon and Frank, I also could do the same with other world-class photographers as Jose Azel, or Magnum’s Jean Gaumy

AFTER JOSE CENDON LIBERATION.

I can’t believe it! Jose Cendón, after being released, narrated his experience in La Vanguardia and in a radio interview for the chain Ser. The photographer Tino Soriano publishes in his blog the first 40 comments about Cendón from readers. It is unbelievable. The call him gaudy, vain, Indiana Jones, James Bond, unbearable, Superman, macho man, vulture, and one says that Rambo at his side is an altar boy ... One of them writes: “I want to be like him. Go around the world visiting dangerous places and return here to explain it while I wear my flashy brown jacket" What do bother them? Cendón good looks and his apparent lack of fear while describing his capture? It should be remembered that for taking the pictures Cendón made, and makes, you have to be special. He's been working in one of the most dangerous places in Earth. José Cendón financed his own trip to the Congo where he photographed the psychiatric hospital who earned him the World Press Photo Award. Surely if Jose Cendón had not had that character, he would have stayed in their native Galicia shooting press conferences and regional football games (that said with all my respect for the colleagues who do).

I looked back and found pictures of the ones that, undoubtedly, have been the best war photographers in history: Capa, Don McCullin and James Natchwey. I do not know very well the personal motivations of Natchey, who began his international career photographing the riots caused in Belfast (Northern Ireland) for the death of the IRA militant, Bobby Sands, after a hunger strike in 1981 (I also covered the story for the Interviú magazine). Natchwey looks like an actor playing the role of war photographer.

JAMES NATCHWEY

Capa and McCullin were adventurous (I’ve read the biographies of both) and they weren’t exactly what you would call modest. The photos I show of them in the blog simply reinforce my assertion. All of them were very special, brave photographers with a great talent, like Cendón. (Without stating that he is already at the level of the above photographers).

ROBERT CAPA

DON McCULLIN by MARK SHAND

What do they don’t forgive about Jose Cendón? That he doesn't appear like a victim? His good looks? The fact that he didn’t got killed? His brown jacket?