The world's best photographers share their most intimate images
- Text by Shelley Jones
- Photography by Larry Towell
Prestigious documentary photo agency Magnum Photos are selling 68 square prints – at $100 each – of photos that consider the role of intimacy, as part of a flash sale ‘Up Close and Personal’ that runs on their website until November 13.
The prints – that are signed, estate-stamped and museum quality – are either chosen by the photographer themselves or an estate representing the photographer posthumously and reveal something insightful and private about both the subject and the person behind the camera.
The sale features many of Magnum’s most prized photographers like Robert Capa and George Rodger (who co-founded Magnum in 1947 alongside Henri Cartier-Bresson and others), Elliot Erwitt, Eve Arnold, Bruce Davidson and Steve McCurry, as well as fresher talent like Carolyn Drake and Olivia Arthur.
Here are some of our favourite images and the stories behind their inception
Jim Goldberg
“On May 1, 2000, my Mom died suddenly (it was due to a doctor’s negligence but that’s a whole other story). My daughter Ruby and I got on a plane to Florida to attend the funeral, pack up the house, and disperse her belongings. The day after the funeral while my sister, brother and I were clearing out my parents home, I looked up and saw Ruby playing amongst the curtains. She was 8 then, and having her there is what helped me through it all. Photography did too.”
Robert Capa
Crewman signals another ship of an Allied convoy across the Atlantic from the U.S. to England], 1942.
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
Thomas Hoepker
“I took the picture in the fall of 1983, at sunset at the old docks in New Jersey with a view towards the World Trade towers in New York City. I had heard that there was a traditional Lovers’ Lane, a meeting place of young people in their cars, bringing booze and sometimes drugs. The sun was setting and the towers across the river were glowing before it became too dark to take more pictures.”
Larry Towell
“I took this picture of my wife Ann and our daughter Naomi in 1989. Naomi was four years old and our second child. Ann was pregnant with Noah, who would be our third. I’d just gotten into Magnum based on my work in the wars of Central America – Nicaragua and El Salvador. I wasn’t interested in war really, but in how families overcame strife to celebrate the intimacies of every day life. I never photographed my own family at that time with any intent, other than perhaps, to recognise those same moments.”
Carolyn Drake
“I find that intimacy comes from conversation, and on good days that may lead to an unexpected moment. After watching bears eat from garbage dumpsters and collecting wolf scat from the forest, I ended up at Çagan Sekercioglu’s bird banding station in a village near the Armenian border. Çagan is an ornithologist and conservation biologist. The challenge was to make a portrait of him together with the tiny birds his team was banding—people and birds exist on different scales. At his suggestion, borne out of the time we spent together, I stood outside of his trailer while he released the tiny birds from inside.”
The Magnum Square Print Sale will take place at the Magnum Photos Online Store until Friday, November 13th, 2015, at 6PM EST.
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