Lessons in the street philosophy of Garry Winogrand

“I photograph something to find out what it will look like photographed,” American street photographer Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) famously said, revealing the fundamental principle of his philosophy. Through his lens, life was rendered anew, giving us a fresh perspective and vantage point for seeing the world.

“The more interested you get in Winogrand the more eager you are to see stuff you have not seen,” British writer Geoff Dyer reveals about the hunger that drove him to create The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand (University of Texas Press), a luxurious meditation on the many ways in which the photographer’s remarkable images work.

The book, which is modelled on John Szarkowski’s classic book Atget, presents a brilliantly curated selection of 100 photographs, including 18 previously unpublished colour works, from the Winogrand archive at the Centre for Creative Photography. Each image is accompanied by an essay, in which Dyer explores the relationship between the artist, his subject, and the photograph in a wholly original manner that is as insightful as it is engaging.

 

“I put a lot of trust into the idea that I would remain faithful to the vagaries of my own nature and interests, confident that even though there are any number of people who could write a certain book maybe if I really remain faithful to my own interests, I’d wind up writing a book that only I could write,” Dyer explains.

Indeed, there is no one quite as well matched to give voice to Winogrand’s work as Dyer does in this exquisitely layered and thoughtful book. He examines the underlying issues that define the ways in which Winogrand used his camera to document the essence of mid-20th-century urban life.

 

Each section begins with a series of questions that open the mind to a way of seeing that is just as radical today as it was when these pictures were first made. For Winogrand and Dyer alike, the resolution comes when the act of looking is transformed into understanding.

Like his photographs, Winogrand’s words are poignant, profound and direct – he challenges us to distinguish the infinite nuances that exist between representation, interpretation, and the object itself.  “I think it’s a version of the old, ‘Ceci n’est pas un pipe,’” Dyer explains, referencing Rene Magritte’s infamous 1929 painting, ‘The Treachery of Images’ (“This is not a pipe”). “Winogrand has said so many profound things about photography because he is not trained at all as any sort of academic but he has this knack for going verbally to the real philosophical, conceptual heart of the matter. It reminds us that there is such a difference between things that are there in the world and the way they are transformed by putting frames around it.”

 

The best images, it can be said, are those that continue to reveal something new – for even though they never change, we do. They continue to speak to us in such a way that the meaning evolves to speak the language of the present day. For Dyer, this presents an infinite space to engage, recognising that the desire to “talk about pictures” can go on for days.

“No matter how much Winogrand you see, you are always conscious of how much more Winogrand there is still to see,” he acknowledges. “Within each photograph, there seems to be more happening in a Winogrand than there is in most other photographs. On both the individual and collective level, the hunger is being fed even as it is being assuaged.”

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