The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand

by Geoff Dyer, Garry Winogrand (Photographer)

Garry Winogrand―along with Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander―was one of the most important photographers of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as one of the world’s foremost street photographers. Award-winning writer Geoff Dyer has admired Winogrand’s work for many years. Modeled on John Szarkowski’s classic book Atget , The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand is a masterfully curated selection of one hundred photographs from the Winogrand archive at the Center for Creative Photography, with each image accompanied by an original essay. Dyer takes the viewer/reader on a wildly original journey through both iconic and unseen images from the archive, including eighteen previously unpublished color photographs. The book encompasses most of Winogrand’s themes and subjects and remains broadly faithful to the chronological and geographical facts of his life, but Dyer’s responses to the photographs are unorthodox, eye-opening, and often hilarious. This inimitable combination of photographer and writer, images and text, itself offers what Dyer claims for Winogrand’s photography―an education in seeing.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction, Essays

240 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2018

About the author

Geoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of a 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize, short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage (a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It (winner of the 2004 W. H. Smith Best Travel Book Award), and The Ongoing Moment (winner of the ICP Infinity Award for Writing on Photography), and Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker). His collection of essays, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012. He is also the editor of John Berger: Selected Essays and co-editor, with Margaret Sartor, of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney. A new book, Another Great Day at Sea, about life aboard the USS George H W Bush has just been published by Pantheon.
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com

Reviews

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the photos are fantastic, though I wish Geoff Dyer had written this when he was younger. He now seems intent on being wittily insouciant at every turn, treating the page like a comic routine, which detracts from his insights into the photographs themselves. That said, every time I'm aggravated by a throwaway selection or too clever commentary, the next page offers some fascinating reading or connection that pulls me back in, gets me looking at the picture a different way, rethinking Winogrand, etc. Recommended to read this in smaller doses.

[Ellison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title suggests that this book is about the photography of Garry Winogand, but that would be incorrect. This book is mostly about Geoff Dyer.

I don't read a lot of art books, so my expectation that essays accompanying each photo would relate to relevant history or the life of the artist may have been off base. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone picks up this book because they wish to learn more about Geoff Dyer. Yet the text of this book is littered with anecdotes about Dyer and his many friends.

Skip the book in favor of Leslie Jamison's article The Photographs That Made Me Feel Less Alone in The Atlantic or view his work on MOMA's website.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good selection of Winogrand photos, many of which I had not seen before including a bunch in color. But the essays ... for me they were superfluous and after the first couple I stopped reading them, just skimmed. There are a few glimmers of interestingness, but mostly they were at best un-insightful, at worst ponderously academic, or even condescending (e.g. "no attractive women to be seen in this photo").

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a collection of Garry Winogrand’s photography, this book is first-rate. It includes both iconic pieces and never-seen shots (including some possibly never seen by Winogrand himself). The book includes B&W and color work spanning his entire career.

Geoff Dyer’s mini-essays detract significantly from the book, however. They are self-indulgent and offer almost no insight into Winogrand or his work. I kept reading, enjoying the occasional direct quote from Winogrand and hoping I’d get something out of Dyer’s perspective. But his readings of the photographs are esoteric bordering on absurd.

Dyer’s sexism is worth noting separately. Winogrand is obviously known for his street photographs of young women. Given how little Winogrand said about his photography (and how minimal or cryptic his statements were at times), it’s hard to say definitively what his attitude toward women was. Dyer chooses to accept as given that Winogrand saw these women primarily as sex objects and avidly rides shotgun with this fictionalized Winogrand. His (Dyer’s) comments get progressively creepier as the book goes on, culminating in some wild stereotypes about men in his essay next to a contact sheet of Winogrand’s photographs from a strip club. It’s difficult to see how a less renowned critic could have gotten the text past a competent editor.

In short, skip the critical apparatus entirely and enjoy the photos.

[Mai M Ibrahim · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكتاب جيد بيستعرض المصور صوره ومركز ع حقبة الستينيات بس ف كلام كتير مع كل صورة والاستايل ده مش بحبه اوي .. بحب يسيب الصورة هي تتكلم عن نفسها وممكن يشرحها ف سطر او اتنين

المهم هصور كتب المصور كاملة ع قناة اليوتيوب "عن الفن" لو حد مهتم بالتصوير اوي حاجه فنية عامة 👇😍
@3nelfn

وبصور عامة الكتب والأفلام اللي بستعرها من المكتبة كل أسبوعين وبحطها ع انستجرام 👇
@mai.designer92

[Iniville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring on both fronts Dyer's commentary as much as Winogrand's images.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is targeted towards those interested in photography so this review most likely won't resonate as much with other readers. This is a coffee table size book featuring 100 photographs of street photographer Garry Winogrand. Although he was primarily known for black and white photographs, this collection is notable for including a selection of color photos as well. Mr. Winogrand was best known for his New York City photos in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but as this book shows, he also did photos in Los Angeles, Austin, a bit of Europe, and even on a funded trip across the country. My main complaint with this type of book is usually the pictures don't have any explanation and simply stand on their own. In this case, Geoff Dyer rose to the challenge of addressing each picture he chose for this volume and creating a story in many cases since it's really not knowable as to what was really going on. This could have come off as pretentious but didn't even when I don't agree with his suggested interpretations. Even though his speculations can be fanciful, it's successful in drawing the viewer's eye to parts of the picture. I think it's a great effort and gave me a deeper look than simply turning page after page of only pictures. I found this book inspirational as it shows a picture doesn't have to be perfect to be interesting. It's often the things that may be happening out of the frame that people seem to be responding to that drive the picture. For anyone with an interest in photography and the history of photography, this is a great read.

[Graeme · Rating 1 out of 5]

A quotation from William Makepeace Thackeray on J. M. Turner begins this book:

But herein lies the power of the great artist.
He makes you see and think of a great deal more than the objects before you...

Garry Winogrand's street photography does nothing of the sort. It is shallow, without deeper significance, and technically poor. If it had been otherwise, the pompous title The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand, the fancy book design, and the extended and superfluous interpretive commentary on every single photograph might have been forgivable, but the entire production is fatally pretentious.

The sainted John Szarkowski, Winogrand's chief proponent, had much to answer for, though some critics said that at the time. The Emperor's clothes seem tawdrier than ever.

[Roland Askew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book you can simply read from start to finish, rather shift back and forth between plates and pages of interest as you compare Winogrand's different compositions.

As one who seeks in photography the same artistic perspective as in paintings, Winogrand's process (which seems to involve plenty of chance) brings fascination, confusion, curiosity and perplexity. One may see the artistic merit, while befuddled how the "artistic" and the "merit" got composed in the first place or forgiven some of these are "you will know it when you see it" pieces.

Makes me more interested, if no less shy, about practicing street photography.

[Davy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always enjoy Geoff Dyer's essays, especially when he's writing about photography. And there is no shortage of that here! Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as taken with Winogrand's work as he is, and though it's clear that street photography as a genre is a superb launchpad for a writer like Dyer, I wish I'd enjoyed the images more than I did.

[Scott Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have, and have seen, a lot of photo books, primarily of street photography. Alas, this book will probably remain in my from library section because it is just too expensive for me to buy. But it is the best photography book I have ever seen and read.

[Ansh · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book gave me some new ideas, overall it kept repeating the same belief I had for a while, “Just get out and take pictures!” Tbh I didn’t really feel anything special from Garry’s photos but this book instilled the idea that photography is what you make of it!

[Ghayyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tour de force masterclass in "Ways of looking" at a photograph.

[Estep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique book of photography and mini essays. Would like to more books in this form.

[Cute Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has anyone ever urged you to “be in the moment”? Has it struck you as challenging advice and left you with the notion that “the awful thing about the moment is that it leads to other moments and all those moments lead to a moment like this”? Whether headed for the airport or caught up in quotidian comings and goings, are you troubled by the niggling suspicion that “Arrivals are all but indistinguishable from Departures”? If so, check out The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand by Geoff Dyer. Winogrand took perhaps a million photos in his lifetime, including thousands that he himself never viewed or even developed, and garrulous gadabout Dyer has things to say about a hundred of them. These photos have heft and show us that “where there is weight, there is the need for it to be lifted.” Peek through Winogrand’s lens via the eye of Dyer’s mind and join them on streets where “the real sadness, sadness without music, is in daytime when there’s just the wind and cold and the dryness and the necessity to gas her up. And the knowledge that whoever you are you could be anybody.”