Garry Winogrand: Master Street Photographer

Forget about athletes and movie stars, Garry Winogrand was an individual I hold as a role model and would love to be able to emulate. From the early 1960's until his death in 1984, Garry Winogrand was an acclaimed photographer who chronicled contemporary American life through his camera lens. And what has always been so amazing and inspiring to me, as a photographer, was the fact that in addition to all of the highly regarded photos he took during his lifespan at the time of his death he left behind more than 2500 rolls of film exposed but undeveloped, 6500 rolls developed but not proofed, and 3000 rolls proofed but not examined. That's a total of a third of a million unedited exposures.

This is the kind of extreme dedication to the art that I am still aspiring to achieve in my own photographic pursuits. I do not expect to ever be the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship like Winogrand was on two seperate occasions or to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art like he did, but I feel that at the very least I can strive towards the dedication he possessed.

There are several other photographers I admire, such as Lee Friedlander and Walker Evans, but the pathological pursuit of photographer that Garry Winogrand possessed is what attracts me most to him. And of course the fact that I too am drawn to street photography and urban landscapes as a subject matter for my own photography.