#somereallygoodones, #billmindlin, #photographmagazine, #tupper
The photography world is not very large, and it is full of generous thoughtful people who most often do not get enough credit for their considerable contributions to the field. One of these would be Bill Mindlin who started photograph magazine more than thirty years ago. This bi-monthly magazine (now website) is the Bible for anyone seriously interested in photography. It began as Photography in New York but grew with its international audience. Mindlin is far too modest and self effacing to take credit for the enormous service he did for the community acknowledging that people were serious about looking at photographs.
It is impossible to estimate the importance of photograph.
Mindlin retired a few years ago and left his baby in the very capable hands of his longtime colleague Anthony Beale who is also modest and self effacing. In anticipation of a show I was organizing in Arles, the editor Jean Dykstra asked me to write about a picture that meant something to me and why.
Tupper Studio, <Graduation>, 1903
I chose a great graduation photograph.
Part of the attraction here is the mystery. It looks like a layer cake of heads, an architectural mass (or mess). The shallow depth of field puts the faces in focus, hovering in front of us, but there is no density: they are literally on top of each other. The risers lift up too high, too quickly.
What, actually, is the studio name? “Tupper?” From the loopy script in the bottom right, it could be “Tuhher” or “Tunner.”
Where are we, other than in front of a generic-looking institutional brick building, and who are these pleasant-looking fellows, who appear to be graduating? If we recognized the insignia on their lapels, we might know something.
All we know is that it is 1903. The picture is good-looking. It is tidy. The print is unusually rich with grays in a pinkish cast. The piece was undoubtedly commissioned to document this group at this moment in time but the “who,” “what,” “where,” and “how” are, now, lost to us.
Now it transcends its anonymity into handsomeness.
We don’t have much experience looking at pictures of groups. We are used to getting most of our information in a glance, a moment. With these photographs our eyes skitter around the image.
It’s work.
People remark to me that I must love studying the different little faces. No. I don’t see that well. I like the music of the lines of faces.
A photograph that is great is great because it makes me want to dance with it.
Part of this essay was written for “Photograph Magazine”, July – August 2014 “The Back Page”
©2021
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