As a follow-on from my 'Read this' post, here's a photograph I took of André Kertész with a cake that was made for his 90th birthday. It was July 1984 and he was at the Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford for the opening of a wonderful exhibition of his work. (It was there that I first came across the word 'festschrift' - a collection of works published in honour of an artist - because I bought a copy and still have it, signed by the great man himself .. )
I believe Salford artist Harold Riley had a lot to do with bringing this exhibition to life. I lived down the road from him and photographed him often. "I'm a painter," he modestly told a lady at an event one time. "Oh yes?" she replied. "Can you give me a quote to emulsion our front room!" ..
Modest men, lovely men. I hope they're chattering together excitedly in heaven ..
Ps: This is from an original print, on RC paper, with my hand-written caption up the side!
I remember Kertez from the master photographer’s series on BBC 2 in the early 80s before l went to college. He came across as a nice, modest man. Now a lot of photographers come across as arrogant twits who think they understand everything because they’ve read a book and spent a few weeks taking photos. Ps that book will be worth a few quid now.
ReplyDeleteI imagine a lot of 'photographers' don't even read a book these days.
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