Australian ProPhoto – Issue 230, 2021
English | 60 pages | pdf | 52.33 MB
One of my Covid-era stay-at-home activities has been editing the forthcoming magnum opus, A Few Of The Legends, by photographer Peter Adams. It’s a 600+ page book that’s been 36-odd years in the making and includes many of the most famous names in 20th-century photography that Peter has managed to interview and photograph. It’s been a mammoth project that, in addition to all that time, has cost close to
$500,000 to produce, involved around 250,000 kilometres of travel (much of it overseas) and generated 42,000 film negatives (plus countless digital files) Publication – delayed by the pandemic – is scheduled for August 2021.
The editing process proved to be hugely educational … I thought I knew a lot about photography and photographers, but Peter’s face-to-face interviews often reveal little details (or even big ones) that you just don’t get in any of the maJor surveys of photography, even the more thorough ones. Around 300 photographers are featured in A Few Of The Legends, and
the ‘big names’ alone include Edward Boubat, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Cornell Capa, David Bailey, Bruce Davidson, Robert Doisneau, Terence Donovan, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Elliott Erwitt, Sam Haskins, Yousuf Karsh, William Klein, Annie Liebovitz, Patrick Litchfield, Jay Maisel, Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, Don Mccullin, Steve Mccurry, Sarah Moon, David Moore, Arnold Newman, Helmut Newton, Gordon Parkes, Martin Parr, Willy Ronis, Sabastiao Salgado and Pete Turner. That’s just for starters, but you can start to see why this project has ended up taking half a lifetime.
Particularly interesting are the key quotes from the interviews that reveal wildly differing views regarding the essence of photography and what being a photographer is all about
French photographer Bernard Descamps – “Photography: it’s as simple as getting a camera and going for a walk. Then start looking. It’s something very instant It’s done very quickly. There’s no need to prepare things.”
Australian photographer Ian Dodd –
“I like to explore the magic and the real, the human, erotic and eccentric. Photography is still the most powerful medium for creating an illusion of reality”.
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