Gypsy Review

Elliott Erwitt

Elliott Erwitt is one of the most exceptional and prolific photographers in the field today. Born in 1928, he’s been photographing steadily (and indulging in his hobby on the side) for over half a century. Erwitt’s Leica has captured iconic figures from Che Guevara to Marilyn Monroe, as well as countless slices of daily life, hundreds (perhaps thousands) of dogs, and the ever-evolving social landscape of America, Europe and points beyond. A selection of images culled from his latest book, entitled Personal Best, is on view at the Portland Art Museum through April 29th. Mr. Erwitt recently spent a few days in Portland in order to deliver a lecture at PAM, and kindly shared a little of his time for the following interview.

Jessica Bromer: What were your early experiences with photography like… how did they lead you to devote your life to this type of work?

Elliott Erwitt: It simply started out as being a way of earning a living, nothing else.

JB: As a kid, when did you first pick up a camera?

EE: When I was 16. I was on my own already. I’ve been using it ever since to make a living.

JB: Do you still think of it in those terms or do you see yourself as an artist?

EE: I certainly do not see myself as an artist. That’s not my job. It’s somebody else’s job.

JB: You see yourself as….

EE: I’m a photographer. I’m a professional photographer who works with people, and has a hobby. Which is photography.

copyright Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos.
Russia. Moscow. Nikita Krushchev and Richard Nixon. 1959

JB: You rose to prominence after taking a picture of (then Vice-President) Richard Nixon and (Soviet Premier) Nikita Khrushchev during the famous “kitchen debate” where they were arguing capitalism vs. communism in a model American kitchen (during the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow). What memories have stayed with you about that day?

EE: My impression was of two very silly people grandstanding, nothing more. It was certainly not a very serious event. It was in public, and it was, if anything, kind of silly.

copyright Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos
USA. New York City. 2000

JB: You take a lot of pictures of dogs. What is it about them that you’re so drawn to?

EE: I like dogs. I’m not particularly drawn to them, as I am to other things. They’re everywhere, so we see them. They’re sympathetic. They’re nice. They don’t ask for prints.

JB: Which photographers do you admire most?

EE: The photographers I admire are the ones who are part of my agency, Magnum. The founders, of course. Documentary photographers. The people who deal with the real world as opposed to the conceptual one. In fact I rather dislike….abhor….some conceptual photography. I think it’s an unpleasant fact of life.

JB: Could you expand on that?

EE: Well, I think if people want to be conceptual, they ought to be painters or sculptors or…whatever, but the thing about photography that’s sort of exceptional and wonderful and unique, is that it’s about what you see, not about what you construct.

JB: In choosing the group of photographs for Personal Best, was it important to you to create a balance between humorous images and more serious work……. serious in the sense of tone?

EE: I’m perfectly serious about everything, whether it’s humorous or not.

copyright Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos
Spain. Madrid. 1995 Prado Museum

JB: The 1950’s….and 60’s…and, well, onto today…were a tense time for race relations in America. By making black Americans the subjects of some of your pictures, you and some of the other documentary photographers working during segregation gave them a central presence they were largely denied elsewhere. Do you think that documentary photographers working at the time impacted the way that viewers looked at race relations, leading to greater empathy toward the oppressed? Were you making a conscious political choice to show certain things?

EE: My intention was simply to see what I saw. And to take pictures of that. I have no preconceptions. The picture of the drinking fountain has become a kind of iconic picture, so I’m very pleased about that. And if that helps to show great injustice in this country fifty years ago that in some ways endures now–not in the same manner–but if it does point out something to many people, then I’m really satisfied, but I don’t think I set out to do that. If my pictures have done that I’m pleased, but that was not the intention. My intention at that time was to be just a reporter. Or just a visual chronicler of what I see.

copyright Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos
USA. North Carolina. 1950.

JB: Has your photographic method or philosophy evolved significantly in the last fifty years?

EE: I do exactly the same same thing now that I did fifty years ago. Nothing’s changed. Maybe I’ve gotten a little lazier, but that’s about it.

copyright Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos
USA. New York City. Grace Kelley. 1956

JB: Do you think documentary photography today is less of an important cultural force than it was fifty years ago?

EE: I think documentary photography is the same now as ever. The only thing that is perhaps lacking is places to show it. Magazines are not terribly interesting as a vehicle for picture stories. Newspapers are, but they don’t show more than one or two pictures. There’s less distribution of documentary photography, but I think its being done just as much as ever, in fact maybe more. There seems to be more photographers around than ever.

JB: Are you interested in using digital photography–do you see it as a positive development?

EE: Digital photography is the same as the other kind of photography, its just that the film is different. It’s more efficient. It’s particularly useful in commercial work, because you’re in and out of it quickly. The only thing that is not good about it, is when people manipulate, which is much easier to do with digital files. So as long as people respect photography as a way of seeing what is real, that’s fine, but when they start mucking around with it digitally, then you might say that digital photography has made that a little easier, but in the hands of responsible photographers it’s no different.

JB: Do you feel that’s diminished the authority of photography in popular perception, knowing how easy it is to manipulate things?

EE: Well the problem is the public very often doesn’t know that something’s been manipulated, because that’s the point of manipulating things–to make it seem real even when you know that it isn’t. I think there should be a rule, a law, that any manipulated photograph should be identified as such.

JB: You’re still working today…

EE: Well, not today. But yesterday I was.

JB: Did you take pictures in Portland?

EE: Yeah, I took a couple snaps. I’m going to Korea now on a job, so I’ll be working there, and then on to Japan. I’ll be working there as well.

JB: Well, I’m all out of questions… is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

EE: Nope.

JB: Well, thank you very much for meeting with me.

EE: I think I’ve talked too much already.

JB: [laughs]

We finished up our May Movie Spectacular Triple Crown tonight by seeing the 8 PM showing of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The theater was about 80% full for the first showing, but I heard from someone in the lobby afterwards that the 8:05 PM showing was only about 1/3 full. (Our local theater had five (!) showings starting between 8 and 8:30, and another five starting between 11:30 PM and midnight.)

If you’re thinking of seeing PotC3, one thing is sure — don’t even think about going unless you saw the 2nd one. The story picks right up where that one left off, and they don’t even try filling in the backstory for those who didn’t see “Dead Man’s Chest”. I don’t want to give away too much, but parts of the movie I enjoyed were the “ultimate trim party” and really good CGI. I also laughed at the monkey a few times. Keith Richards wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but he was still a highlight.

I can’t really say it was a disappointment, because I honestly didn’t expect too much out of it. The Y-chromosome-lacking members of my household are really big Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom fans (one for each) so they seemed to like it. I normally like longer movies that use the time to develop the characters (or blow extra stuff up) but the three Pirates movies have always made me think, “This thing is still going on? Why?”

I don’t mind suspending disbelief, but only if it serves a purpose. The script of this movie had 17th or 18th century people using sail travelling between the Caribbean and Singapore in essentially no time flat. I could see them doing it if there was a purpose, but in this case it only seemed to be so they could have Chow Yun-Fat as a pirate, and since he’s Asian, they had to have him live in Asia. If you’re featuring Davy Jones’ Locker as an actual place, why not say Asian pirates set up a base in the Caribbean? It was distracting to all the people in the audience who have actually sailed across the Pacific a few times.

When we were driving home, my youngest son said, “Well, the three “3″ movies in May were sure a disappointment. If The Simpsons Movie and Transformers end up sucking, I’m going to give up on summer ‘blockbusters’ forever.” (We both ended up agreeing that Spiderman 3 was the best of a mediocre lot, and Shrek 3 was the worst.) I’ve been through enough bad “summer smash movies” (read “Godzilla”) to know what he was talking about, but this movie still had enough going for it for me to keep my faith. Overall, I give it three unnecessarily complicated plot “twists” out of five.

This evening I heard an interview with Michael Franzese. It is the second or third interview that I have heard him do and each time he has held my attention.

Franzese is a former member of the Mafia who speaks about organized crime and its practices/influences in various areas of society. If you click on this link and then click play on the the top button you can watch a video biography of him.

In light of recent events regarding gambling and sports Franzese has been making the rounds again. Here is a link to one of the interviews that you might find interesting. I know that I did.

And just to round it out here is a link to a bunch of YouTube videos with Franzese too.

Bubbles. A giant, inflatable saltwater manatee. Meeting one of my heroes in person. Yeah, you could say it was an intriguing evening on the streets of Naha.The election is tomorrow, and both of the frontrunners held big rallies in downtown Naha tonight. You can read my primer on the race here, replete with links to all the news articles I could find. Short version: it looks close, with candidate Keiko Itokazu making opposition to U.S. bases her primary issue and Hirokazu Nakaima focusing on economics. I grabbed the camera and notebook to capture a bit of each candidate's last-minute push.In my experience, political rallies reflect the constituencies of the candidate. So it was unsurprising that the establishment candidate, Nakaima, had a well-organized event where his small army of supporters marched in unison, chanting scripted slogans, and even crossed the street in an orderly fashion.Itokazu's rally was more my speed. Not just because of the issues, either. Itokazu's stump speeches included quite a bit about the environment, specifically addressing Henoko and the dugong (which I'm researching) several times:

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I'll say this: anyone who can make male supporters wear pink headbands has my respect. Don't worry, man; I think it has dignity. Here's another shot of Itokazu speaking from her campaign bus, before the event's main attraction kicked into gear. (In the fiction business, we call that “foreshadowing.”)

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Speaking of different cultural perceptions and color schemes, Nakaima's color is yellow:

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Besides that, his followers hand out stickers with hearts on them and he has a slogan, “SMILE,” which is an acronym:

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Imagine those three things flying in the states? Combine them, and you'd have a recipe for an attack ad: Nakaima loves the terrorists so much, he wants to smile at them and hand them hearts: no wonder his campaign chose the color of cowardice!

Perhaps to make up for this, Nakaima seems to have a support base that is at least 70 percent men. Yes, I saw women at his rally, but let's just say that the Y chromosome was well-represented.

Because Nakaima's flyers feature a picture of him with his 20-something daughter, I joke with friends in my neighborhood that his campaign slogan should have been “Vote for me! My daughter's cute.” Honestly, I'm wondering whether his focus group told him he needed to get more backing from women. The Nakaima ad reminds me of that Jay Inslee ad in Washington state where the message was, essentially, “I was the high school quarterback. Here is my son. Now, he is the high school quarterback. Vote Team Quarterback!”

As fervent as Nakaima's supporters were, his rally wasn't nearly as interesting. As a rule, any political event that includes a concert where the candidate sings and dances a bit while a bubble machine covers the sky with soap-powered spheroids is my kind of scene. Add in a giant, inflatable saltwater manatee (the dugong, of course) floating overhead and you've got yourself a party.

After she addressed the throng, Itokazu moved to the stage, and I was lucky enough to be in a good position to snap a shot. Here's Itokazu racing from her perch to the stage

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Just as the event was underway, I ran into my project advisor. Neither of us knew the other was going to be there, so it was a happy coincidence.

Helpful, too. My advisor introduced me to droves of people who will be valuable book sources, and I took their meishi (business cards) and frantically scribbled down names and numbers. Finally, he said there was one more person he wanted me to meet.

I was shaking her hand before I got the introduction. My face lit up and I went into fanboy mode when my advisor told me I was shaking hands with Suzuyo Takazato.

Besides being a leading force opposing violence against women, Takazato has been instrumental in drawing connections between problems in women's lives here and environmental degradation. She's a critical voice here trying to prevent the next generation of girls from being raped, to help mothers have a safe environment for their kids.

It that's not worthy of the label “heroism,” I don't know what is, and neither do the Nobel folks. I have a list of people I wanted to meet while here. Her name was at the top. We make arrangements for an interview next week.

There you have it: some people go ga-ga for musicians, others for designer clothes. I become awestruck by leaders of obscure but meaningful activist groups.

An Itokazu supporter looks on as the bubbles start to fly:

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Itokazu claps along as musicians begin to play:

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Get ready for a few shots of the big dugong balloon, which wandered overhead like a mammalian zeppelin:

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Shades of “Animals”-era Pink Floyd, eh?  The thing was probably 20 yards long by 10 yards wide, which made me think just one thing. Wait for it …

… oh, the huge manatee!

C'mon, you knew that was coming. If I am ever in charge of a political campaign, I can guarantee you two things: giant balloon featuring the dugong, and bubble machines:

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Another feature of the Itokazu rally that Nakaima's rally couldn't boast was diversity. While the yellow sea had just as many people, most were of the same vintage (people of a certain age) and dressed quite conservatively. Itokazu's rally had a bit of everything, from people in
traditional dress …

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… to modern folk singer garb, sported by local activist Mayonaka Shinya Oshiro:

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None of this leaves me any more sure who is going to win tomorrow. I can tell you this: someone is going to be happy, someone is going to be sad, and someone is going to have to drag that dugong balloon up to Henoko very soon.

If you’re like me, you probably hunger for news stories that aren’t about members of Congress and their forbidden lust for underaged boy-meat. Maybe you want to read about something a little scandalous and a little outrageous, but you’re not looking for something that’s going to put you off your food. Just some garden variety naughtiness, you think, that’ll be just the ticket to clean the palate after a week of hearing nothing but repulsive details about repulsive Republicans and all their repulsive peccadillos.

Well, I’m sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, but an even more appalling and crass incident has just erupted onto the national consciousness like some sort of oily, greasy zit on the face of that one Dungeons and Dragons nerd who used to sort of hang around you back in high school and sort of kind of passively make it known that he sort of kind of wanted to go out with you, but he was just too shy actually ever to ask a beautiful, intelligent, cultured woman like you out so he just brought you gifts he made out of popsicle sticks and told you jokes you’d need to be a “Battlestar Galactica

We had posted a while back and again here and here about the story of Dr Aubrey Blumsohn’s dispute with Procter and Gamble (P&G) and the University of Sheffield in the UK. In summary, Blumsohn and Professor Richard Eastell had done clinical research on the risedronate (Actonel), sponsored by P&G, the drug’s manufacturer. P&G refused Blumsohn access to the original data from the study he was ostensibly running, and hired a ghost-writer to write abstracts in his name. Blumsohn protested to Eastell, who advised him not to make waves because P&G “is a good source of income” for the university. When protests to other university officials produced no results, Blumsohn told the story to the press, whereupon the university suspended him.

This story, like those of other cases of research suppression and health care whistle-blowers, has not received a lot of press coverage, given their broad implications about the creation, as Wally Smith would call it, of pseudoevidence. To counter this version of the anechoic effect, Dr Blumsohn has his own blog, the Scientific Misconduct Blog, where he has posted updates on his ongoing efforts to get the word out about his dispute with Procter and Gamble and the University of Sheffield.

He just posted a fascinating new story. It seems that Dr Blumsohn submitted an abstract to The International Bone and Mineral Society (IBMS) Meeting (to be held in Montreal) which featured a re-analysis of some of the data of his original study of risedronate. This work failed to show a “plateau effect” in measures of bone resorbtion and fracture. The presence of such an effect was a point of contention between Dr Blumsohn and Procter and Gamble, and the failure to find such an effect did not help arguments the company was making in favor of risedronate.

At the bottom of the abstract, Dr Blumsohn noted that the study was funded by Procter and Gamble, as indeed was the original study from which this data which was re-analyzed had been derived. Blumsohn later received a message that one Dr Christopher Purple, of Medical & Technical Affairs, Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals had sent to the IBMS. Dr Purple, who has no known relationship to Blumsohn’s study of risedronate, requested that the statement that disclosed support from Procter and Gamble be removed from the abstract. When the IBMS meeting staff learned they had been misled, they restored the funding disclosure statement.

This appears to be a new variant on ghost authorship, in which a ghost author managed temporarily to alter a manuscript without the knowledge of the manuscript’s true authors. I have not previously heard of a case in which a disclosure statement was altered with the effect of erasing the support of a commercial sponsor for a project that did not turn out to provide data that fit that sponsor’s vested interests.

Add this to the catalog of how pseudo-evidence is created. Add this also as a reminder that those who truly want to practice evidence-based health care need to heed this old Scottish poem:
From ghoulies and ghosties,
And long-leggedy beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

See also this post on the Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry blog.

In what is now an annual event in the Samwick household, the four of us make a trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to participate in the Great Strides walk for Cystic Fibrosis. CF is a devastating genetic disease that affects tens of thousands of children and young adults in the United States. Research and care supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation are making a huge difference in extending the quality of life for those with CF. Those of you who conduct or follow the health outcomes literature, or who are curious about how to improve medical treatment in this country, will find this article in The New Yorker from 2004 to be of interest as well.

We walk for the Woodhouse family, dear friends whose daughter Allison has battled this disease every day since birth (and even before). We’ve learned a lot about courage from her story. If you would like to support us in our efforts to raise money to help children and families like them, then please make a pledge here.

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After 5 and a half hours in the Louvre, I need to sit and have something cool to drink. The French have the right idea about to serve lemonade (citron presse). If you order one in a restaurant or cafe, they will bring you a glass of lemon juice, a carafe of water, and sugar allowing you to mix your own. No water stirred in with powder pretending to be juice, this is the real thing. What I particularly like is that this situation allows you to make the lemonade as sweet or tart as one likes. This is the only way that lemonade should ever be served. As I sat there drinking my citron presse I thought about other things the French have right.

Leisurely Dining- In NY, I often have dinner and bring food home only to eat it about two hours later. In Paris they have no concept for “doggie bags”, but this is unnecessary as you can sit as long as you want until you are done dining. The dinner parties there are quite an experience-they start at around 6 and go until 3 in the morning. There are often take long breaks in between courses to play music and talk. This is, I’m fairly sure, what Roman dinner parties were like. In NYC, people want to eat quickly and get up, even if they enjoy the person with whom they are dining. I often feel here people just want to “get it over with” when they have dinner or lunch. I don’t like to eat quickly, and I certainly like the long breaks between courses in order to really enjoy the meal, the company, and the overall experience.

Polite Exchanges-The French are all about please and thank you for everything. There is no such thing as a completely impersonal transaction. You walk into a pharmacy, and as you put products up it’s thank you very much and good bye. It’s very civilized and something that I think for the most part has vanished from American society with the exception of some pockets of politeness like Minnesota ( hence Minnesota nice).

Charging More to Sit Outside-Depending on where you sit, you pay different prices for food. The cheapest is to sit at the counter, next at a table, and then the most expensive as outside. I’m not sure why this hasn’t caught on in places like NYC where restaurants could make a killing on really nice beautiful days. I walk by restaruants with packed patios and think “There’s a freakin’ fortune to be made here.” I think it’s win win. If Pris is any indication, people are certainly willing to pay more to sit outside, and if not well I wouldn’t have to wait as long for a table and the restaurants would still make more money.

I know, you’re aren’t with me on this one, but seriously. I think we need to adopt this practice.

a bowl of coffee for breakfast-As I learned on my first trip to Paris, that whole brimming bowl of tasty highly caffeinated coffee from a bowl with milk isn’t just something they do in foreign films (I thought, much like the “breakfast spread” on Friends-no one in Paris actually had bowls of coffee in the same way no one in NY bothers to pour OJ and milk into pitchers before setting them on the table for breakfast.) It was in Paris I started drinking coffee because it is awesome. A lovely full taste. And just the jolt needed in order to walk up Monmartre to wander around Sacre Cour. First thing in the morning a bowl of good french coffee with milk and sugar-nothing like it.

Croissants-Much like bagels and NYC, you can only get really awesome criossants in France. Sorry, but it’s true.

Fresh bread, veggies, and fruits-The French really value fresh food and so the little markets have strawberries so fresh you can smell them yards away. And these little markets are all over the city open every day so you can easily enjoy fruits and vegetables. You can buy baguettes baked so recently that not only are they fresh, but they are still warm. And those baguettes are toted home, slathered with butter, and served with dinner to help you literally clean your plate when you are done eating. And clean it you will, as the French make great sauces-bearnaise, au poivre, au vin. Shame to let it go to waste when it tastes lovely with a fresh piece of bread. My personal favorite pairing is a bearnaise with a whole wheat sourdough. Those two tastes complement each other surprisingly well.

And then it was time to walk down Rue de L’Opera to buy my mother perfume and see if the best chocolate store in all of France was still where I remembered it.