It’s been two weeks since I saw the Garry Winogrand retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum. Random flashes of his luminous silver gelatin prints –delightful, intense, curious, intimate, madcap and improbable work visit me daily. He was a sheer force of nature for whom a Leica lens was an essential body part. This solid selection of 175 images, several printed posthumously, are a mere glimpse given that he developed 26,000 rolls of film over 34 years and died having not seen another 250,000 of his negatives. Winogrand’s compulsive drive to be there, shooting, is palpable.
“If you didn’t take the picture, you weren’t there.” – Garry Winogrand
A voracious observer he relished capturing the life force of his hometown. He shot ferociously and framed off-kilter. The ordinary,anonymous and famous were treated as equals, exposed in his signature unfiltered style. Less interested in answers, or reflection, he urgently froze moments of the human landscape. Equal parts intrepid urban game hunter, curious behavioral scientist and zealous preacher, Winogrand’s images shout like headlines, entertain like punchlines or sing like a hymn. Take in this wonderland followed by the Coney Island Cyclone – you’ll want to ride both these roller coasters more than once.
