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André Kertesz has been one of my influences for decades. For most of these decades, he was an influence on my poetry—I wrote lyrical poetry of everyday life that caught unexpected details. (In the art world, Hopper and de Chirico were my influences.) Now in my new “existence” as a photographer or photographer wannabe (or as someone who wants to be able to take a good photograph), Kertesz is ever more an influence for me. Here are some reasons why:
*he used a small camera and so made photographs with a snapshot quality
*many of his photographs were socially critical and also sad at the same time; occasionally they were slyly comic
*he sought the “instant when the world was infused with personal meaning”
*he felt the things he saw
*some of his work is sinister and dreamlike
*some of his work borders on the surreal
*his landscapes, cityscapes, portraits are also about dark and light patterns, perspectives, distortions, delicacy.I hope to incorporate, too, some of the strengths and insights of Joyce Tenneson, Hans Silvester, and Diane Arbus in my own photographic pursuit: Joyce Tenneson for her portraits and her desire to have her subjects “reveal and celebrate” their hidden selves, their hidden inner lives; Hans Silvester for his cat photographs, how he shows the dignity and grace of cats in their competition for shelter and food; Diane Arbus for her portraits of eccentrics—her photographs’ sharp images and brilliant details.
As I move from poetry to photography, I like to think of Walker Evans who moved from an early pursuit in writing to a pursuit of photography as he felt that photography peeled away a final layer (no matter how well a piece of writing or a poem was honed) to show truth/beauty/form. I like, too, that Evans also took his first photographs in the New York subway with a small camera hidden in his coat.
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