“My 2010 book explored the psychological traits of leading street photographers, finding many introverted patterns. At the pointy end, there are genuine lone wolf photographers, such as Garry Stochl, Angelo Rizzuto and Vivian Maier, who only came to art-sphere prominence late in their lives, or posthumously.
More celebrated practitioners, while less reclusive, did still exhibit touchstone elements. The famous Henri Cartier Bresson was a terribly private man, unleashed in the most public of domains. By all reports, he was a highly principled individual yet arrogant to a ‘T’, prickly to a ‘Y’ and pedantic to all and sundry. Elliott Erwitt is said to have grown up ‘a quiet, introspective boy, and it was some time before he spoke.’
Bruce Davidson, the famous Magnum photographer, once said, ‘I think that I was a born loner. My mother was a single parent, working in a torpedo factory in the Midwest, and I didn’t like school. I felt very isolated.’
Patricia Bosworth, in her 1984 biography of Diane Arbus, claimed that Robert Frank was deeply depressed when he took the photographs which formed his iconic book, The Americans. The dark poet of street photography endured a life touched by much tragedy. On a personal level, he was variously described as being morose, cagy, terse, polite, surly, gracious, unresponsive, eccentric, removed and extremely quiet.
Garry Winogrand once claimed that life was banal and that an artist deals with banality. The great American street photographer was famously always in a rush. He had a manic need to see around the next corner. . . . There was an inherent urgency in all actualities of the man, aligning the association of a haunted, nervous individual bustling to stay ahead of his own relentless gloom.
Helen Levitt is known for her wonderful images of children photographed playing in the streets of Harlem and the Lower East Side. She is said to have been an extreme introvert. Leading a quiet existence, Levit never married and lived alone with a tabby cat named Blinky.
Clare O’Neill, writing for NPR back in 2011, described New York street photographer Leon Levinstein as having lived loneliness to the extreme. ‘He never married, had few friends, and alienated those who wanted to advance his career. Yet that same independent spirit informed the way he saw the world. He could skulk through crowds, blend in, observe things that others would miss. The very traits that alienated him from the world also allowed him to see it in a unique way.'”
You can read the full article in Street Photography Magazine.
Photograph © Andrew Stark
