Elliott Erwitt: Being Spontaneously Curious
Analyzing Elliott Erwitt's career means observing how versatile the photographer was in capturing practically anything through the charm and lightness of a life observer. Erwitt was able to see the comedy and tragedy of the human condition and capture images from many corners of the world, showing the immense facets of life.
Erwitt is in love with our existence, its speed, and moments made of quiet, strangeness, and fun parts. "When you react to what you see, possibly without preconceptions, you can find images everywhere. It's simply about noticing things and organizing them."
Erwitt's family is of Russian origin, but the young man was born in Rome and grew up in Paris, Los Angeles, and New York. The family moved to the States in 1939, when the boy was 10 years old, just before the outbreak of World War II. After school and college, Elliott became a photography assistant and, in 1950, had the opportunity to meet established photographers such as
Robert Capa, a war photographer known for the quote: "If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
Edward Steichen, a future inspiration for another previously discussed photographer, introduced Elliott to a very important figure for the subsequent phases of the photographer's career, namely
Roy Stryker, who headed the office that launched the documentary project during the Great Depression and also hired Dorothea Lange.
Stryker invited Elliott to move from New York to Pittsburgh to participate in a group project. The documentarian was tasked with documenting the city's transition in the post-war period, from an industrial hub to a cultural and academic center. For this, Stryker called photographers from across the nation, including Erwitt, to create this collective portrait. Stryker was known for creating elaborate visual scripts to develop a specific narrative but, for unknown reasons, gave Erwitt full freedom of expression. Stryker usually selected the negatives useful for the narrative he was interested in and destroyed those discarded from the project, but this time he set them aside. Among the 18,000 discarded negatives, many of Erwitt's shots survived.
Elliott photographed Pittsburgh from September to December 1950, passing through the offices only to develop the negatives and return to the streets. He witnessed the city's transformations, blending into the crowds at parades or baseball games, and on Sundays, he stopped in front of the church to capture women dressed elegantly for mass.
The scenes he captured, intruding into that quiet world, are recognizable as the everyday life of the city's neighborhoods, in an era when reading the newspaper for an hour was how Pittsburgh citizens connected with the wider world. Expressions and objects seem to be exactly where they should be, in the context of the image's time and place. Among his favorite subjects were children: spontaneous, energetic, and naturally charismatic.
After the Pittsburgh project, his talent for capturing improvised and spontaneous shots earned him the admiration of photographers like Robert Capa, who in 1953 invited the young man to join his Magnum Photos agency, where Elliott remained until his death. Elliott's talent possessed Bressonian qualities: an ability to capture spontaneity that even Henri Cartier-Bresson thought couldn't be learned. The discovery of Bresson's photo at the Paris station acted as a revelation for the young photographer.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Therefore, Elliott's homage to this source of inspiration could not be missed.
With his entry into the Magnum collective, Erwitt took his first steps in photojournalism through collaborations with American magazines that aimed to make readers smile and dream in the face of the world's wonders. Besides magazines, he continued to collaborate on journalistic and commercial work, contributing to the production of documentaries and film productions, and also worked as a camera operator for the Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter." Additionally, he worked as a photographer for Martin Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan.
But Erwitt is especially remembered by the public for his ability to capture ordinary moments and people, showing that even in small things, there is a story to tell. Through the wonder in everyday normality, the photographer used the camera both as a mask for his shyness and as an expressive medium for his spirit, attentive to society's paradoxes that he expressed with sarcasm, irony, and the play of images.
During the Cold War years, Elliott documented crucial moments and figures such as Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, also photographing in Russia to capture the everyday life hidden from Western eyes.
Erwitt seemed to find himself in the right place at the right time when, while photographing an industrial event, he discovered that then-Vice President Nixon had arrived on a visit. Among the photos of the event, known as The Kitchen Debate, the photographer took one of the most famous shots. Nixon was eager to promote himself as a politician standing against Russia and the Soviets, which is why he particularly used this photograph during his presidential campaign. The photo, provided to Nixon's public relations members without Erwitt's permission or authorization, was used in an election campaign that Nixon ultimately lost.
"I don't think anyone can wake up in the morning with the goal of creating an iconic photo. It doesn't work that way. Maybe you're lucky enough to take a good enough photo to be used and seen by many people. I guess a photo has to be seen by many people to become iconic."
Erwitt collected portraits of many celebrities over the years. His attitude of curiosity and observation of the world, along with the opportunity to travel while working for Magnum, allowed him to photograph everything and everyone, from famous figures like Fidel Castro and Marilyn Monroe to places that simply made him happy, like beaches. He also participated in John F. Kennedy's funeral, where he captured the mourning figure of his wife, Jacqueline.
Dogs, children, and romance are recurring themes throughout his work. "Dogs are everywhere in the world; they don't mind being photographed and don't ask for copies of the photos. I think these are good reasons (to photograph them), and I also think they are really similar to human subjects."
When a Japanese magazine commissioned him for a series of couple photographs, Erwitt realized that the theme had accompanied him throughout his career: "It's a subject of great interest to me, having been half of a couple myself, sometimes happily, sometimes not. To my great surprise, I found hundreds of photos of scenes between men and women, and hundreds more seemed to speak precisely about this." The collection culminated in the monograph "Between the Sexes."
Erwitt always proclaimed himself a professional observer, a photographer by profession who also allowed himself to shoot like an amateur. Sometimes his subjects were completely unaware while being captured in details that attracted the photographer more, such as a raised eyebrow or the tilt of the head. The slightest movements already implied many things. Elliott was not only focused on young lovers but was also fascinated by the elderly and anything that evoked a sense of love, from dogs to objects.
For Erwitt, there is no great mystery behind photography. Skill comes from curiosity, preparation, practice, and a bit of luck. "After following the crowd for a while, I usually turn 180 degrees and go in the opposite direction. It has always worked for me, but as I said, I am very lucky." It is the same curiosity that led the photographer to rediscover, 25 years after photographing it, one of the most romantic shots that became an example of his unmistakable style.
One wonders if Erwitt's shots are entirely natural or partially staged. How much luck does it take to find yourself in Andy Warhol's limousine at the right moment, just before an attempted assassination of the artist? This interplay between a threatening nightmare and a dreamlike scene has a surreal quality, a gaze that shows scenes behind subjects frozen a moment before realizing what is happening. In reality, that moment lasts only an instant and is a passage of facts and things; in photography, it is frozen forever.
"I don't think you can create luck. You're either lucky or you're not. I don't know if mine is really luck or just curiosity. I think the main ingredient (or one of the main ingredients) of photography is curiosity. If you're curious enough and get up in the morning and go out to take photographs, you're more likely to have more luck than just staying home."
In the last phase of his life, Erwitt reviewed his shots in search of other rediscoveries. For Elliott Erwitt, photography was both a career and a hobby, accompanying him throughout his life. "My interest began when I was 15, with the purchase of a box camera that was a kind of toy, and it then turned into a profession because I lived alone from the age of 16 and earned a living this way, one camera after another." "My photos from 50 years ago look quite similar to those of today, except for the cars in the background, but my professional photos have changed enormously along with market conditions. That's what being a professional photographer means to me: following trends, technological requirements, and making a living that way. But my personal work hasn't changed at all. I don't know if that's a good thing, but it's a fact."
