Vogue Masters & Focus Series
Over the last week I’ve really enjoyed watching the Vogue Masters series on YouTube. They’ve only been online for a few months and it was a generous surprise to discover these photographers weren’t shooting fashion. Their names were mostly new to me apart from Bruce Weber, Steve McCurry and famous LIFE editor John G. Morris.
- Vogue Masters: Bruce Weber – 14 mins
- Vogue Masters: Antonin Kratochvil – 20 mins
- Vogue Masters: Davide Monteleone – 18 mins
- Vogue Masters: Donna Ferrato – 21 mins
- Vogue Masters: Antoine D’Agata – 19 mins
- Vogue Masters: Franco Pagetti – 36 mins
- Vogue Masters: Christopher Anderson – 14 mins
- Vogue Masters: Erwin Olaf – 23 mins
- Vogue Masters: Steve McCurry – 13 mins
- Vogue Masters: Alex Webb – 19 mins
- Vogue Masters: Jérôme Sessini – 16 mins
- Vogue Masters: John G. Morris – 18 mins
- Vogue Masters: Stanley Greene – 25 mins
- Vogue Masters: Alessandro Imbriaco – 14 mins
- Vogue Masters: David Alan Harvey – 9 mins
- Vogue Masters: Giovanni Soldini – 1 min
- Focus On: Per-Anders Pettersson – 14 mins
- Focus On: Veronica Etro – 12 mins
- Focus On: Stephanie Sinclair – 11 mins
- Focus On: Erik Kessels – 19 mins
- Focus On: Cristina de Middel – 21 mins
- Focus On: James Estrin – 8 mins
- Focus On: Tony Ray-Jones – 3 mins
The really impressive part of this series is the focus on the photographer frankly sitting in front of a camera and talking straight from the heart about what they do – whether it’s photojournalism, documentary, art photography, digital or film photography. There’s less of the self-promotion and more of the grit and grime of the discipline of making great pictures.
Donna Ferrato, for example, discusses her philosophy around monogomy and sexual identity and her body of work on domestic violence. She shares an intimate little story about a lover who left a photography gift discovered after his death. The story begins:
I will never be faithful to any man, period, ever. So any man who is with me has to accept that and even love it. Phillip loved it sooo much… Phillip was an incredible man…Donna Ferrato
Each photographer digs deep into their bag of being for something to give to the viewer. Insight. Process. The inescapable advice from old photographers to young photographers.
There isn’t a lot that I can say here except to recommend each and every one of these for viewing. Note that three or four aren’t in English and don’t have subtitles… but if you’re bilingual the value only increases. A big thanks to Vogue. Great stuff.