W.G. Rowland wrote:
Minor sidetrack...

Flood?! What happened?

Water heater pipe broke. Most of the water found it's way to the outside without a problem, just a very little minor damage. Sadly most of it affected Mr. Maplethorpe. It was a first edition, whatever that is worth.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
Water heater pipe broke. Most of the water found it's way to the outside without a problem, just a very little minor damage. Sadly most of it affected Mr. Maplethorpe. It was a first edition, whatever that is worth.

Sorry to hear about the flood Bob, but it could have been a lot worse.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
that I owned was recently ruined by a minor flood in the studio. In looking through it before I threw it out I noticed a note I had made on the inside cover expressing my opinion about the book. It was over 20 years ago that I made the note so it was interesting to see if anything about my opinion had changed. Basically I stated that without Sam Wagstaff, a very wealthy, gay art collector and possibly a paramour of Maplethorpe's, Maplethorpe wouldn't have amounted to a blip on the radar screen of history. To this day I believe his images of flowers are sophmoric. His portraits are contrived and his lighting was amatuerish.The one thing he did with great flair was to shock people with sexual and homosexual content. Some of that imagery is beautiful. So 20 years after the fact I have learned that the things he was most passionate about are reflected in the images he did the best.

I partly agree:

   >>>  Still life images:  well done technically, but nothing special.
   >>>  Homoerotic images:  shocking, especially at that time.

However, I did enjoy many of the portraits from his book "Some Women".  I thought he was skilled enough with the lighting & other technical aspects, and some of those women I felt really responded to him.

D. Brian Nelson wrote:
I agree.  Mapplethorpe's flowers look like they are out of obligation to show he could do them, and his portrait work with women, especially Lisa Lyon, while good, don't show any real soul.  It is clear that his gay sexual work is his best.

But I also think that had he only done his sex stuff, he'd have been boycotted by not only the conservative artsy folks, but by just about everybody.  I think he needed to do the rest of the range in order to be accepted and allowed to show what he really cared about.

I admire his courage.

-Don

A fellow MMer turned me on to Erwin Olaf. I greatly admire his work but I'm confused by his self portraits which in this day and time I still find shocking. Mostly due to how conservative corporate America is and how their ad agencies tow the corporate line. Do you admire his courage too? I guess you would have to check him out to know.

http://www.erwinolaf.com/

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
that I owned was recently ruined by a minor flood in the studio. In looking through it before I threw it out I noticed a note I had made on the inside cover expressing my opinion about the book. It was over 20 years ago that I made the note so it was interesting to see if anything about my opinion had changed. Basically I stated that without Sam Wagstaff, a very wealthy, gay art collector and possibly a paramour of Maplethorpe's, Maplethorpe wouldn't have amounted to a blip on the radar screen of history. To this day I believe his images of flowers are sophmoric. His portraits are contrived and his lighting was amatuerish.The one thing he did with great flair was to shock people with sexual and homosexual content. Some of that imagery is beautiful. So 20 years after the fact I have learned that the things he was most passionate about are reflected in the images he did the best.

interesting to hear another photog say this...i cant count the number of times people have commented how "amazing" maplethorps work was....to me his work was extremely unimpressive.......equal to any 2nd level photo student at the art academy, but certainly nothing more.....he used his marketing skills and intuition of what makes a controversial splash to become famous......which i guess you can say he was quite good at....but to me, still a very unimpressive photographer

global vision wrote:
he used his marketing skills and intuition of what makes a controversial splash to become famous......which i guess you can say he was quite good at....but to me, still a very unimpressive photographer

He used Sam Wagstaff's money. He had no marketing skills to speak of, but he did have passion for male on male sex and all the trappings that go with it such as penis shots.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
A fellow MMer turned me on to Erwin Olaf. Do you admire his courage too? I guess you would have to check him out to know.

http://www.erwinolaf.com/

I've seen his commercial work and that interesting group of mature glamour portraiture.  I haven't seen his self-portraits.  Heading to the airport right now, but I'll take a look once I'm back on the ground.

-Don

P.S.  I do find that Mapplethorpe's flowers are technically an incredible use of silver/gelatin.  They display that characteristic of "luminosity" everyone talks about but few can do well.  I don't know if he did the printing, but the printing is brilliant.