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Elliott Erwitt Interview: 'Photography is Pretty Simple, You Just React
- 1. Elliott Erwitt Interview The 92 year old photographer discusses a storied career of capturing big and small moments and why he’s happy to keep working for as long as possible Mon 9 Nov 2020 15.58 GMT 3 Elliott Erwitt: 'Photography is pretty simple. You just react to what you see' Nadja Sayej lliott Erwitt is a man of few words – but to get the 92-year-old photographer talking, Support us Books Music TV & radio Art & design Film Games Classical Stage News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Sign in
- 2. E George Condo: 'Change can’t just be an idea or a slogan it has to get real' Read more just ask him about the weather. It s been raining this morning and it s overcast, he says on a recent afternoon, over the phone from a house in the Hamptons. He lets silence fill the air, something of a trademark of his (by no surprise, a 2019 documentary about Erwitt was called Silence Sounds Good). Though his career has spanned the course of 70 years and has witnessed some of the most notable moments of modern history, he lets his photos do the talking. Erwitt snapped John F Kennedy at the White House, Fidel Castro in Cuba and Richard Nixon in Moscow. He shot stars such as Marilyn Monroe, was backstage with Marlene Dietrich and got most of these shots because he always had a camera, capturing a bygone era. Now, Erwitt has teamed up with the non-profit Project Hope and philanthropy firm Phil Ropy for a campaign that turns one of Erwitt’s photographs into a digital postcard to raise awareness about providing personal protective equipment to healthcare workers around the world. It’s an image that makes sense for today’s pandemic – a pair of plastic gloves hang from a clothesline. It was taken by Erwitt in Sicily in 1965. “Instead of underwear, they hung up plastic gloves,” he says. “I was just walking around in the city and that’s when you find such things.”
- 3. Photograph: Project Hope / Phil Ropy Erwitt was on a trip with his kids and found himself there for work. “It’s such an interesting place,” he recalls, “that’s what I did there, you just go around, say hello to the volcano, the usual things.” He has a playful approach to photography, bringing a sense of adventure and spontaneity but he’s clearly into the banal too, having shot everything from classrooms to open roads and train stations, proving his famous adage is true: “The best things happen when you just happen to be somewhere with a camera.” They have a sense of uncanny wit about them like his shot of a bather with the American flag covering his face in 1975, or his photo of a yorkie with its hair blowing in the wind with its
- 4. owner, from 1968. But ask about his great photographs that have documented political history – like his crushing photograph of Jackie Kennedy crying at JFK’s funeral – and he just falls silent or changes the subject. He’d rather talk about dogs or travel, two of his passions when it comes to photography. He remembers being in Paris in the 1950s. “I have a long career of taking photographs in most places, and certainly Paris was one of them,” says Erwitt. “I visited it regularly. What do I love about Paris is the language and the food, that’s about it. “I was born in Paris, but left early on,” he recalls (he was born to Russian parents but moved to America in 1939, when he was just a child). “I have a book about Paris, one about Rome, one on the Soviet Union, wait.” Silence. “What was I going to say? Oh, right. I’ve been at it for quite some time. I’ve been to most of the places that are of interest, touristic and journalistic.”