copyrighted by the estate of Garry Winogrand
This episode was entitled “Paper Movies”. The American photographer Garry Winogrand said that he took photographs to “see what the world looked like photographed”.
Photographers have always had this as their mission statement, but the three decades from the late 1950’s onwards was the real golden age of the photographic journey. The Genius of Photography – Paper Movies relives the journeys that produced some of the most acclaimed paper movies. The programme looked at the golden age of street photography from the 1950s and beyond, the age of the photographic roadtrip.

Summer, The Lower East Side, 1937 by Weegee
In this episode it shows the seminal work of Robert Frank in The Americans, William Klein’s one-man assault on the sidewalks of New York, the unblinking reportage of Weegee (Arthur Fellig) the Famous, Joel Meyerowitz stalking Fifth Avenue with his Leica, the enduring wit of Garry Winogrands’ charting of the human comedy in Central Park Zoo , British photographer Tony Ray Jones’ everyday people on the beach in which he dissects the eccentricity at the English seaside. Edward Ruscha’s gas stations and finally, William Eggleston’s guide to Memphis and the American South.

Only in England: Photograph by Tony Ray-Jones
by Edward Ruscha

William Eggleston in Memphis.
It also examines the arrival of colour as a credible medium for serious photographers, as controversial at the time as Bob Dylan going electric.
This is on genre of photography that I would love to look at further as I love the candid shots I see on social networking photo sites such a Flickr, I just do not ‘yet’ have the confidence to take that many shots. I think this is one genre I need to persevere with and get the confidence to try again