BBC4 9pm TV Tonight. Brian Duffy "The Man Who Shot the 60s"

S

Slipper-one

Suspended / Banned
Messages
805
Name
Russell
Edit My Images
No
As per title plus repeats http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pwsns Other links here to.

"Brian Duffy was one of the greatest photographers of his generation. Along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan he defined the image of the 1960s and was as famous as the stars he photographed. Then suddenly in the 1970s he disappeared from view and burned all his negatives. With the first ever exhibition of his work due, Duffy has agreed to be filmed to talk about his life, his work and why he made it all go up in flames."

Just in case the footie clashes, also on at:


1. Wed 13 Jan 2010 21:00

2. Thu 14 Jan 2010 00:45

3. Thu 14 Jan 2010 03:15

4. Thu 14 Jan 2010 23:00

5. Wed 20 Jan 2010 00:00
 
Thanks for the info.:thumbs:
 
look forward to it...... Thanks for the info.
now do I record it and watch the Liverpool match!!
Dave
 
Yay! I've been waiting for this for months! Thank god I didn't miss it!?

There was an article on the bbc website months ago and it said there was a documentary on in November '09. There never was, so I'm guessing this is it!

Here it be!

Again thanks for the heads up! (=
 
Really enjoyed it. Lots made me look at life. The guy was hitting the big time as I was born. He gave up in the year I started my pro photography, aged roughly the same age as I am now.

Not considering giving up myself although I did recognise his statement that he did not like many of his clients and they made him feel like a prostitute who did not like the men who were ******* him.

Oh well back to the shutter :):)
 
Her indoors has just remarked that she could imagine me burning my life's work if a member of staff asked me if we had any toilet paper - whats she going on about, I am so mild mannered :D:D:D
 
Very good program with some interesting comments.

Wonder how many people on here consider taking photos as "Art" and he dismisses the whole "Art" label and says it's like being a "Plumber" - Class!!!!

And that he classed most of his work as "Snaps"!

This is a person that I could gladly listen to for a few hours!
Carl.
 
He's a nutter...:cuckoo:

The story about the shoot with the conductor who wanted to be photographed with a Leica was funny, having not used a rangefinder before, leaving the lens cap on is a nailed on cert for just about anybody.
He was lucky the lab covered for him, in fact he was lucky to have any kind of photographic career...:lol:
 
Interesting view Joxby. I looked at his photographs and they looked so cutting edge, even thirty or forty years after they were taken.

Photography, its not art its in the eye of the beholder...........
 
Really enjoyed the programme and just love those black and white images.
There is another photographic programme on next Wednesday same time so stay tuned.
Dave
 
He impressed me, he gave off something, very confident. His sitters held him in high regard. :)
 
nikonuser said:
Really enjoyed the programme and just love those black and white images.
There is another photographic programme on next Wednesday same time so stay tuned.
Dave
Click to expand...

"Baileys a turd" class.

That would be " Shooting The War. Men"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pv0nh

Remarkably, some soldiers took their amateur film cameras to the front lines and filmed the everyday life of the soldier and airman in battle. In Britain the practice was discouraged, but German soldiers were encouraged to film the impending triumphs of the Third Reich.

This programme features the amateur films of four fighting men: Britons Derek Brown and Leslie Fowler, and Germans Paul Kellermann and Klaus Eismann. Brown took his camera into the Burma campaign, while Fowler filmed from the ship he was commanding on the morning of D-Day.

Eismann, a member of the Luftwaffe, filmed as the Germans overran Poland in the first days of war. Kellermann used his camera as the Wehrmacht occupied Paris and later in the drive across Russia and into Stalingrad, where, though he died, his films survived.

Luftwaffe member Karl Plote filmed the preparation and execution of bombing raids on SW England and in Naumburg, fireman Hans Brunswig filmed the aerial bombardment on his city.

Through these films we can relive the experiences of men in the heart of war. Kellermann filmed both his domestic life and his experiences as a soldier in a reconnaissance unit on the Western and Eastern fronts. He had a sharp eye for detail and the ability to get in close, and provides us with a detailed look at the life of his family before and during the war. His niece is still alive and remembers many of the people that feature in the films.

The picture that he portrays of soldiers' lives are stunning. Somehow he managed to capture the humanity of the people he filmed - comrades, as well as POWs, in situations of extreme inhumanity. He was killed on the Eastern front in February 1942, but he left behind some vivid letters, written to his family, describing his experiences.
 
absolutely loved that program last night about Duffy.

i mean, you can read books, look at pictures, hear other people's version of events from that era... but to sit and watch and listen to him was just great tv. it's like you just don't know what he's going to come out with next... especially when he stood in the garden where he'd burnt his negatives and said... 'david bailey reckoned he'd tried to put the fire out... absolute rubbish... that's just the sort of turd he is'.... class. (as mentioned above, sorry for repeating)

i'd like to get my hands on a copy of that book they had at his exhibition that he didn't turn up to... is it available on open sale? have to have a gander on amazon.
 
leftcurl said:
absolutely loved that program last night about Duffy.

i mean, you can read books, look at pictures, hear other people's version of events from that era... but to sit and watch and listen to him was just great tv. it's like you just don't know what he's going to come out with next... especially when he stood in the garden where he'd burnt his negatives and said... 'david bailey reckoned he'd tried to put the fire out... absolute rubbish... that's just the sort of turd he is'.... class. (as mentioned above, sorry for repeating)

i'd like to get my hands on a copy of that book they had at his exhibition that he didn't turn up to... is it available on open sale? have to have a gander on amazon.
Click to expand...

Check here http://www.chrisbeetles.com/gallery/publication_detail.php?pid=130
 
Clearly madder than a box of frogs but with the talent to justify it. I'd love to know what he's actually been doing for the last thirty years ... that didn't seem to get mentioned (or if it did I didn't notice!) just a long space between burning his negatives and the comeback.
 
artona said:
Interesting view Joxby. I looked at his photographs and they looked so cutting edge, even thirty or forty years after they were taken.

Photography, its not art its in the eye of the beholder...........
Click to expand...


Oh no, they are cutting edge, this was very early in his career.
To do a famous face shoot for a mag, returning with 36 blank frames because you'd no clue what you were doing, could put pay to anybody's career before it even started.
Maybe they didn't take things so seriously, luckily the lab guys covered for him saying they had cocked developing his film up, and he went on to be a genius....
 
that was brilliant, ive just finished watching it on iplayer and it is so funny some of things he came out with, especially when joanna lumley made that statement about david bailer "david bailey makes love daily". one part i will never forget is near the end when he was on about the plug on the wall and how isolated it is, this does show that pictures are everywhere but you need to have your own interpretation.
 
Just saw this show and immediately went-a-Googling for some of the info that was missing, and hit #1 was this forum page. So good on you, I guess.

Loved his photographers-as-plumbers analogy, as well as his take on the definition of "art" generally. No wonder he bailed out as art photography exploded in the late '70s.

Missing info: What about his wife, his two other two kids, and what he did for a living after 1979? He says that he "had to" get married once his girlfriend got pregnant in the mid-'50s, but then not a word about his family after that.

These are pretty major omissions. Anyone know? I find myself oddly curious.
 
I'd love to get my hands on some kind of portrait book of his - the paperback in the link, although surely interesting about him, won't contain larger high quality images... :(
 
It appeared to me that photography to him was purely a tool, something to be done to earn money. It seems advertising and commercial work ate away at his soul until he exploded and destroyed his work.

His opinion of photography as art being a modern idea is incorrect, it's just he has only just realised it.

I liked some of his portraits, but nothing remarkable in my opinion.

I enjoyed the programme as I soak up anything to with photography on TV.
 
Lens said:
These are pretty major omissions. Anyone know? I find myself oddly curious.
Click to expand...


Speaking of oddly curious, who was the driving force behind his "new shoots" and the discovery of work worthy of a gallery launch.
Maybe his son has more than just a passing interest in photography, I didn't see Duffy as a 5x4 kinda man, there was even a Mamiya 6 thrown in there too, but ya never know..:shrug:
 
lofcuk said:
It appeared to me that photography to him was purely a tool, something to be done to earn money. It seems advertising and commercial work ate away at his soul until he exploded and destroyed his work.
Click to expand...

The way I see it is that it clearly was more to him than a means of making money, otherwise he would have been perfectly happy doing to commercial work to briefs of his clients.
 
I missd this... and I GUTTED :bang:

I wonder if we could make a "sticky" with all the photography related tv COMING SOON????
 
joxby said:
Speaking of oddly curious, who was the driving force behind his "new shoots" and the discovery of work worthy of a gallery launch.
Maybe his son has more than just a passing interest in photography, I didn't see Duffy as a 5x4 kinda man, there was even a Mamiya 6 thrown in there too, but ya never know..:shrug:
Click to expand...

Wasn't it because he's contracted a condition with his lungs that his son convinced him in to organise a retrospective?

I caught it on BBC iPlayer this morning, very good watch.
 
who hoooo Thanks to IPLAYER! just watched it! Excellent I hope I,m still a cantankerous old git when I,m an icon.... just caught myself in the mirror, I even look like him too! :clap::thumbs:
 
A good friend of mine, Francis Newman, worked with this guy and appears in the programme.
 
we11ingon said:
I missd this... and I GUTTED :bang:

I wonder if we could make a "sticky" with all the photography related tv COMING SOON????
Click to expand...
From op
"Just in case the footie clashes, also on at:


1. Wed 13 Jan 2010 21:00

2. Thu 14 Jan 2010 00:45

3. Thu 14 Jan 2010 03:15

4. Thu 14 Jan 2010 23:00

5. Wed 20 Jan 2010 00:00 "
 
photon said:
The end of this article implies carpentry.
Click to expand...


Yes, thanks, saw that as well. Yet still, you wonder why matters post-1979 were left unaddressed in the program.

joxby said:
Speaking of oddly curious, who was the driving force behind his "new shoots" and the discovery of work worthy of a gallery launch.
Click to expand...

The son certainly seemed to be in the driver's seat. The ever-lurking cynic in me wonders whether he even commissioned the doco, which was then sold on to the BBC. The program was essentially a lengthy advert for Duffy, with some token references to him as a bit of a *******, but hardly a well-rounded biography.

lofcuk said:
I liked some of his portraits, but nothing remarkable in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Have to agree. That '60s cutting edge was crowded with lots of shooters, many of them enjoying the new, relatively affordable wide-angle lenses that came into wide distribution. May as well call it the "Semi-Fisheye Era."

If Duffy hadn't also taken shots of celebrities still known to us today (Connery, Caine, Lumley), the appeal of this show would have been virtually nil. Though, still, I do very much like his self-assessment, and comments about photography generally. Wouldn't want to have worked for him, but as a drinking mate, oh yeah!
 
mastertrinity said:
that was brilliant, ive just finished watching it on iplayer and it is so funny some of things he came out with, especially when joanna lumley made that statement about david bailer "david bailey makes love daily". one part i will never forget is near the end when he was on about the plug on the wall and how isolated it is, this does show that pictures are everywhere but you need to have your own interpretation.
Click to expand...

I thought he was being ironic? But I'm pretty deaf so may have misheard what he mumbled after that statement :lol:

I knew nothing about him but I thoroughly enjoyed the program on i-player.
 
mastertrinity said:
one part i will never forget is near the end when he was on about the plug on the wall and how isolated it is, this does show that pictures are everywhere but you need to have your own interpretation.
Click to expand...

I heard this totally differently. I took his meaning as that socket could be deemed as art or as a socket on the wall, depending on how you want to view it.

My opinion is that it does not matter though and its what made the turner prize so succesful. Does the turner prize still run?

stew
 
artona said:
I heard this totally differently. I took his meaning as that socket could be deemed as art or as a socket on the wall, depending on how you want to view it.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Anything man-made can be described as art, given the right silver-tongued orator, or passage of time, or what-have-you. And why not.

To elevate one man-made object above others and call it "art," is, in other words, mostly boll**ks, and serves primarily the interests of those who would benefit from such a designation. (The "artist" and those earning a slice of his income--managers, agents, gallery owners, magazine publishers, museums, BBC documentary film producers, sound recordists for BBC documentary film producers...) A lovely racket, really.

Many years ago a man I thought far too cynical at the time suggested that when we see the word "art" we replace it with "artifact" and go from there. (In the British case, "artefact." :) ) Otherwise there's no end to the farce.
 
Lens said:
Exactly. Anything man-made can be described as art, given the right silver-tongued orator, or passage of time, or what-have-you. And why not.

To elevate one man-made object above others and call it "art," is, in other words, mostly boll**ks, and serves primarily the interests of those who would benefit from such a designation. (The "artist" and those earning a slice of his income--managers, agents, gallery owners, magazine publishers, museums, BBC documentary film producers, sound recordists for BBC documentary film producers...) A lovely racket, really.

Many years ago a man I thought far too cynical at the time suggested that when we see the word "art" we replace it with "artifact" and go from there. (In the British case, "artefact." :) ) Otherwise there's no end to the farce.
Click to expand...

Watch Top Gear B'b 3 7.20 tonite for their take on gallery car art.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top