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Guest Post 24: Robert Dannin on the “Day in the Life” Projects (e)

[Editor’s Note: Here we continue “The Dannin Papers,” a series of Guest Posts by Robert Dannin, who served as Editorial Director of Magnum Photos from 1985-90.

This second chapter — Dannin’s first-hand observations of the evolution and impact on the profession of the “A Day in the Life of …” book series (DITLO) as conceived […]

Guest Post 23: Robert Dannin on Magnum Photos (6)

We were about defending and expanding interpretive multiplicity beyond the ideological vanishing point to a place where all sides of the conflict became visible — combatants and civilians caught in the crossfire. The more coverage the better. To me there was no such thing as too many pictures. […]

Guest Post 23: Robert Dannin on Magnum Photos (5)

At many agencies, Magnum included, photographers became specialists in particular conflict zones. They learned appropriate languages, earned the camaraderie of local journalists and fixers, purchased vehicles, and in some cases even took apartments in the capital city. To the mainstream media it was a form of branding. […]

Guest Post 23: Robert Dannin on Magnum Photos (4)

Magnum’s biography is not just a narrative of funny anecdotes, personal heroism, or critical interventions aimed at the cognoscenti. To me there’s a real narrative, a true set of values behind the myth. It’s a frat-house given to sophomoric antics with members sometimes capable of making extraordinary pictures. […]

The Photographer and the Painting (3)

By imitating paintings as freely and frequently as they do, and by tolerating and even endorsing such activity by their fellow practitioners, photographers undercut themselves and their colleagues who object to such infringements on the part of visual artists, abandoning any claim to the moral high ground. […]