Personal Best by Elliott Erwitt

It's a BIG BOOK - I know because I couldn't wait for christmas and ordered it already... So here I am now- looking at my favourites in my new book on my lap ( it's 'me me me' time obviously).

no. 262 out of 446 

 Last sentence of brief biography at the very end is in the true spirit of Erwitt, and reads: 'He likes children and dogs'. 

I absolutely love those quirky, out of blue statements of his - be it hidden in photographs or spoken out or written. And maybe that's why Erwitt's body of work 'speaks' to me... and I listen attentively.

Some people however don't understand him I guess. After seeing a very recent interview/ presentation from San Francisco, U.S.A., (which coincidentally covered nearly all the images from the book) it really bothered me , that as such an amazing, legendary even, photographer, Erwitt is actually being laughed at/ mocked for barking at dogs (which I already wrote about previously). For me, the fact that Erwitt sometimes barks at dogs, means that this man has had a great idea to provoke his subject to get spontaneous reaction,and that's all to it. Yet few people from audience of that gallery presentation, as well as every interviewer that talked to Erwitt since as far as the 80's, ask him foolish questions like: 'Do You also bark at people?', 'Did You bark at him to get his attention?', 'In what language do You bark?' and so on. It's as if the viewers didn't treat Erwitt seriously, or didn't believe he actually does that. But why not? And why be so hung up on this? Honestly, it's only one of his quirks, and yet it's been so blown up that Erwitt might be known nowadays as 'the one barking at dogs' rather than as author of so many iconic images throughout decades. So which fact is more important? 


Elliott Erwitt Interview by Ken Light