Photography in Context: Families and Subculture in photography-- Using books: ‘The Game of Photography’ Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand was a photojournalist in the fifties as it was one of the only jobs a man could do in photography without proper technical training but still create photos he wanted. After travelling, being influenced by other photographers like Walker Evans and photojournalism became scarcer due to the shutdown of some major publications Winogrand took some of his best pictures; “images caught at unstable moments of public life in American cities on the brink of chaos” ( the game of photography page 12).

A photograph taken in Sin Titulo in 1968 of a group of people and families walking in a park, people and children are looking at each other but the face that caught my eye the most was of a little boy pulling a confused, scared but sure of his place in society expression and he’s looking at a woman pushing a pram, the woman is black and is wearing a maid or ‘nanny’ outfit. Some of the other ladies that aren’t dressed as well as the boy as looking at his guardian, even though they are out of frame, as if to say “they’re snobby...” This whole photograph, to me, shows the different classes and their reactions to each other, this shows the different subcultures all in one place at the same time.

('The Game of Photography’)

Winogrand also took some photographs of richer people partying, you can tell they’re well off because they are wearing suits and the main woman is in a white revealing dress and has a white feather boa hanging from one shoulder. This woman in the second picture is sat on a man’s knee (partner, close friend or just a friendly stranger) with her boobs out but no one seems to care so it’s a party group of people which shows the ‘party subculture’. A few pages after this selection there’s a few photos of hippies protesting against something. These photos show how different but similar the two types of people are; there are still crowds in both, people drinking and having fun but in different s ways and the protesters are standing for something they believe in which has bought them together, from the groups they could be in families or because of this closeness and beliefs they could be close as friends and so feel like families.