We have the pleasure of watching most of the DVD’s made of biographies of photographers. From the 10 min. quickie hits of the Contacts series to the PBS versions of insights into an artists life, such as the Contacts series
Our shelves are filled with a few hundred of these, as we collect what may be the last copies of these tributes and insights into a photographers life and mind.
Many were produced and released only on VHS never to be reprinted. We have a WeeGee doc that has some scenes where he directs himself and is pretty cheesy, but it’s all we have.

There is one company currently out there that has dedicated itself to producing some of the finest documentaries on photographers, we have ever seen.

Anthropy Arts

High quality production and extra features, make this series well worth your time and, quite honestly, the price of $40. USD is very reasonable.

For instance, in the Keith Carter doc, with over 140 minutes of material, you get a true sense of Mr. Carters work, plus you get an hours worth of commentary on his books and unpublished work. That part is kinda like when you put on the commentary on a DVD of a movie. We just did that with a DVD of Ferris Bueller, and director John Hughes spoke at each part of the film, which gave us another insight into the work.
As a bonus he’ll show you how he tints his photographs in a teaching/explanation section.

As you can hear, Keith Carter’s somewhat laid back style, is evident through the DVD and you get one of the most complete looks at a photographers work and thought process we have ever seen.

Here is a sample from the Dan Estabrook DVD:

A labor of love, no doubt, by John Spellos of Anthropy Arts, we encourage you to pick up his full series of DVD’s with only the 3rd in the series just being released now, on Debbie Fleming Caffery

Plus Anthropy Arts sells prints of these artists, including some of whom have yet to have a DVD produced, but we’ll feel that is coming.

They are thick, rich, and thoughtful works you should own. And if you are in a teaching mode, let your class enjoy, not only a great bio, but some practical lessons in the fine art of photography.

We applaud the work of this company, for producing the high quality documentaries of the masters of photography.
After screening so many examples of this genre, we know you will be very happy to spend some time with these DVD’s.
definitely going onto our photog gift lists.
Yep, we compile those through the year to make sure that when it’s time, we’ll be ready. For you, or as a list to give to someone.
Too soon?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Photo News, Product Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.