Picture Puns and Funny Photos in A Dog-Eats-Dog World

"PEOPLE tell me I'm good at visual puns. I guess that's true," says photographer Elliot Erwitt on the opening page of Personal Exposures, and he undoutedly has an eye for humor. But at the same time, Erwitt is a master in capturing the subtle tragedy in everyday life. His book is a comprehensive overview of his development, published to coincide with the world tour of an exhibition of black and white photographs.

Personal Exposures

By Elliot Erwitt

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.

$60,00

The son of Russian immigrants to France, Erwitt was born Elio Romano Erwitz in 1928 and moved to Italy at an early age. In 1938, his family was forced to leave the country because of Mussolini's fascist policies. Three years later, Erwitt and his father settled in southern California, where he bought his first camera, an antique glass plate.

"Shyness helped to make me a photographer. In high school I discovered that a camera gets you into situations where you don't really belong. Then, it was proms; now, it's the White House or the back rooms of the Kremlin." Erwitt has gained access to such figures as the president and Soviet party leaders as a freelance photographer for Magnum, a photographic agency, headed by Robert Capa.

AS a freelancer documenting world events Erwitt's work is necessarily documentary in nature. Erwitt created vignettes of everyday life in cities as diverse as San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and Tehran, Iran.

Yet his work is quite complex, capturing a range of human emotions. "Some people say my pictures are sad. Some think they're funny. Funny and sad, aren't they really the same thing?" says Erwitt.

And he is right about that. One of his funniest photographs is of a soaking wet dog, standing outside an open door of a shop in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The dog yearns to be invited in, a weary traveler seeking shelter from the rain. The way in which Erwitt photographs this dog is both amusing and poignant.

Dogs recur as an important element in many of his photographs, and Erwitt attributes his fascination with the animals to their "anthropomorphic appeal." "Dogs are simply funny when you catch them in certain situations...But dogs [also] have human qualities."

On another level, Erwitt's work often depicts connections, some obvious and others apparent only on close inspection. A photograph in Kyoto, Japan in 1977, for example, illustrates a parallelism between people and animals. It depicts a woman scratching her back as a dog does the same. In a 1975 photograph taken at Daytona Beach, Florida, the connection is not so obvious. Erwitt juxtaposes shapes to create compositions that are not readily apparent as real objects. However, detailed study of the photograph reveals a subtle relationship between the shape of apartment facades and a bird perched upon a street lamp.

Not all photographs in Personal Exposures reflect the spontaneity and spirit inherent in most of Erwitt's work. A photograph of a studio in East Hampton, New York, depicts nude artists painting a clothed model. This image seems too forced and contrived. It makes one wonder whether some of his other work is not also posed.

Erwitt claims he rarely stages photographs but waits for them to happen. However, a photograph of a dog in mid-air is the result of Erwitt barking at it. The photograph is obviously contrived. But does not a photographer have the poetic licence to stage a picture? And does not any photograph represent reality only as seen by the photographer.

No matter what one's feelings may be on the subject, most of Erwitt's work captures interesting moments with a candor and spontaneity that is quite refreshing.

Diederick Kraaijeveld provided advice to this review.