Photo by Constantine Manos. Scanned image. Special to Blogfinger.net. Click to enlarge.
Constantine Manos: Typical of his color photography. Internet photo. Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net
Constantine Manos, a Greek-American photographer, is now 88 (2022) and he has achieved wide fame for his striking color images.. He has been the official photographer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and is widely published. In the States he lives in Boston. He also is a member of the famed photojournalism group Magnum.
I met him at the Maine Summer Photographic Workshops when he was offering a course called “This Magic Moment.” He would send his students on photo assignments and then bring them back for discussions. At the end of the course, he would put on a slide show of all his students’ work in front of others, such as myself, there for other courses. During the slide show he would play that song.
I liked his work because of his brilliant and exciting use of color.
My reason for being there was to study black and white photography, but they had classes in all sorts of aspects, and many famous photographers were in attendance.
After his show, he offered some prints for sale, so I bought one and then hung it on the wall in my darkroom. It is the image on top. I chose this one because it is so typical of Manos’ work.
Fast forward to now; I am beginning to revisit my color film work in an effort to digitize old Kodachrome slides. So turning on the lights in my home darkroom which will become a digital lab I rediscovered the image above. It is classic Manos.
It looks like Mexico, but I am unsure. Lately I am once again specializing in black and white, but if I were to shoot color once again, Manos’ high contrast, high color intensity style would suit me.
The idea of a “magic moment” is nothing new in photography. Cartier-Bresson made “the decisive moment” famous.
Editor’s note: 1/3/25. Constantine Manos dies. He lived in Provincetown, Mass. and had a long career as a photojournalist, artist, and teacher. Everyone called him, “Costa.”
THE DRIFTERS.
OMG: I envy his years photographing the Boston Symphony. If I could interview him now, I would like to know everything about that work and how he navigated while being unobtrusive during a concert.
I would like to crawl around and get a great portrait of a bassoon player or maybe a female flautist. After all, I took a cute flute player to the prom at Rutherford High.
Her embouchure was splendid.