Gary Winogrand at the Met

Before visiting the Gary Winogrand exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I decided to do some research. What I read online was that Winogrand was despised by many other artists and photographers because they did not see his work as art and the reviews that he received were extremely negative and insulting. This heightened my curiosity, but I decided that I was still going to go the exhibit with an open mind. Winogrand photographed images of things that happen in every day life. His photos are trying to say that if the photo wouldn’t have been taken, no one would remember that it happened since it is so natural for these types of events to occur.
My favorite photograph was Winogrand’s “Coney Island” photo, which is a picture of a man carrying a woman in the ocean. The couple in the photo seems so playful and epically cliché but it just caught my eye and I couldn’t stop staring at the picture. Even though the picture is in black in white, to me it seems as if it is the brightest picture in the world because it is so full of life. Everyone in the picture seems like they are just so happy and euphoric, including the people in the background which are an addition to the atmosphere of the photo.
In all, I was extremely impressed by Winogrand’s works of photography. I found his work to be honest, while each photo told a story of its own whether it was true or not. His pictures left a lot to the imagination. As I walked around the museum admiring the art, I would look at the pictures and create an entirely made up story about the people in the picture. Winogrand’s work really made my imagination run wild, while it taught me that everything in life is a picture worth remembering.