Elliott Erwitt and photography: waiting for things to happen

The best way to describe photographer Elliott Erwitt is “lightness”. Not “levity”, which would indicate a careless and superficial vision, but “lightness” refers to a delicate touch, not intrusive. His work is meticulous while at the same time reflecting a sort of weightlessness: gone are conceptual affectation and statements of meaning. Things are as they are, and it has never been so enticing to go back and look at them in this light. One of Erwitt’s favorite subjects is dogs. If you ask him why, he answers that he likes them, “and they don’t ask for reprints of the photos”. In addition to being the subjects in many of his photos, dogs impose the height of the camera’s viewpoint: if the subject is a Chihuahua, you see nothing of the owner besides his feet. For dogs that like to jump, the camera is raised a bit higher, but the master’s face is still not revealed. Sometimes Erwitt helped them along: “To make the dog jump, I started barking!” Other...