 Much like Irvin Penn, Dan Winters is one of those rare photographers who is able to turn their exceptional talents to a broad range of subject matter. In addition to his celebrity portraiture, Winters creates scientific photography where he explores themes like space and aeronautics. He also crafts photo illustrations along with just a wonderfully range of diverse personal photography. They listen to us all that photographers don't have to stick to one exclusive style. The photography that Dan Winters has created over the last 40 odd years is a perfect example of what happens when talent, passion and an understanding of the craft combine. Let's take a trip on Dan Winters' road to seeing and discover this amazing photographer's work. How's it? How's it? Brave words indeed, comparing Dan Winters to the icon that is Irvin Penn. But I feel that once you spend some time here looking at the wonderful photography of Dan Winters, you too will start to see the genius at play in his fantastic photographs. The best way to get a feel for Dan Winters' photography or indeed any photographers is to look at their monographs. And when we do this we can see the images as a whole body of work. And once we start doing this I'm sure that you will also start to see the parallels between Dan Winters and Irvin Penn. Sometimes when you want to get a book you have to go all over the place to find it and this edition of Dan Winters' monograph was no exception. It was out of print for ages but I found an Italian version. So if anybody speaks Italian please let me know what scatty dal america means. I don't know. Anyway so this is Dan Winters and on the cover here he sets out his stall already. You know this is Sange Bullock and it's a wonderfully beautiful photograph and I love the idea that she's sort of floating on the water there. It's just outstanding and it gives us a taste of what's inside. Something that Dan Winters does a lot which I absolutely love is he takes elements of the person and photographs them individually. So here we have Mr Rogers who if you're not an American or if you're not like me who have some sort of weird knowledge of American culture. Mr Rogers was a TV children's presenter and he was famous for his cardigans and so here we have obviously the portrait of Mr Rogers on the left hand side and then his famous cardigan or something like that iconic cardigan and you see this quite a lot in Dan Winters' work where he takes the two elements of somebody, the personality of them plus their iconography. I don't know if that's quite the right expression but the thing that makes them them and says is Mr Rogers, Mr Rogers because he wears the red cardigan or does the red cardigan make Mr Rogers? Answer's on a postcard. This is that same idea at play. We have a bald eagle on the right hand side and his photograph absolutely beautiful and I will say this about all of Dan Winters' photographs. They are all exquisite. They are absolutely technically beautiful to look at and I know I often say that technicalities shouldn't really matter but Dan Winters is I think one of the great examples of somebody who puts care and love and attention to detail into every single image that he creates and then of course we have this piece on the left, this sort of disembodied claw of the eagle. So again we got that sort of juxtaposition where the two are sort of working together but that claw has also been photographed with with their dignity and a respect. Great photographers don't just start fully formed. Obviously they get their inspiration from people who had gone before them just as much as Irvin Penn did and Richard Avedon did. Here we can see Dan Winters drawing inspiration from Avedon with his this this kind of the way that these these images are sort of composed and framed. It's very much reminiscent of Avedon's work on in the family in the 1960s and I like this that he's bringing it in. He's still got his own twist to it, the colors and the idea that this is a roller derby team dressed up in kiss makeup and things like that. So he's taking a pre-existing idea and giving it little elements that make it his own. So it's a reminder to us all that copying work or copying a style isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as we take the base and make it our own. Here we can start to see why I'm bringing in these comparisons with Irvin Penn is that Irvin Penn is known for a few things like his corner portraits and what have you but if you look at his whole body of work he photographed many many things, cigarette butts. He found interest in the most random things and Dan Winters is the same. I have no idea what this this is, it's ahead of something but this is a lot of Dan Winters' work in a nutshell that he takes things that interest him and he doesn't just photograph them but he creates art with them and that's a difference I think that's worth exploring is that the photograph isn't just a snapshot of something that's interesting. Dan takes his time to compose a carefully thought out image and you see this again and again and again throughout all of his photography and this is a perfect example of this thoughtfulness about the composition. This is a fairly, I wouldn't say it's a hardcore idea that he's come up with but it's so simple and yet it's genius that I love this look of you know the the gentlemen's here and we've got this plate of glasses this giving a two eyes sort of effect and yet it doesn't detract from the photograph so it's an effect that makes us pause, makes us think but isn't the basis of the photograph. This photograph would still be interesting without that little sheet of glass giving us a reflection there and I just I just love this kind of thing. These two portraits are a fantastic example of how a photographer's skill can tease out I have to say it say the word model in us but the way that all of us can be photographed well and I've no doubt those of us who take portraits of other people have heard the phrase oh I don't take a very good picture or I'm ugly there's no good pictures of me. This is a nonsense it's the it's the presence and the passion and the ability of a photographer to allow the sitter to feel comfortable that it's the basis of every great photograph of people ever and these two images are exceptional examples of this obviously we have this lady here I'm going to say the navy and I should know better but I'm going to say the navy on the left hand side and then we have a marine drill instructor and we both get this quiet sort of confidence that's coming through there's nothing OTT about the images it's a pure portrait in in exactly the way that I would expect a portrait photograph to be and Dan Winters has treated everybody everybody who photographs gets treated with the same amount of respect irrespective of whether they are an actor a musician somebody in the armed forces you know anybody they all get that same respect this is again a piece of urban penneness coming coming into this this photograph this series of images here or these series of images are about aeronautical things their shapes and he's photographing these things as as objects of art of objects of something to be looked at and and appreciated and urban penn did similar things with his you know with his still lives and his his cigarette butts and and those sort of images is that a great photographer never stops wanting to experiment never stops wanting to explore what they're capable of how they can see the world Dan Winters also does I don't want to say photojournalistic kind of photography because I don't think that's necessarily the right word here but certainly stories and he's based down in Texas and I'm going to guess that these are sort of somewhere near there because it's certainly got a feel to it and there's just something about certainly the image on the left of the broken down car I find really intriguing and the fact that it sort of echoed with everything seems to be disposable in America so we throw away cars or America's throw away cars and they throw away bags of fries you know it's a statement on those I don't know if it's too much of a huge statement you know but but I but this is when I sort of think if you look at photography as a whole you know images if you look at the McDonald's one on the right hand side it's kind of well you know it's a picture of rubbish next to a plowed field but when you put next to this this car then we start getting more of a feel about what the photographer is thinking with all of his his work and and that's something why we should always look at photography as a collection of image not just single images so often overlooked in monographs is the fun that you can have with images in their layout and this again we can't do this when it's online but here we have certainly an alien a monster is it something from Mars possibly and then here we have on the next page Tim Burton it's a lovely way of breaking up books and giving little rise smiles to to the reader and if you're not familiar Tim Burton did Mars attacks which is a sort of a bubblegum movie from from the 90s and it's a lot of fun but you know this is this is why you should look at books look at monographs as often as you possibly can I talk about this connection that I see between Dan Winters' photography and Irvin Penn's and I know some people might think that that's a bit of a stretch because Irvin Penn is one of these great names in photography but when I look at Dan Winters' body of work as a whole I see the same not the same photographs I see echoes of their photographs or certainly I see echoes of Irvin Penn's photography in Dan Winters' images but what I do see is the same passion the same intrigue and that that drive to create photographs all the time to invest themselves fully into the moment into the into the process of of creating of having a voice inside that needs to come out all the time just pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing that I that I think is is why I say that Dan Winters is the new Irvin Penn and this book is called Wrote to Seeing and this this is what I think makes Dan Winters an important photographer today and much like Irvin Penn is the fact that not only is he a great accomplished image maker that he is somebody who takes care and attention and love and devotion and passion and pours into every single image that he creates but also he's intelligent about photography he understands what he's doing and where his inspirations come from and it's a collection of images and and essays and work throughout all of his his career and you can sort of see the wonderful evolution of his photography you know over the the years and I'm sorry I can't really open it because it's quite a large it's one of those sort of short fat large books but within its pages are and I'll put some images up on screen so you can sort of see but within its pages are the nuggets of gold if there's only one book that you buy if you want to improve your photography this year then this is the one I can't recommend it enough it's it is such a joy to see the mindset to see the evolution of a photographer and to have it explained by somebody who's not just talking about f-stops and lenses I would hardly recommend that you explore Dan Winters's photography I've barely scratched the surface here it is so so beautiful and of course if you are not familiar with Irvin Penn I will put a link up on screen for you to go and check out the video that I did about him I would highly recommend you look at it thank you ever so much for being here today and I'll see you again soon