American Color

Sorry, flash is not available.

American Color

Constantine Manos

As a showcase of the sundry layers of American society, Constantine Manos' curiosity for his country's diversity is presented in a set of saturated images that engage both eye and mind.

Post a comment

Read comments
Lovely set of images...enjoyed them very much. Cheers Wolf189
A photo very intriguing, expressive and full of vitality
this is outstanding thank you for sharing it here!
Mr Manos I am very impresed from your pictures , the cest I have ever seen in colour , pure art
congrats, wonderful in-motion best Stefan P.S. the ones done with M8 have more DOF, less feeling of space....
Constantine, I want to congratulate you for the «slide show» I just finished looking at and for the more than interesting meditation on the «value» of colour on photography. The photographs themselves, each one of them, show the master hiding behind the camera! Regards, José Morais
Yes, the best work I've seen in years. Summing up the vision of many past masters, and going beyond, in a very nice an elegant portfolio. Congratulations. Carlos Quijano Colombia
Thanks for sharing. It was like walking through a guided tour of every photoworthy moment a day had to offer.
this is really intriguing.
Framing, timing, lighting and...oh the color, what great work...
hats off.... Master
The fact that those pictures are equivalent to such a small fragment of a second makes them intriguing, though most of a good picture is luck (i belive) to frame that luck is something that I find brilliant and when is a work in colors then is just a fragment of time as it is, framed forever and turned into a eternal second, even if it is so insignificant it will always be there in a baloon hanging by a thin silk rope wich if it's pulled brakes inmediatly but if not, it is there for ever flotaing. Congratulations for creating such cautivous eternal spaces.
Having spent a considerable amount of time in Daytona I was really brought back to those days when viewing those photographs. There was one with a group of late teens on the beach in black and I thought, "Wow that could have been me!"
I think u can delete some photos from this Essay.there are to much photos.
Of course I'm familiar with the work. I bought the book years ago...I often look at it...and looking at it here again, I realize that (for me) this set of pictures is one of the best color series ever made .... a real classic...
On an ordinary Wednesday morning you allowed me to stop and look.
Wonderful, stunning, moving - Thank you for sharing. I live in the UK but have spent many happy vacations on the east coast of Florida and feel I've seen some of these scenes myself.
It good to know you are out there. You do not imitate. You create a direct link between you and the world through your camera. As a professional photographer I more and more experience that in my own work, but you have already opened that door much wider. Congratulations Frank
Costa, these are amazing images. It's nice to see the additions since the book first published. Your energy and creativity shows through in the latest images. Looking forward to seeing your next project. --Marc (Rockport, ME '05)
It is interesting to note that you refer to losing yourself at mid-life with black and white imagery...I find that you just changed it to color...they still are black and white at heart...we all must find a way to keep shooting with out losing our way...I do it everyday.
As a young photographer this has had such an immense impact on me. I agree that a lot of photos being made now are so lifeless, sad, desaturated maybe because it is easier. These show the use of light and shadows to make photos that represent something real no matter what the emotion.
These are such beautiful photos that I can't help loving them,especially the light and shadow. "American clolor",you change the view of America in a Chinese universiy student's eyes.
I am intrigued by the use of space and the division of space around the apparent (subject/person/object) of the image. It makes the subject less dominant and more part of the environs. On the otherhand, the person/object of the image may only add scale to to the real subject of many of the images which is color, or spaces of hues, within the frame. Which leads to the question - what is a colorful image? One with striking color or one with a lot of hues? All in all I liked the presentation very much.
After viewing this stunning body of work then reading some of the comments below, I am amazed that some people can't simply enjoy and celebrate this man's work. Did these people not notice the Magnum logo up the lefthand corner?
Thanks for the great show.
In this silence of watching your pictures and hearing what you tell me about yourself, many stories come too my mind. And i was wandering and dreaming away. What a pleasure it brings to me. Thank you a lot. The combination of watching and listening works wonderfull for me.
I enjoyed your use of color,shadows, and music. Thank you for creating such complexity; yet simple fusions of color and music.
I admire your work. You succeed to get the same ambiancy and emotions that we can find in B&W in colour. It is for me a "tour de force". I would like to see the result in industrial and work ambiancies. What do you think of all the criticisms around the M8 ? Is it worth the price ?
I very much enjoyed the essay. As a black and white photographer I am struck by the compositional complexity you achieve with color elements--there are many photographs is this group that simply would not have worked in BW, not because the color itself is important, informative or interesting, but because the compositional organization would not have been there without it--color is providing structure and form in a way that is wonderful. You are, of course, also often using shadows similarly and that is quite interesting to me too. So, thank you for the wonderful work. Walt Odets
Constantine, Full Circle. Photography has finally come full circle. Pixels have sidetracked most of us from the pure art of photographing. Shooting film doesn't make much sense anymore for most of us. You've proven that we can have the best of both worlds... The eye. What kind of life does it take to have an eye like yours? Compassionate, sensitive, risking, creative and extremely patient.... Your sense of composition, timing, frame management and color pallete move us far beyond the expected visual experience. Thanks for doing this. For sharing your vision with ours.... and for communicating how you go about it. Thanks again, Paul
I couldn't tell you how much I was attracted by those colorful image with background voices which make all those pictures alive as if I was there.
From the first time I saw the "Greek Portfolio" in my early twenties till now with the "American Color" in my middle fifties I've been trying to explain the key that opens such a magic in your photos. I once wrote that the photographs are like the streamlets of water on both sides of the street on a rainy day. They bring with them "things" from somewhere else and take with them "things" to somewhere else. Deep in my heart, this comes to be absolute with your photos. Your photos travel their viewer to a world of imagination and then to a world of reality, back and forth, like a penullum ticking along the locii of the moments of our lives. A Great Thank You for the magic moments you have given us so far. God bless you. Dimitris V, Georgopoulos Athens, Greece
I hate your photography. It is shit.
I love it.
"American Color" is one of my favorite books, I hope to not have to wait too long for volume II and also hope that is as beautifully printed and has M8 pics as well!
Beautiful. Sad I couldn't download for a friend or to see again.
as the images turn, the mind can travel into its own reflective dialect, allowing the experience to relate back into your own reality.
I think each nation has its own distinguishable colors which somehow reflect unique mood/life of that nation. The "Amrican Color" photographs certainly capture the quintessential American colors.
Beautiful work, perfect colors, you have a master work, Constantine.
Congratulations. This is a perfect work, I think that the perfect color is only with Kodak or Fuji film... but the M8 is incredible. Thank´s for your photo and your style, other point of vision for my world/work. When you come to Spain and make a exhibition?. You will be welcome, you don´t doubt it
These are some of the scariest images I've ever seen collected. Constantine Manos combines the color and compositional complexity of Alex Webb with the sense of humor and irony (and compositional complexity) of Bruce Gilden. As a black-&-white devotee, this collection is THE most serious challenge I've ever had to my aesthetic sensibilities. (Are you trying to shove me into a mid-life crisis, Mr. Manos?) I hate you and I love you! (Excuse me now while I go gouge my eyes out in classical Greek fashion.) Terry Carroll, terryspictures.com
America is really a bizarre place on earth and Constantine Manos captures this madness in a fantastic way. The strong colors gives the images a surreal touch, America - one big Disneyland !

E-mail to a friend

Embed

Copy the code below and paste it into your website.
Or link to this essay on Magnum In Motion.

Add to

Add this story to one of the following services: