The Sundance Channel has several documentaries on photographers this week.

Monday, March 3

7:00 PM EST – Tina Barney: Social Studies

Born into an exclusive world of wealth and privilege, photographer Tina Barney has made a career capturing America’s gentrified East Coast upper classes in revealing large-scale color portraits. Sometimes called the “Diane Arbus of the rich,” Barney herself is profiled in this documentary portrait by filmmaker Jaci Judelson. Cameras follow Barney while engaged in a new project: a series of images capturing the lives of Europe’s aristocrats, at home in their lavish city apartments, partying and at their country estates.

8:00 PM EST – Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project

Documentary filmmakers Jack Youngelson and Peter Sutherland present a sympathetic profile of Tierney Gearon, an American model-turned-photographer whose surreal, vividly colored snapshots of family life became the center of a scandal when they were exhibited in London in 2001. Delving into the personal dynamics that partly inspired Gearon’s compelling images, Youngelson and Sutherland follow the photographer at work as she interacts with her children and her manic-depressive, schizophrenic mother, who figure prominently in her work.

Tuesday, March 4

7:00 PM EST – Saving Jazz

Since the 1940s, photographer Herman Leonard has created the definitive visual history of jazz, with classic images of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and hundreds of other music icons. However, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Leonard’s studio, darkroom and part of his photographic archive were badly damaged by eight feet of water. This documentary by Leslie Woodhead follows the 82-year-old photographer on his painful return home and his efforts to rebuild his life’s work. With Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett and others.

8:00PM EST – Helmut Newton: My Life

Helmut Newton was one of the most renowned and controversial fashion photographers of the past half-century. His shocking mix of chic decadence with haute couture changed the look of glossy magazines around the world, while earning him accusations of sexism and perversity. Shortly before his death at age 83, Newton collaborated with documentary filmmaker Gero von Boehm on this humorous and revealing biographical profile. In Monte Carlo, Los Angeles and Berlin, Newton talks about his life, influences and unquenchable obsession with photography.

Wednesday, March 5

7:00 PM EST – Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye

onsidered by many the greatest photographer of the 20th Century, Henri Cartier-Bresson was also notorious for not wanting to be photographed or interviewed on camera. Shortly before Cartier-Bresson’s death at age 95 in 2004, documentary filmmaker Heinz Bütler interviewed the man who defined “the decisive moment” and recorded reflections and anecdotes from a lifetime shooting images in remote locales around the globe. Supplemented by many of Cartier-Bresson’s iconic images and contributions from Arthur Miller, Isabelle Huppert and others.

8:15 PM EST – William Eggleston in the Real World

During the past three decades, William Eggleston has emerged as one of America’s most influential photographers. Critically celebrated for his color images of seemingly banal subjects, and hailed by some as the heir to Walker Evans’s artistic muse, the laconic and reclusive Memphis native receives a surprisingly intimate examination from filmmaker Michael Almereyda (NADJA and 2000’s HAMELT starring Ethan Hawke.) Almereyda presents a rare cinematic encounter, in which one artist salutes another. “Subtle, elegant” – Village Voice.

Thursday, March 6

7:00 PM EST – Peter Beard: Scrapbooks from Africa and Beyond

Renowned for his magnificent images of Africa’s landscape and wildlife, his collage diaries and his commercial fashion shoots, photographer Peter Beard comes into focus in this documentary profile by Guillaume Bonn and Jean-Claude Luyat. Beard’s life and half-century career has been divided between remote African locales and fashionable cosmopolitan circles, where he has counted among his friends Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Francis Bacon and Mick Jagger. A rare and engrossing portrait of one of the world’s last artist-adventurers.

8:00 PM EST – Stars by Helmut Newton

s renowned for his striking portraits as for his shocking and iconoclastic fashion photography, the late Helmut Newton created a gallery of iconic images that pictorially defined the best-known supermodels, Hollywood stars and artists of the last three decades. Filmmaker Julian Benedikt explores this aspect of Newton’s career as many noted celebrities who sat before Newton’s lens — including Claudia Schiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Jodie Foster, Robert Evans, Billy Wilder, Marianne Faithful and David Lynch — reflect on Newton’s work and his legacy.

Friday, March 7

7:00 PM EST – Tina in Mexico

Pioneering photographer, silent-film star, model, muse to artists and writers, revolutionary — the tempestuous life of Tina Modotti (1896 – 1942) could easily be confused with a novelist’s creation. Documentary filmmaker Brenda Longfellow tells the story of Tina’s time in Mexico, where she was Edward Weston’s assistant and lover, modeled for Diego Rivera, became passionately involved in leftist causes and created some of the most beautiful and iconic photographs of the 20th century. “Graceful and elegiac” — Toronto Globe and Mail.

8:30 PM EST – Black, White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe

During the ’70s and ’80s, two of the most influential figures in American photography were maverick photographer-provocateur Robert Mapplethorpe and his aristocratic patron and lover Sam Wagstaff. Overshadowed by the fame and notoriety of his protégé, Wagstaff receives due recognition in James Crump’s rich documentary as a visionary curator and collector whose aesthetic passions pioneered the acceptance of photography as a serious art form. Contributing reflections on the pair and their era are Patti Smith, Dominick Dunne and John Richardson.

(Descriptions provided by SundanceChannel.com)

About the author

Kevin Michael Reed
Kevin Michael Reed (Google+, Facebook) is a fashion & beauty photographer and producer/director based in New York City and Los Angeles, CA. He is the President/CEO of RedFOG Visual Media, a production company in New York City, and a partner in Passion of Photography, Inc, a company dedicated to teaching photographers and sharing our passion through charitable causes. Kevin has lectured and hosted workshops throughout the United States and the world teaching photographers the business and creative sides of photography. (Kevin's Fashion & Beauty Photography Portfolio can be seen here).

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