Lens Impressions - Photography

Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:56:00 +0000

One of my FAVOURITE Photos ...
"Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper"
by Charles C. Ebbets, click here.

I have a huge preference for street photography mostly in the documentary tradition ... and if one gives a cursory look at this blog about the photographers I've tried to learn about, most of them are of the mold of street and documentary photography!

Steve McCurry

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:53:00 +0000

"Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that you could call the human condition.” ... [~ Steve McCurry]

Steve McCurry [born 1950] ... One of the world's finest image maker in the documentary tradition ...

One of his most famous images is of "The Afghan Girl" shot in 1988 ... and again in 2002, Sharbat Gula ... it is said to be the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic magazine ... click here.

Steve McCurry has covered many international conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and of course Afghanistan. His work has been featured world-wide in magazines and he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic. He has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986.

Read more about him and check out his work ...
# Steve McCurry, photo gallery, click here.

# Steve McCurry, Magnum Photos, click here.

Personal Note: his images of India are brilliant... For me that's of special interest ...
Even after visiting India almost 75 times, i still have only scratched the surface ... " [~ Steve McCurry, Rajasthan, 1983] ...

Some names gets associated with some places ...
Phil Borges - Tibet
Edward Curtis - Native Americans
Steve McCurry - Afghanistan

Phil Borges

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Phil Borges [born 1942] ... has been a humanitarian photographer since the 1970s with his notable works being photographs of Tibetans who fled to Nepal, including the Dalai Lama.

"We are living in an era of unprecedented cultural extinction. Indigenous and tribal cultures that have survived for hundreds—sometimes thousands –of years may soon be gone. A recent study made by the linguist Ken Hale of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that 3,000 of the 6,000 languages that exist in the world today are fated to die because they are no longer spoken by the children. The implications of this fact are startling. In one generation our cultural diversity will be halved. This diversity of knowledge, imagination, and belief that has helped to provide the creativity, resiliency and strength of our species is being dismantled. The fragile oral traditions that have held an encyclopedic body of knowledge about the natural world are being lost". ... [~ Phil Borges]
Reference Phil Borges, click here.

Check out his work ...
Phil Borges, click here.

Phil Borges, photo gallery, click here.

Photographic Truths: "gray areas".

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:48:00 +0000

As straightforward as the term truth sounds ... it's a very murky term ... There's a lot of weight in the phrase, "There's two side to every story" ... so which version is true??? Thats the gray area ...

# Sun rises in east and sets in west - Universal Truth.

# But issues like acceptance of gays in mainstream culture or racial discrimination in contemporary society ... are extremely contentious issues and the truth are very subjective in nature ... For every person who claims not that he/she doesnt feel discriminated there will be another one to claim just the opposite. So whats the "truth" in these cases??? ... It differes from person to person. So the very notion that there's just one truth, does not always hold ... sometimes there are GRAY AREAS ... Sometimes there are two sides of a story ... and both are true ...

# When the truth itself is murky, how far is the notion of photographic truths valid???

# It is generally accepted that journalist / documentary photographs should not be "digitally manipulated" ... Now if we compare with WRITING with PHOTOGRAPHS ... we see that in newspaper reports the texts are EDITED... spelling and grammatical errors are corrected [with softwares like wordprocessor]... These spelling and grammatical errors are analogous to technical errors in photography, like overexposure/underexposure ... so why is photographic manipulation not accepted????

I guess the issue is of "public trust" ... the moment an image is subjected to corrections, how much has been altered becomes a question mark. The ease with which an image can be altered, in some way explains the mistrust. I guess people hold photographic images in higher standard compared to written words ... "A photo speaks a thousand words", is very accepted notion when it comes to news items ... So I guess, that's the reason why such high ethical guidelines are applied for journalistic photographs ... So it's better to leave an image with technical flaws than to lose public trust and confidence.

# But a more important issue [than editiing] is the issue of "editorializing" ... Now this is a GRAY area ...
- A news reporter can use emotionally charged language to create a subjcetive bias ..
- The positing of newsitem on a paper ... front page or innerpages is another way to bring out the importance or lack of it ...

Similarly a photographer can choose to frame his photos in a way to highlight or downplay a particular instance ... A crowd at a public meeting can be shown with a lot of crowd and lot of empty space ... there are many many such instances, where personal bias can ne added to photographs ...

So if a person is looking for absolute photographic truths, it maybe questionable at times ... But it has more to do with the nature of the word "truth" itself ... sometimes truth is subjective [like racial discrimination] ... Sometimes truth has more than one dimensions [there are many stories of police heroism as well as police brutality] ... and the whole truth emcompasses all these various dimensions ... so one image may be representative of one version of the story ... but not the whole truth ...

And if we are looking for news reports, the means at our disposal are text, painting or photographs ... and here, photographs definitely emerge as a clear winner. So despite its limitations that photographic images have; it is still the best means we have, to convey news and preserve whats happening today for the posterity ...

A very good writeup on this issue is here ... "Digital Manipulation: Responsibilities of Photojournalism", click here.

* As simple as this write-up may seem, i found it a complex issue to handle ... I was thinking about writing on this since Monday and only by Thursday I was able to organize some thoughts on my mind ... I think this topic would continue, as I am incredibly fascinated by jounalists and the professional dilemmas that they face ...

The Decisive Moment

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:45:00 +0000

I was reading a write up on Documentary Photography by John Marz ... and read a few paragraphs on Henry Cartier Bresson [HCB], that really struck a cord with me ... HCB is by far my favourite photographer ... Not only do I love his images, but also admire his ideas on photography and his most unassuming nature. Anyways ... I found a few paragraphs very very interesing ... So here's an excerpt from an article by John Marz ... "What's Documentary about photography",
click here.

EXCERPT ...
Henri Cartier-Bresson is the photojournalist who most readily embodies the classical approach. He concisely defined his pivotal concept of “the decisive moment”
“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression” [Cartier-Bresson 1999].

The “decisive moment” is essentially a metaphor for hunting, the search for that confluence of content and form that the photographer must discover and be able to catch in an instant ...
“I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to ‘trap’ life -- to preserve life in the act of living. I craved to seize, in the confines of one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”

Cartier-Bresson has been explicitly critical of directed photography:
“The fabricated photograph, or set-up, does not interest me…. There are those who make photographs that have been composed beforehand, and there are those who discover the image and capture it” . [Cartier-Bresson 1991].
Insisting that he “takes” rather than “makes” photographs, his very unobtrusiveness enables him to sneak up upon “Things-As-They-Are,” and capture the reality that he believes is far richer than imagination.

Cartier-Bresson’s respect for and interest in capturing the irreducible variations produced in the real world reflect the influence that Surrealism had over him. In speaking of Surrealism, this photojournalist is careful to insist that he was attracted to its ideas, above all ... “the role of spontaneous expression, of intuition, and especially the attitude of revolt,” ... and he distances himself from its esthetics [Cartier-Bresson 1992].

However, despite Cartier-Bresson’s rejection of Surrealist photography, his own strategy is in fact quite in keeping with the importance of the “found object” in Dada and Surrealism, for example, the urinal that Marcel Duchamp entered in a 1917 exhibit under the title of Fountain. A slice of ordinary life is picked almost at random, and acquires a new meaning by its recontextualization through the strategy of dépaysement, a well-known tactic of Surrealists that means literally to be taken out of one’s native land; hence the ordinary, torn out of a familiar context and placed in a foreign situation, which enables it to be seen in a new way.

The surreality of Cartier-Bresson’s photography is unrelated to the carefully orchestrated imagery; instead, it is expressed in the capacity to uncover facets of everyday being that go unnoticed until the photographer reveals them through a process of intuition, and a mechanical reproduction akin to automatic writing. Hunting in the street for juxtapositions whose ironic contrasts would surprise people and make them see the world with new eyes, Cartier-Bresson carried forward the Surrealist project by linking it to the photojournalist ideal of the press photographer as a predatory animal lying in wait with a small 35mm camera to capture its prey: the real/surreal, the ordinary/fantastic surprises offered by world in its infinite variety.

PERSONAL NOTE:
# I just loved the metaphor here ... of comparing the idea of "decisive moment" with that of hunting, being on a prowl, to pounce and trap life, to preserve life in the act-of-living.

# The concept of representative photo where "one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation"... [Something I should strive to achieve]

# Another line that hit me was ... "slice of ordinary life is picked almost at random, and acquires a new meaning by its recontextualization through the strategy of dépaysement" ...
Well I had to look up for the word ... "dépaysement" ... It means to "decountrify oneself" ... is defined as the experience of re-seeing. "One leaves one's own culture to face something unfamiliar, and upon returning home it has become strange -and can be seen with fresh eyes" ... [Something I've come across in surrealist paintings ... AND also ... a concept I am very familiar with]

I loved both the ideas [1] The decisive moment [hunting, being on prowl, to trap life] .... and ... [2]encapsulating events in a single representative image ... and [3] Re-seeing with fresh eyes ...

Photography from FSA

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:44:00 +0000

The photographs of the Farm Security Administration (FSA)- Office of War Information [OWI], are among the most famous documentary photographs ever produced ... These are transferred to the Library of Congress in 1944, form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1943.

It was created by a group of U.S. government photographers, and the images show Americans in every part of the nation. This U.S. government photography project was headed by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University. It engaged such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans.

The project initially documented the Resettlement Administration's cash loans to individual farmers, and the agency's construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and of migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states. As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the United States and mobilization efforts for World War II.

The core of the collection consists of about 164,000 black-and-white photographs. This release provides access to over 160,000 of these images; future additions will expand the black-and-white offering. The FSA-OWI [Office of War Information] photographers also produced about 1600 color photographs during the latter days of the project.

Reference: FSA - OWI, prints and photographs division, click here.

Street Photography, Documentary Photography and Photojournalism

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:41:00 +0000

Street Photography, Documentary Photography and Photojournalism ... These three terms often go together, but there are subtle differences ... which I think is difficult to explain or pinpoint ... but I guess is understood by most photographers ... The difference lies in the intent or objective of photographs ...

Street Photography is photography at public places ... and usually have people and is mostly candid ... capturing "slice of life" is the most used phrase with street photography ...

Documentary Photography is defined in almost the same manner [as street photography] ... It is an objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subjectmatter and most often includes pictures of people. However the attempt is to understand a particular subject matter so it's not as random as street photography.

Photojournalism ... is to tell news through images. The photos have meaning in the context of events ... and is usually combined with other news element to give the context of the imagery ...

Photojournalism works within the same ethical approaches to objectivity that are applied by other journalists ... In American they are guided by NAAP [National Press photographers Association] ... in Britain by the BPPA [British Press Photographers Association] ... Different countries have their own ethical guidelines ...

Though photography became popular in the 1840-50's; photojournalism evolved only in the 1880's ...
# Printing presses could only publish from engravings until the 1880s. Early news photographs required that photos be re-interpreted by an engraver before they could be published.
# On March 4, 1880, The Daily Graphic [New York] published the first halftone [rather than engraved] reproduction of a news photograph ...
# However the "golden age" of photojournalism is the period 1930s–1950s, when some magazines built their huge readerships and reputations largely on their use of photography ... This period photographers such as Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith became well-known names.

Here's a read on Documentary Photography and Photojournalism ...
"Documentary Practice: Stephen Ferry - Rich Potosí", click here.
An excerpt:
" So what then are the marks that define work as documentary? Perhaps fundamentally it involves thinking in terms of a project rather than in terms of simply photographing a situation. Then it means a commitment to that project in terms of time; where a photojournalist may jet in to a situation, take his pictures and be on the plane out in a matter or hours or a few days, the documentary approach may take weeks or months or years and often involve repeated visits. There is possibly a difference in the direction and approach; the photojournalist works to meet an editor's demands or because they believe the work will sell while the documentary photographer works because he or she considers the project important. Obviously no project can work without some source of finance, but for the documentary photographer this is enabling rather than determining the work. Finally there is perhaps a seriousness of purpose; photojournalism is often about trivia and celebrity froth whereas documentary tends to be more analytic and about more important matters. "

NPPA: Code of Ethics ..

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:39:00 +0000

NPPA: Code of Ethics ..
NPPA ... is National Press Photographers Association

We believe that pictures, whether used to depict news events as they actually happen, illustrate news that has happened, or to help explain anything of public interest, are indispensable means of keeping people accurately informed, that they help all people, young and old, to better understand any subject in the public domain. NPPA recognizes and acknowledges that photojournalists should at all times maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct in serving the public interest.

More on "NPPA: Code of Ethics", click here.

James Nachtwey

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:36:00 +0000

"I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated." [~ James Nachtwey]

I recommend to go through every single of these images ... "Witness", photography by James Natchway ... click here.

James Nachtwey ... another of my all time favorites ...

His photographs are a must see for everyone ... For people to know how potent a tool photography is ... to understand the true essence of the words, "A photo speaks a thousand words" ... or a photographic image is a universal language ... And to be especially seen by photographers, to realize what a brilliant tool they have in their hands ....

More images ...
"Seeing the horror", photography by James Natchway ... click here.

and more ... "The Vietnam Syndrome", photography by James Natchway ... click here.

Lee Friedlander

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:30:00 +0000

It fascinates me that there is a variety of feeling about what I do. I’m not a premeditative photographer. I see a picture and I make it. If I had a chance, I’d be out shooting all the time. You don’t have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you" ... [ -Lee Friedlander, "Documentary Photography - LIFE Library of Photography"]

Lee Friedlander [born 1934] ... An American photographer ... famous mainly for street photography. He focused on the "social landscape". His art used detached images of urban life, store-front reflections, structures framed by fences, and posters and signs all combining to capture the look of modern life.

Check out some of his images ... Lee Friedlander, click here.
click here ...

"Friedlander always worked in series: street images, flowers, trees, gardens, landscapes, nudes, the industrial and post- industrial environment, portraits, self-portraits."
reference: Lee Friedlander click here.

Garry Winogrand

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:28:00 +0000

Garry Winogrand [1928-1984] ... An American photographer and a proponent and practitioner of street photography. Garry Winogrand was influenced by Walker Evans and Robert Frank.

Check out some of his images ... Gary Winogrand, click here.

"Winogrand was known for his portrayal of America in the early 1960s and his interest in social issues of the day and in the role of media in shaping attitudes. He roamed the streets of New York with his Leica rapidly taking photographs using a prefocused wide angle lens. Often his lens would be tilted, leaving his photographs with a slanted result.

When Winogrand died of cancer, in 1984 at age 56, he left behind nearly 300,000 unedited and in many cases undeveloped images. Some of these have been exhibited posthumously and published in an exhibit catalog entitled Winogrand, Fragments from the Real World published by MOMA".

click here.

Diana Arbus

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:27:00 +0000

"Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot ... it had a terrific kind of excitement for me... Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks are born with their trauma. They've already passed it. They're aristocrats". [ ~ Diane Arbus]

Diane Arbus [1923- 1971] ... was an American photographer noted for her portraits of people on the fringes of the society. A central feature of many Arbus pictures is relationships or their dysfunction.

Check out some of her photos ... click here.

New Documents Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:26:00 +0000

The New Documents Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art [MOMA] New York, held in 1967 was conceived by John Szarkowski. It featured the works of:
Diana Arbus
Lee Friedlander
Garry Winogrand

Szarkowski siad of the photographers ...
"Their aim has been not to reform life but to know it. Not to persuade but to understand".

These photographers were greatly influenced by Walker Evans and Robert Frank ... and their respective publications ... "American Photographs" [Walker Evans] ... and "The Americans" [Robert Frank]...

Robert Frank

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:21:00 +0000

"When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice ... " Robert Frank

Check out some of his photos ... click here.

Robert Frank born 1924 in Zurich, Switzerland. He's an important figure in American photography and films. His most famous work is a photographic book titles "The Americans" published in 1958. It's a result of his road-trip for two years, where he took 28,000 shots of which 83 were selected for the book, but he could not find a publisher in the USA. He took it to Robert Delpiré in France, who had to threaten to resign to get it published as 'Les Americains'.

Following this it was published a year later in America with an introduction by Jack Kerouac. The Americans is now recognised as one of the classic photography books of the century. It built on the acheivement of Walker Evans (one of Frank's supporters for his Guggenheim application) in American Photographs, and was in some respects modelled on this other great work.

His photographs are on post-war period that depicts an outsider view of American society. "He documented the tensions between the optimism of the 1950s and the realities of class and racial differences. The irony that Frank found in the gloss of American culture and wealth over this tension gave his photographs a clear contrast to those of most contemporary American photojournalists..."

"It was not only the subject matter, but also the style of his photography which at first shocked, and then imposed itself. He broke all the rules. His photos are shadowy and grainy, taken from unconventional angles, with blurred focus, techniques that capture the dislocation and alienation of his subjects.

The faces are often enough unrecognisable, in shadow, or in the glare of light. His people don't belong but are simply passing through - in buses, in lunch counters or cheap stores, or going down the street to get somewhere else."
Reference: Robert Frank, click here.

"My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished.” - Robert Frank

Walker Evans

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:17:00 +0000

"Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts". [~ Walker Evans]

Walker Evans [1903-1975] An american photographer... portraying a realistic view of the poverty-stricken rural south, revolutionized the standards of documentary photography.

Check out some of his photos ... click here.

"Walker Evans: America Photographs" was held in Museum of Modern art [MOMA] New York. it was the first exhibit in this museum devoted to the work of a single photographer.

He is best known for his work for Farm Security administration [FSA]. In 1935-36 he created a series of images of plantation houses in Mississippi and Louisiana, complemented by photographs of US Civil War Monument. In late 1930's he famously used hidden camera to photograph commuters in New York subway. In 1940-50 he worked for Time and Fortune magazines.

"Evans's contribution was rooted in an attention to the everyday: small-town main streets, modes of transportation, the American people themselves, the places they called home, and the monuments that told their history, as well as the signs and storefronts that advertised and sold the products they used.... Together these photographs suggest a consistency in representing American visual culture and are the foundation of the American photographic tradition that continues today.
Reference: Walker Evans: Before and After, click here.

"The camera is merely a tool, like a pen or a paintbrush, and it too, expresses the intentions of its possessor. This being said, Evans' talent was his ability to make images that speak for themselves. Evans photgraphs seem to exist as historical moments in time, hard-edged facts--not interpretations; thus the viewer responds to the image itself--to the contents within it--not to the photographer's construction of it." Reference: Walker Evans, click here.

Eugene Atget

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:15:00 +0000

Eugène Atget (1857‑1927) ... A French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris.

Check out some of his photos ... click here.

Though Atget was not well known during his lifetime, his visual record of a vanishing world has become an inspiration for twentieth-century photographers. American expatriate photographers Man Ray and Berenice Abbott rescued his work from obscurity just before his death. Abbott preserved his prints and negatives, and was the first person to publish and exhibit Atget's work outside of France. Many existing prints of Atget's images were, in fact, made by Abbott in the 1930s from his negatives.

Reference: click here.

Robert Capa

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:11:00 +0000

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." - Bob Capa.

Robert Capa [1913 - 1954] the Hungarian photographer is perhaps the best known of World War-II combat photographers. He has taken many D-Day photographs that have become classics ... Check out some of his WW-II photos ... click here.

Some more of his photographs ... click here.

His photogrphs of the Spanish Civil War the "most eerinly fascinating" of all war photographs ... the death of Spanish loyalist militiamen Federick Borrell Garcia, "The Falling Soldier" ... It is also a controversial photo, read more about it .... click here.

In 1954, he agreed to supply Life with photos of escalating conflict between french and VietMinh in indochina. While attemting to go close as possible he stepped on a landmine and was killed at the age of 40.

Helmut Newton

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:06:00 +0000

My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.” [~ Helmut Newton]

"It's that I don't like white paper backgrounds. A woman does not live in front of white paper. She lives on the street, in a motor car, in a hotel room." [ ~ Helmut Newton]

Helmut Newton [1920- 2004] ... one of the most influential and most copied fashion photographer of the 20th century! ... He worked for magazines like Vogue, Playboy, Elle, Marie-Claire ... he worked for/with YSL, Loris Azzaro, Pierre Cardin, Tom Ford [Gucci], Karl Lagerfeld [Chanel], Jean Paul Gaultier ... and photographerd top models like Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Monica Bellucci, Marlene Dietrich, Ava Gardner ...

Check out some of his photos ... click here ....
and here... ... [click on the left side at the film-rolls!]

His style is often described with terms as ... "dark erotic", "sado- masochistic", "fetishistic", "porno-chic", "surreal" ... He showed gorgeous women in immaculate make-up, heavy jewellery and vicious stiletto heels, at exotic locations - to create a unique imaginative world. He introduced elements of violence by featuring semi-nude models photographed from the rear holding pistols, knives discreetly hidden from their beaus behind their backs. His notoriety/fame increased in the 1980's with his “Big Nudes” series … consisting large format photographs of naked women. It is considered as "pinnacle of erotic urban style underpinned with excellent technical skills".

"People gave us everything for free. We were allowed only so much film per picture, but there was no limit to the creativity. I like to say that they let us loose like wild dogs in the streets of Paris." [~ Helmut Newton]

Helmut Newton was also a friend and photographer of surrealist Salvador Dali. They both died on the same date, 23rd January. Salvador Dali died in Spain due to old age. Newton crashed with his car in Hollywood exactly 15 years later. A unique coincidence!!!

Ralph Gibson

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:03:00 +0000

Ralph Gibson [born 1939] an American art photographer ... is known for his high contrast pictures. He usually focusses on one geometric element ... like a single human gesture [the curve of a hand] ... or the corner of a room ... he formes a kind of dream narrative ...

Ralph Gibson, fashion photography, click here.

Ralph Gibson Gallery, click here

Edward Weston

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:57:00 +0000

Edward Weston ... [1886-1958] An American photographer and co-founder of Group f/64. He is regarded as one of the masters of 20th century photography ...

"He raised images to the level of poetry" ... Check out some of his images ...

[1] Edward Weston images ... click here.
[2] Edward Weston ... click here.

Ansel Adams on Weston ...
"Weston is, in the real sense, one of the few creative artists of today. He has recreated the matter-forms and forces of nature; he has made these forms eloquent of the fundamental unity of the world. His work illuminates man's inner journey toward perfection of the spirit."

Read more about Edward Weston, click here.

Personal Note ... I love his "Pepper", "Eggplant" and "Shell" images ... and his nudes are very very artistic!!!!

Masters of Street Photograpphy

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:33:00 +0000

My favourite photographer is definitely Henry Cartier Bresson ...

[1] Henry Cartier Bresson [1908-2004]
A French photographer called the "father of modern photojournalism". A master of candid photography and has greatly influenced the development of "street photography" ...
Check out his work ... Henry Cartier Bresson, click here.
and more ... click here.

[2] Andre Kertesz [1894-1985]
He had a profound influence on the world of photography, particularly in France where he was a mentor to photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and Brassai. Cartier-Bresson acknowledged his achievements when he said ... "Whatever we have done, Kertesz did it first"
Check out his work ... Andre Kertesz, click here.

[3] Alfred Stieglitz [1864-1946]
American photographer who was instrumental in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture ...
Check out his work ... Alfred Stieglitz, click here.

[4] Paul Strand [1890-1976]
An American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century ...
Check out his work ... Paul Strand, click here.

[5] W. Eugene Smith [1918-1978]
American photojournalist most famous for his brutally vivid World War-II and post-war photographs ... He perfected photo-essays which was a series images on a topic like ...
- "Country Doctor" (1948) photo essay on Dr. Ernest Ceriani in the small Colorado town of Kremmling. Credited as the first "photo story" of the modern photojournalism age.
- "Spanish Village" (1950) photo essay on the small Spanish town of Deleitosa
- "A Man of Mercy" (1954) photo essay on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa.
- "Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath" (1971) the centrepiece photograph in Minamata, a long-term photo essay by Smith on the effects of mercury poisoning in the fishing village of Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan...
and many others such photo-essays ...
Check out his work ... W Eugene Smith, click here.

[6] Alfred Eisenstaedt [1898-1995]
Better known as "Eisie" ... was a German-American photographer and photojounalist ... also called the "father of photojournalism". He perfected certain techniques for capturing the spontaneous moment that has given us some of our most enduring photographic images. he came to be known to millions worldwide through his work for LIFE Magazine, which he joined as one of the first four staff photographers in 1935 ...
Check out his work ... Alfred Eisenstaedt,
click here ... and here.

[7] Margaret Burke-White [1904-1971]
An American photojournalist, she was the first woman accredited by the U.S. Army as a war correspondent and crossed the German border with Patton's troops. She was also one of the first photographers to enter and document death camps. Her photos were so compelling that Life published them, breaking the tradition of avoiding the horrific aspects of the war. "The Living Dead of Buchenwald" became a classic. After the war, she was sent to India, where she took one of her most famous photographs, Gandhi at His Spinning Wheel. From 1949 to 1953, she photographed life in South Africa under apartheid, as well as the Korean War.
Check out her work ... Margaret Burke White,
click here ...
...
To continue ...
There are many more to add like ... Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winograd and more ...

Trend Setters

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:31:00 +0000

Henry Cartier Bresson [1908 - 2004] The famous French photographer, whose name is synonymous with street photography .... His candid street photography style still infleunces photographers worldwide ... made famous the words "decisive moment"...

W Eugene Smith [1918 - 1978] An American photo-jounalist who started the trend of photo-essay , that is, a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer ...

Alfred Eisenstaedt [1898 - 1995] German-American photographer better known as Eisie is called the father of photojournalism ... He shot over 80 "Life" covers. his work is described as 'easy looking', both easy to look at, and stunning in the apparent simplicity of his approach. It was popular rather than highbrow.... His most famous work is the "The V-J Day Kiss".

William Egglestone [ born 1939] An American photographer ... pioneer of modern day color photography ... he is credited with securing the recognition of color-photography as legitimate artistic medium in art galleries.

* In 1914, the "National Geographic" was the first magazine to produce color photographs ...

Dr. Harold Edgerton [1903 - 1990]... An American photographer ... invented high-speed stroboscopic photography ... He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device seen in nearly every camera ... Famous for images like
- A bullet through an apple ...
- A droplet of milk that looks like a clown ...
His work was featured in an October 1987 National Geographic Magazine article entitled, "Doc Edgerton: the man who made time stand still."

Robert Mapplethrope [1946 - 1989] An American photographer ... very controversial ... Noted for his flowers and male nudes ... His works stirred debates about government funding of questionable "art"!

Phil Borges [born 1942] - Famous for photographs of Tibet and Dalai Lama ..

Edward Curtis [1868 - 1952] - Famous for photographs of Native Americans ...

The American Civil War [1861-65] was the first war to be throughly recorded by photographs ....

World famous photos - II

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:04:00 +0000

Continuation of my previous post ... The previous post was 15 of my choice, but there's links to more of world famous photos ...

[1] "Life" - The Digital Journalist ... click here.

[2] Newday.com ... The world in photographs ... click here.

[3] World's Famous Photos ... click here.

World Famous Photos - I ....

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:03:00 +0000

This post is entirely of reference materials ... My only contribution is compiling them ... They have been in my favourites link for a long time ... and I thought about organizing them ...

[1] "Earthrise" ... click here.
Photographer: It was taken on the Apollo 8 mission ... by crewman William Anders ...
The shot was taken in December 1968.

"Oh my God, look at that picture over there! Here's the Earth coming up!" .. ... The Apollo 8 mission had put humans into lunar orbit for the very first time. Until then, no human eyes had seen the far side of the Moon. Virtually all of the photographs scheduled for the Apollo 8 mission were to do with capturing high resolution images of the lunar surface - both of the far side and of potential landing sites on the near side. The 'Earthrise' photograph was not on the mission schedule and was taken in a moment of pure serendipity.

These days protecting enviornment is a widely discussed issue ... But not in those days ... This image showed our entire world as a small and blue and very finite globe, and made people aware how fragile our earth is. It is often said to be one of the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.

[2] "The Tetons and the Snake River" ... click here ...
Photographer: Ansel Adams in 1942.

At the time when photography was not widely accepted an art form. Rather, photographers attempted to make their pictures more "artistic" (i.e., more like paintings) by subjecting their exposures to all sorts of extreme manipulations ... Then came Ansel Adams, who espoused that photography is "a blazing poetry of the real". Adams eschewed manipulations, claiming they were simply derivative of other art forms. Instead, he preached the value of "pure photography." In an era when handheld point-and-shoot cameras were quickly becoming the norm, Adams and other landscape photographers clung to their bulky, old-fashioned large-format cameras. Ultimately, Adams’ pictures turned photography into fine art. Also, he greatly contributed to how Americans view the wilderness ...

[3] V-J Day, "The Kiss" ... click here ...
Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt
Photo taken on August 14, 1945 ...

Not as romantic as it seems ... On August 14, 1945, when the news of Japan’s surrender was announced in the United States, signaling the end of World War II ... celebrations broke out on the streets ... A sailor was running around and grabbing any and every girl in sight, whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old .. it didnt make any difference. However it was this shot of him with an attractive nurse has become one the most famous symbols of that day!!!

This shot is not staged, as against the other famous kiss shot "Kiss by the Hotel de Ville" which was staged ...

[4] "Man versus Tank" ... click here ...

Photographer: Charlie Cole [a contract photographer for Newsweek magazine]
Photo taken on June 4, 1989 in Beijing, China.
Declared World Press Photo of the Year, 1989.

A demonstrator [widely known as "Unknown Rebel" ] confronts a line of People's Liberation Army [PLA] tanks during Tiananmen Square demonstrations for democratic reform. The man stood alone in the middle of the road as the tanks approached. He held a jacket in one hand and a grocery bag in another. As the tanks came to a stop, he appeared to be trying to wave them away ...

Trying to control his breath and steady his shots Cole thought "If this kid's going to give his life in protest I have a responsibility to nail the shot."

[5] "The Saigon Execution" ... click here ...
Photographer: Eddie Adams [ of the Assossiated Press] ...
Photo taken on Feb 1, 1968.
This shot won him Pulitzer Prize in 1969 ...

This photograph showing South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer Viet Cong Captain Nguyen Van Lem ...in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. Adams' photograph remains the defining image ... When this photograph was shown on television and on the front pages of newspapers around the world, it created an immediate revulsion at a seemingly gratuitous act of savagery in the Vietnam War.

[6] "Napalm girl of Trangbang" ... click here ...
Photographer: Huynh Cong Ut [Also known as Nick Ut. ... of the Associated Press]
Photo taken on June 8, 1972.
This photograph that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

Kim Phuc Phan Thi, center, running down a road near Trang Bang, Vietnam, after a napalm bomb was dropped on the village of Trang Bang by a plane of the Vietnam Air Force. The village was suspected by US Army forces of being a Viet Cong stronghold. Kim Phuc survived by tearing off her burning clothes.

[7] "Vulture stalks the emaciated child" ... click here ...
Photographer: Kevin Carter ... freelance photographer ...
Photo taken in 1993.
He won Pulitzer prize for the photo in 1994.

The haunting photo of a vulture stalking an emaciated Sudanese girl who'd collapsed on her way to a feeding station. He said that he waited about 20 minutes, hoping that the vulture would spread its wings. It didn't. Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away. However, he also came under heavy criticism for just photographing — and not helping — the little girl. He won the Pulitzer prize , but soon after that he committed suicide at the age of 33.

[8] "The Power of One" ... click here ...
Photographer: Oded Balilty [of the Associated Press]...
This photo won the Pulitzer prize in 2007.

A lone Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces as they remove illegal settlers in the West Bank

[9] "How Life Begins" ... click here ...
Photographer: Lennart Nilsson in 1965 ...

One of the first pictures taken with the endoscope. It shows a fetus in a pregnant woman. The picture was considered many years the symbol of humanity.

[10] "Born Twice" ... click here ...
Photographer: Max Aguilera-Hellweg
Photo taken on May 21, 1999.

"Fetal hand grasp" ... Picture of unborn child holding doctor's hand during a fetal operation ... Read the story along the photo in the link ...

[11] "Burning Monk, Self-Immolation" ... click here ...
Photographer: Malcolm Browne
Photograph taken on June 11, 1963.
This photo was declared the "World Press photo of the Year" ...

Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963. The monk was protesting President Ngô Đình Diệm's administration for oppressing the Buddhist religion ...

I should add three controversial photos here ... which I had mentioned earlier in the article ... [controversial] Documentary Photography -II ... click here ...
[1] Raising Flag on Iwo Jima
[2] Kiss by the Hotel de Ville
[3] Migrant Mother ...

For more world famous photos ... click here ...

Photography - An Art!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Jyoti) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:02:00 +0000

In the late 19th century when photography was becoming increasingly popular, there was a huge backlash by artists and critics who scorned, scoffed, sneered and decried at the labeling/designating photography as an art-form. They argued that the camera-work was so precise and believable that it left no room left for “artistic interpretation”, which is a defining characteristic of art ... And since photography is machine-made ... it does not have the same status than other man-made art-forms like paintings.

Many photographers took innovative measures to establish photography as art-form. To demonstrate that artistic sensitivity, imagination and individual style were possible with camera ... many photographers began manipulating the photographic process ... Thus in late 19th century, a trend emerged where photographers started "imitating paintings" of their time ... They favored darkroom techniques to get some control over the results they desired to achieve using innovative techniques like …

[1] Softening and blurring parts of photographs during printing process to achieve softness of the paintings ...
[2] Another approach was applying a needle directly to negatives and scratching pencil-like lines or shading around figures ...
[3] Some even used multiple negatives to produce prints ...

Adherents of these techniques photography came to be known as “pictorials”. Most of the pictorialists favored subject-matter made popular by impressionist painters like hazy landscapes, nudes, and groups of children playing around ...

But then some photographers like “Henry Peter Emerson” denounced the approach of the pictorials. Emerson believed that photography was an art form as legitimate as painting … But was against the techniques used by pictorials. He advocated that photographers should “rely only on naturally occurring effects of light and subject, never resorting to contrived costuming or hand retouching of the print”. He emerged as an advocate of “straight photography” … and believed that photographic images should not be tampered with or subjected to handwork, or it looses its integrity …

Two most prominent names associated with straight photography are of:
[1] Alfred Stieglitz ... [and his "Photo Secessions"]
[2] Ansel Adams .... [and his "Group f/64"]
* Terms "Photo Secession" and "Group f/64" ... elaborated in the previous post!!!

In the struggle for securing a place for photography in the art-world, the most important name is of Alfred Stieglitz . He probably did more than any other individual to get photography recognized as art-form and at the same level as other arts.

Stieglitz was insistent that "photographs should look like photographs" ... only then the medium of photography would be considered with its own aesthetic credo and so would separate photography from other fine arts such as painting. This approach by Stieglitz gained the term "STRAIGHT photography".

Stieglitz early styles, methods, and subjects encompassed soft-focus Pictorialist photographs or images etched into printing plates directly from the negatives ... But in his late career, Stieglitz was known for sharp-focus "straight" photography, and found plenty of subjects by looking out his New York City high-rise window or walking around his summer home. In 1902 he founded "Photo-Secessions" with a group of talented avant-garde artists. In 1905 he directed the Photo-Secession Gallery in 291 Fifth Avenue, New York ... A gallery that came to be known as the "291", and exhibited not only the work of contemporary photographers, but also works of the most celebrated painters like Picasso, Rodin, Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec ... and thus after a long struggle photography was earned the status of an art!!!

* Stieglitz was the first photographer to be recognized as an artist by American museums, beginning in 1924 when the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acquired a set of photographs directly from the artist.

Another prominent name associated with "straight photography" is that of Ansel Adams ... Adams was the co-founder of Group f/64, a movement based on loyalty to "straight photography", in reaction against pictorialism .... He eschewed soft-focus lenses and impressionistic, diffused images ... for sharp-focus, documentary style photographs. He advocated the use of "previsualization" .... that the image must first be created in the mind's eye and that the photographer should know exactly what the picture will look like before he ever shoots the picture ... he developed a processs called "zone system" to produce an image that had beautiful rich black tones, and a large tonal range (grays) that made these prints stand out. Thus Ansel adams pushed the envelop of straight photography ...

* The terms, "Group f/64" , "Photo secessions" and "Pictorials" ... are elaborated in the earlier post!!!

Reference: "Alfred Stieglitz", click here ....