Category: Essay on Photographer (Page 2 of 3)

Photo Essay – Jeeniya Dewan

May 21, 2022 / Jeeniya Dewan / 0 Comments

Jeeniya Dewan

Photo Essay

Helen Levitt was a remarkable photographer and cinematographer who captured organic moments in time. Levitt, a Brooklyn native, is well known for her spontaneous photographs and expert capture of street scenery. Drawing inspiration from her own surroundings, many of the photos were taken in working class neighborhoods of New York City, displaying an introspective into everyday life. Ultimately, this became an integral component to future street photographers to emulate and inspire the genre itself. Levitt stated, she wanted to capture life just as she viewed it. This opens a new visual world of surreal photography.

Levitt was born on August 31^st, 1913, in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Her parents were Russian – Jewish immigrants. As a child, she studied different artforms such as dance, music, and film. She drew inspiration from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. This is where the essence of her theme came to be as she had a deep appreciation of human movement. She educated herself through reading publications and visiting exhibitions, commonly finding herself in the works of Ben Shahn and Henri Cartier Bresson, who were also street photographers. Soon after, she worked as a part time art teacher in Spanish Harlem. During this period, she noticed and gained an appreciation on stoop life, sidewalks, and the walls of the city. The idea sparked that she’d document life around her and so she began her photography career at the age of eighteen, assisting in a portrait studio in the Bronx.

She was successful in fruitfully capturing moments of everyday life. One of my favorite photographs by Levitt is a black and white photograph taken in the summer of 1939 in New York City. I have gained an appreciation of this photograph because it shows a simple moment with many compositional elements and emotion. The image displays a wet working-class neighborhood with kids lounging on the stoop of a building. The fire hydrants are opened to provide a refreshing and cool spray for the neighborhood during a hot summer day. The subject (the toddler) displays dissatisfaction and annoyance, so it runs to its mother. Levitt’s decision to shoot at an eyelevel brings an overall balance because the point of view is straight forward. The lighting in the background creates a foggy cast in which creates movement with the eye. The lighting also touches the reflections on the ground. The side light on the subjects generates obvious shadows which contrast the lightness in the background. Levitt is trying to show the everyday mundane moments through her lens, and we see the people in the picture simply being present. This goes back to why she was so passionate about street photography and used it to show the rawness and true nature of everyday life. I truly connect to this photo because it reminds me of time in summer of 2003 where there was a heat wave along with a blackout. It pushed the kids in my building and our guardians to spend the day outside playing and mingling, many for the first time by the cooling spray from the hydrant.

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Avar He Zapata Essay

May 20, 2022 / Avar He Zapata / 0 Comments

O. Winston Link (1914 – 2001) was an American photographer who was commonly known for his pictures and sound recordings of steam locomotives in their final years before their decommission. As a teenager, Link developed an interest for photography and train locomotives in rail yards. During the great depression, he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn with a degree in civil engineering. He took on the job as a photographer for a public relations firm, and it was then that his lifelong career in photography began.

When he began taking photos at the Norfolk & Western railway during the late 1950s, he notice that taking photos at night prove to be a lot better than taking daytime pictures since the black and white photos at the time came out looking dirty and grey. The nighttime shots gave the subjects in his pictures a clearer look with the smaller light sources in front of a totally black background. This being the 1950s however, meant that owning a car was in popularity, so no one was really interested in trains from the decades prior, but this didn’t seem to stop Link, as he continued to take more photos of trains at night, and other pictures of trains passing by drive-in movie theaters, and crossing a bridge above children bathing.

I chose this photographer because I also have an interest for trains. After looking through a handful of his sample works, I really like the way how his pictures look at night. You are really able to see the trains and the steam that they produce. In a dark environment with minimal light sources, the subjects that accompany the image, and the lack of color, it makes for some stunning visuals for its time.

Swimming Pool (Welch, West Virginia) 1958

This picture above was taken at a public swimming pool in Welch, West Virginia. Perhaps it was shot from one corner of the pool or at a certain spot where the photographer can’t be seen. As for the stuff that we see in this photo however, we see the nighttime image of a steam train passing by in the background while the foreground consists of a public swimming pool. Perhaps there’s a party going on or the pool is open after hours. In the pool we see a bunch of youth hanging about, like any other young social groups at the time. We see people chatting at the sides of the pool and some people swimming too.

What strikes me about this very photo (and a few others as well), is how Link captures shots of trains in certain activities or scenarios. Like I said before, some of his photos or of shots of trains passing by drive-in movie theaters, or kids playing in the lake while a train passes on a bridge above. To some viewers, they might find this to be a bit confusing, trying to compare the train and the public swimming pool. But the convenience of it all makes for a pretty unique picture.

How I can relate to this picture is that it shows what life was like back in those times. Considering that this was in the late 1950s, about more than a decade since the second world war ended, you really see that some parts of the world are slowly healing from the destruction that was caused. If you were to briefly set aside all of the racial and political conflicts the United States was going through at the time, you can genuinely see that people just want to have a good time. This would’ve been our grandparent’s generation in their younger years (baby boomers), and I think that’s what the photographer was trying to show. The youth generation of that time period showing their good side; just wanting to have a good time, even if it’s to the expense of the old phasing out, or the fear of missing on how things use to be. In the end of the day, every generation has its renewal.

I think a great use of juxtaposition and background/foreground relationships are being used here. When we look at this photo, there’s practically a bunch of stuff going on like the fact there’s a public swimming pool right next to a railroad. We try to look at the train but the people in the pool distracts us in a way. I mean, don’t you ever wonder why they would even construct a town swimming pool right next to active train tracks? What happens if something got lost on the other side, or if the smoke of the trains can pollute the pool? Doesn’t the train just cause a loud ruckus when some people just want the peace of silence? But I guess that’s just the juxtaposition of it all, that some people I guess enjoy the scenery of a train passing while you’re playing in the pool. It’s not uncommon for trains to pass by parks or attractions at any given time of day or night.

This is Linkous Park Pool. This is what the location looks like today.

Photo Essay – Sally Mann by Olivia VanBuskirk

May 18, 2022 / Olivia / 1 Comment

Sally Mann was born on May 1st, 1951 in Lexington, Virginia. Mann was introduced to photography by her father, Robert S. Munger, at the age of sixteen. She attended The Putney School then continued her education at Bennington College and Friends World College, ultimately earning her BA and MA in creative writing from Hollins College in 1975. Despite having no training in photography, Mann began working as a photographer at Washington and Lee University after graduating from Hollins College. Soon after beginning her work as a photographer, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC published a collection of photos Mann took of the construction of Washington and Lee University’s new law building, Lewis Hall. Mann then began releasing books featuring her photography which include Second Sight, At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, Immediate Family, and many more, the latest being released in 2018. Over the course of her career, Mann has earned a number of awards, an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree, and has been inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.

I chose to learn more and look further into the works of Sally Mann because I found her journey to her career very interesting and the work she has honed in on is different from a lot of photography I have seen. I admire how far she has come in photography despite never studying or training in photography. I think it is inspiring to excel in a craft without any training or degrees in that particular field behind it. Overall, I found Sally Mann to be an inspiration, especially for young, creative women and I found her work to have a dark and rich story behind them.

The photo I have chosen by Sally Mann is from her book Twelve: Portraits of Young Women. What I initially noticed about the photo was the house, porch furniture, and how small it is. I realized it is actually a shed designed to look like a house, these are common in the suburbs which gives context as to where this photograph was taken. Next thing my eyes were drawn to was the young girl standing in the doorway of the shed on one leg with her arm stretched upwards against the door. I then noticed the tall figure of a man in a suit standing behind the young girl with his arm stretched out in front of her, gripping her arm. When I noticed the man, I was taken by surprise and it made me study the image further. The girl does not have a particular emotion as she stares forward at the camera furrowing her brows. I believe Mann is showing us the control this mysterious and sinister man has on this young girl which is a common struggle women face and one I can relate to. It is conveying the power many men seek to have over women in many ways from domestic situations to the rights being stripped away from women to this day. The photo itself is compositionally stunning to me, the strong contrast of brightness and darkness is very present and the frame of the photo is tight around the frame of the shed. I also notice that the photo is taken at the same eye-level as the young girl which I believe was a deliberate choice so the viewer stares directly at her. I enjoy the work of Sally Mann thoroughly and I find this particular photo to be stunning.

Photographer Essay – Harry Chen

May 14, 2022 / HarryChen / 0 Comments

Harry Chen

Photographer: Elliott Erwitt

Elliot Erwitt was born on July 26, 1928, Paris, France. He is a French-born American photographer and filmmaker known for his humorous and ironic photography. He moved to the United States when he was ten years old and enrolled in Los Angeles City College to study photography and filmmaking. While working as an assistant photographer he got the opportunity to meet well-known photographers like Roy Stryker, Robert Capa and Edward Steichen. He was hired by Stryker to work on a project for Standard Oil Company. This gave him the experience to start his freelancing career, where he worked with Magnum Photos. In 1960, he served as Magnum’s president for three years and later went into film in the 1970s-1980s and produced eighteen comedy films for HBO.

I chose Elliot Erwitt as the photographer to write about because I admire his work and thought his photos were unique. His collection mainly consists of black and white photos which I prefer. I enjoy looking at the high contrast of light and shadows. In his work he incorporates a lot of humor making his photos very fun and entertaining to look at. He also captures photos that are emotive and seems effortless. Erwitt pays a lot of attention to details and the timing of his photos. I felt that he knew how to have fun with photography and wanted to make others smile with his photos.

The photo I chose to write about is Empire State Building. New York City. 1955. While looking through Elliot Erwitt’s gallery of photos this one stood out to me the most. In the photo you can see a woman behind a fence looking through the fog of buildings and the empire state building is the only building that stands out. When I first saw this image, I felt like she was trapped and was yearning for something. As I did my research, I found a quote related to the meaning of the image. “In life’s saddest winter moments, when you’ve been under a cloud for weeks, suddenly a glimpse of something wonderful can change the whole complexion of things, your entire feeling. The kind of photography I like to do, capturing the moments, is very much like that break in the clouds. In a flash, a wonderful picture seems to come out of nowhere.” I felt like I could relate to this quote because during times when I am feeling down, there is always a moment that breaks the bad times and things get better. Elliot uses a contrast of light and dark in the foreground and background to create a sense of depth of field and distance. Erwitt happened to also take this photo during a foggy day in New York City which also helped with giving that sense of distance. He chose to not center the subject and empire state building, making the picture asymmetrical and feel more dynamic. The positioning of the subject also uses the golden ratio, making our eyes drawn to the woman in the photo.

Essay on Photographer

May 5, 2022 / Noahjh518 / 1 Comment

Aaron Siskind

There’s many great Photographers out in the world, some that have many elements that showcase what they love in their own photos and how you know it’s their photos as well. When it comes to Aaron Siskind his photos are very different from the average landscape or self portrait photos that most photographers take because his style is more in the world of abstract art where he uses lots of Black and White to his advantage and close ups of different textures and sometimes people as well. It’s almost like a void of darkness and light mixed into one and we will explore it further as we look into his art and about him as well.

Aaron Siskind, born in New York City in 1903 was a photographer that had a very keen eye in what he took in his photography. Aaron at first was a school English teacher after he graduated from the City College of New York in 1926, but from here he became interested in photography which would lead him down a path of becoming pretty well known in the photography world in 1903. Around 1933 he joined the Film and Photo league in New York which was a group of documentary photographers devoted to improving social conditions in contemporary society through their pictures. This is where some of his famous well known documentary photographs came from including those for The Harlem Document (1937-40), but eventually he fell out of the organization around 1941 to then go on and do new things in his photography work. This new work of his was assuming a new, more abstract focus which you see in his later works of showing textures and stuff that is not really recognizable to the human eye because it could be interpreted in many ways when looking at these textures and shapes and shadows playing around in his photos. So his early works were more documentary photos showing life in areas in New York like the Harlem Document which had many images of different things going on in Harlem. Then there were the Abstract photos which again show textures and many different things that are playing with almost imagination in a sense, even elimination of pictorial space and his concentration on the arrangement of objects within the picture plane was something significant in the Abstract photos.

I chose Aaron Siskind as the photographer to write about because I really enjoy Abstract art and imagery especially with a camera and I feel that he really had that concentration that made him stand out between other photographers at that time. Abstract art or photography is really fun and interesting because you could look at it and someone else could get an idea that’s different from yours and it always makes a great conversation among others. I really think that Siskind made some really compelling stories with his Abstract photography and I for one enjoy the textures and other qualities that play out in those stories. For me they really make the image come to life and especially that it is in black and white I feel you get more quality out of his photos, even in his early documentary photos as well which you could really get the sense of story, I just think he makes some great photos that are very good conversation starters especially in the abstract world of art and photography.

When we look at some of his art especially in this abstract work called Providence 33 (1989) we see this void of what looks like layers of light and dark playing together on a surface that kind of looks like paint on a wall, which I find very interesting and how you could interpret this as anything because it is abstract after all. I think what really strikes at me in this particular abstract photo is how there’s more blank space or black space at the bottom left as if the black or darkness of the picture is consuming the light, slowly making its way upward to the rest of the lighter portions mixed with some black at the top. I feel like I relate to this photo because I’m always feeling a bit mixed with my emotions and I feel that this photograph really shows something about being a introvert like myself and trying to figure me out as a person, to almost open up more to people around me i guess, but I think that’s the big portion that I myself relates to the most in this piece. The last piece of this image is how he uses compositional elements such as asymmetrical balance and point of view to capture this image. When looking at this image it’s kind of in the eye view or a minor low angle to show a little perspective of this piece to make it look big in some ways or to make it seem like a doorway of light and dark. The asymmetrical balance portion is playing a role as well because each corner is not the same in the photo as if the textures or the liquid black inc is moving throughout the picture, constantly changing shape in a way, which could also be repetition of forms as well.

Category: Essay on Photographer (Page 2 of 3)

Photo Essay – Jeeniya Dewan

Avar He Zapata Essay

Photo Essay – Sally Mann by Olivia VanBuskirk

Photographer Essay – Harry Chen

Essay on Photographer

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