4900 Klein

Lisette Model (November 10, 1901-March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer. In 1933, she gave up music and recommitted herself to studying visual art, at first taking up painting as a student of Andre Lhote (whose other students included Henri Cartier-Bresson and George Hoyningen-Huene). She also took up photography, taking basic instruction in darkroom techniques from her younger sister Olga Seybert (herself a lifelong professional photographer), although Parisian portrait photographer Rogi Andre was the person Model credited with providing her primary instruction in camera techniques. Her signature style is close-up, unsentimental and unretouched expositions of vanity, insecurity and loneliness.

Model’s pictures are weird. She liked to focus on people’s emotions and expressions on their faces. There are two pictures impressing me so much. One is a man dressing like a woman. He had curling wands around his head, and he did manicure on his hands. He dressed like a woman, but his face could tell us he was a man. He looked so confused and looked like he was lost in his life. The other one is a boy in rompers, whose right hand was holding a grenade, standing on the street. He had empty eyes. At first sight, I thought he was staring at the camera. Actually he was not. I didn’t know where he was staring. He looked panic and insecure, and I could not figure out what he was thinking. Model made the people in her picture could tell story. Her works also reflect the people’s life at that time.

I like Model’s pictures. The negative space in her pictures make people standing out. Her pictures looked quiet, but I was like I could hear people talking in her pictures when I stare longer. Her works are not only pictures. They tell stories as well. It encourages me to take more meaningful pictures and focus on everything around me, because story can be told everywhere.

—Melody Lin

Berenice Abbott was one of American photographer who was known for black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s. Abbott is remembered as one of the most independent, determined and respected photographers of the twentieth century. She was born in Ohio in 1898. She had a lonely and unhappy childhood. However, she contributed her strong characteristics of self-reliance, determination and independence to her unfortunate childhood experience into her work. She studied journalism at Ohio State University in 1917 but her friend Sue Jenkins persuaded Abbott to move to New York in 1918 where she became interested in sculpture. At first, she was not interested in photography but later in life, when she moved to Paris to study sculpture, she was introduced photography by becoming a darkroom assistant to one of her friend that she met in New York.

Abbott focused a lot of her photography in New York’s architecture.  Some photographs contained people in her photographs but it always showed architecture of New York. Her photographs were known for black-and-white photographs. From observing her photographs, her photographs are very well balanced. The black-and-white makes the photographs very classic. Abbott captured many of historic building of New York.  The historic building and classic feel goes very well together in her photographs. As a New York resident, it is amusing to see how much New York City has changed from 1930s.

Robert Frank is a very inspirational photographer and filmmaker in the American culture. He was born in November 9, 1924. He is a living witness of World War II. The reality of threat and stress from Nazism led him to escape to photograpy. He emigrated to USA in 1947. He worked as a photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. He created a few handbooks that soon got very popular. His famous works are mostly from mid 1900’s where he was mainly working in the US and Europe.

We can further understand him by looking at his photography. His portraits are fairly distinctive compared to other usual portraits. His portraits look like they are telling a story rather than just sitting in the center trying to document a moment. Most of his portrait photos give off the lively vibe; we can feel the energy. A lot of portraits of other photographers are stiff and centered. Instead, he put the main focus slight off the center. This gives movement to the photography, which makes the viewers’ eyes to circle around the photo providing the extra movement.

One of his notable photograph “ Elevator – Miami Beach, 1955” from The Americans is very interesting to look at, which reminds me of Pablo Picasso’s work “Le Moulin de la Galette, 1900.” There are two different types of movements I notice. First, the moving figures are out of focus, which directly suggests movements. This can provide liveliness and loudness of tone. Second, the photo is a little tilted. This might give a little dizzy feeling that suggests another movement. It is a very high contrasted photo, which gives bold and loud sense to the photo. Instead of making everything energetic and active, focusing on one character in the photo keeps the photo somewhat quiet. The lady, the main focus, in the picture seems not to bother the environment around her. Rather, she seems to have a blank look. Due to her body gesture, we can feel the quietness, which can be contrasting to the movements in figures around her suggesting loudness and chaos.

It is very interesting to see that it is possible to include both the contradicting sides of tones in one photograph. His “Elevator” work shows both sides of different contradicting tones of work: loud – quiet and playful – calm. Through this, we can learn different ways of proposing tones of work.

– Eunice (Ju Eun) Lee

Gyula Halasz was born in Broasov, Romania in September 1899. He studied painting and sculpture at Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest at his young age. In 1924, he moved to Paris and worked as a journalist for publication to support himself. It was in Paris that he changed his name to Brassai with the meaning of “from Broasov”. Originally, Brassai only took photos to document his articles. However, he went further by getting attracted by the medium. In 1933, Brassai reached his first career peak in photography when he published his first street photography photo-book with the title of “Paris de nuit” (“Paris After Dark” in English).  During German occupation between 1943 and 1945, Brassai returned to drawing and sculpture. But he resumed as a photographer after the war and continued through the late 1960s.

In the series of “Paris de nuit”, Brassai captured prostitutes, street cleaners, pimps, and many other evening pleasure seekers. The content in this series is relatively rich. It contains many forms of evening life, indoor or outdoor, cloth on or off, publicly or secretly. In some of his works, he successfully created the feeling of hidden city by using lighting effectively. In some others, he froze the moment of the intimated conducting of the prostitutes and those pleasure seekers. I personally prefer the works that he took on the streets. In the image of one male and one female stood face to face , the street light directly shined toward the face of the male that carved out many details of him, the costume, gesture, and even his smiling face. On the other side, due to the indirect lighting situation, comparing the male, the light on the female was relatively soft. With strong comparison in lighting, Brassai brought up the personality of his objects tactfully.

Paul Outerbridge, Jr. was an American photographer, and he is quite famous for the early adoption and experiments in color photography. Outerbridge introduced sensibility of fine art to the black and white photographs he made for commercial purposes. His first achieved success in the 1920s by applying an innovative modernist aesthetic to advertising photography. During the 1930s he perfected his technique with the complex tri-color carbro process, earning his reputation as a pioneer in color photography. He worked for magazines such as Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, McCall’s and so on.

Paul Outerbridge made lots of abstract still life photos throughout his career. It is very easy to tell from his still life pictures that he was a perfectionist. As he is not only spending large amounts of time sketching and making fine adjustments to the lighting and design of the photo to create specific textures and tones, but also using only the finest platinum paper for his prints. Later on, the changing of times and diminished prosperity, however, triggered a shift in Outerbridge’s photo style.

Gradually, contrast had played a huge role in his black and white photo. While some areas may be in a total darkness, which is clear that the contrast, lights, and darks were all done intentionally. The lighting set up of most of his works isn’t that harsh, but just enough to create the effect he wanted. What’ more, Outerbridge used many diagonals framing method within his pictures in order to create the abstract and natural effects.

For his color photos, I have to say that most of them really gives me the strong retro feeling of film, which pleased my eyes a lot. All the color he is using in his pictures look very harmonious and rich, with fine gradation in tones and a high level of detail in the shadows. It is all benefits from his various color processes, The carbro color process allowed Outerbridge to naturalistically reproduce subtle skin tone variations in his nudes—something that had not been done before.

Eugene Atget is one of the 20^th century’s greatest street photographers. His widely attention work is a series of Paris street photography. During his lifetime, he did not enjoy the benefits of fame and works. His lifetime was to record the Paris urban street photography. This work became immortal human assets and classic works of art. In his 30 years photography career, the only thing he did is Paris. At the turn of the century, Paris is the place where change very quickly. However, Atget was not interested in new things. He just focused on recording and saving the old things.

Most of his photos did not have any people in them. His photos were mostly of the architecture of Paris. It has doorways, arches, door handles, street facades, and the street themselves. It is easy to get drawn to the iconic landmarks while traveling. Although Atget photographed the city of Paris, he focused on the city in detail. He avoided the iconic landmarks and instead put his attention on parts of the city that was less adorned. He has many photos in trees. They look very depressed without leaves. The photos are not only focusing on the trees themselves, but also focus on streets and buildings. One photo that has four models in the showcase is the best example. The showcase with four models has occupied the whole picture. I think that he was attempting to photograph the character of the street as it inherited in the setting itself. Another picture that makes me impressive is the one with an old building in it. This picture looks very quiet. He only shows the front gate and yard of the old building. The interesting thing in this picture is the yard looks symmetrical. I think it is very important to pay attention on ordinary things. There is an inherent beauty in a doorway and a door handle. These everyday things are so ordinary that we often overlook it.

Based on the two works that I mentioned above, I found that having a grand vision with your photography is very important. Street photography is not only documenting the street itself, but also the characters of the street. Each street has its own unique characters. It can be as simple as documenting every facet of the street you currently walk in.

May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965

Dorothea Lange has been called the greatest documentary photographer. She took many photos during the time of the Great Depression and migratory farm workers. She was very influential and greatly helped the development of documentary photography during the Depression era. She was originally named Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn and due to many issues within her family, she dropped her middle name and took on her mothers maiden name. She learned about photography in Columbia University. She documented the unemployed and homeless which got many other photographers interested as well.

Her works being based during the Depression era, were all rather dark and showed the hardships of the people. She took pictures of the unhealthy conditions. She showed the desolation and problems that farmers faced. Although her pictures were full of sadness, it showed everyone doing what they could in order to survive. She shows the peoples loss and how worn out they were. I feel that her work is very quiet, natural and serious. It shows the feelings and pains that everyone has gone through. Many are unaware of the photos taken and are shown naturally in their own environment.

Her photos show me that we shouldnt take everything that we have for granted. That at one point in time people were doing everything they could just to get by. They used their blood and sweat to try to create an environment that would be suitable for their children, their future to survive in. It shows me that even if we are living a comfortable life, there are many others that dont have the luxuries we do. Her photos really show us the harshness and reality.

Henri Cartier Bresson was a French photographer 08/22/1908-08/03/2004.

During his life that included several different decades like War I, War II, post depression and other world memorable events, Henri Cartier linked together the life and the moment itself.

My selection of his work includes the photos from different part of world that make his work unique. Henri Bresson was there when all history happened, his photo of Paris, Place De I’Europe ironic and has the feeling of lightness. On another hand, photo “Fire in Hoboken” shows a tragedy and comparison with peaceful sky. Author also used high contrast to emphases this.

The composition of the main characters usually off the center that make them more real, like people see in the life, not always in the center of photos. Bresson’s choices of shooting angles really enhance the communication between scene and the viewers.

His work as a documentary of the time is helping people to feel the history. The photo “Great Britain. London” is a coronation of King George VI May 12 1937. People had waited all night and some slept on benches, some of them not yet wake up.

The photo of New York City, my personal favor, transformed the feelings of big monopoly and power and the same time person (individual) who is looking for some love, home or friend. The geometric forms of building in the focal point and the light in the back of the photo make this dynamic more powerful.

Henri Cartier photos usually have 2 to 3 dimensions; in one image you can see several scenes and all of them come as one piece of art.BLOG

Roy DeCarava started off as a painter where he later on decided to trade his brushes off for a camera making him one of the most recognized photographers today who created the most iconic images of the Civil Rights movement and jazz musicians in motion.

The picture I have chosen to evaluate on is his very own self-portrait taken in the year 1956. When I first looked at this photograph, it gave me the emotions of feeling very mysterious and even a little eerie. However, when I examine the photograph more in detail and longer, I feel the textures of the photograph being smooth, silky, and gentle. I believe that being that he was once a painter, it affected the way he took photographs. This close study of his own portrait can definitely be portrayed looking it as a painting, with a soft and subtle language behind this picture.