In the exhibition of Irving Penn’s photograph collection, it seems to be that he has shown strong characteristics for each of works.

First of all, in his still life photographs, the objects seem to be randomly arranged but there’s an invisible order behind, and then he captured the moment of accidents. For example, in his work “Still Life with Watermelon”, he arranged the objects to look very random; the seeds are scattered in all directions, and put the half of bread in no specific way. However, in the overall picture, it looks like all the objects seem to be organized in purpose. When it comes to combination of colors, he applied various colors but united them with a specific tone; therefore, his works make me think of watercolor paintings.

Second, in his portraits, he simplifies the background so that the object can grab more attention to itself. For example, his works in the cover of VOGUE magazines, he uses different angles and poses for each piece of works. By applying simple monotones to the background and placing the model in the middle of frame, the model itself is extremely highlighted.

Finally, when it comes to his works on nudes, it seems highly surrealistic in his photographs. He took photo shoot extremely close to the object, so it exaggerates the ‘perspective,’ the object itself looks distorted, and it results to create surrealistic spaces. Thus, by rearranging the object and spaces, he creates unfamiliar scene in his work. It seems to be that Penn’s work basically focuses on applying various perspectives on the typical object to create never-seen scenes in result of different point of views.

Looking through his works, I’ve learned a lesson that the beauty could be created not only by something new but also by ordinary objects from different point of views and arrangement.