August Sander Working Student Essay

Right off the bat when you type in the name, “August Sander,” intricate yet simple photos pop up. Sander was a German Photographer and was born on November 17th, 1876. Sander was brought up with his dad being a mine carpenter, then soon after his family ran a small area of farmland. When Sander started photography and started to utilize the camera as a true photographer would, there was a picture that caught my personal attention. The picture I believe to be called, “Working Students,” was a picture of the Weimar Republic from Berlin Germany.

They were apparently considered the elite Nazi’s to my understanding. This caught my eye because all of his photography is black and white and of people who seem to have little to no emotion when portrayed. The four

There was another a picture that was taken by Sander called, “National Socialist.” Again with the black and white and basically no emotion, but this one, in particular, is a side profile, and it is very apparent that the reasoning for this is because of the swastika symbol on the jacket the man had on. This also shows the dark but true history of the Holocaust. To know that the man in the picture was working for one of the most dangerous men in history, committing a crime he may or may not have thought was a good deed for his society, is mind-boggling to think about. I think Sander’s approach was to teach the viewer that the statement, “a picture can say a thousand words” is very true. You can physically teach someone about a life experience, whether is personal, it’s

History, or it’s a claim for the future. Whatever it may be, Sander kept his photos neutral, which the viewers had to sort of pick the information they were given by his technique themselves.

Sander’s technique seemed to use the face of a person like a canvas. It’s blank; there is no emotion. The actions shown, the items worn, even the appearance of the subject tells the