Bill Cunningham was a famous photographer for NY Times Magazine. He is known to be one of best street photographers of all time. He focused on shooting fashion, and specifically chose to shoot in the streets, because of his passion for candid photos and the city surroundings. Shooting a candid photo, especially one in the streets isn't just about the subject, but about its surroundings creating a story about that subject. He mainly used a Nikon TM2 camera, which took 35mm film; comparatively, I use a Cannon A-E1. He used a film camera specifically because he liked how film came out, rather than digital. There is a certain feeling of permanence, when capturing a candid photo with film, it holds such a sudden memory, and the film keeps that sudden …show more content…
He would ride his bike around the city, camera around his neck, and find people wearing high fashion, to shoot. His signature type of photos were candids, according to the Kodak Pocket guide to Photography, “The Candid in which the photographer acts as a detached and preferably unnoticed observer to show a person in natural and revealing habitat” (Eastman Kodak Company 58). He would capture them walking, talking, eating, and doing whatever they were doing when he saw him. Like said in an online article, “Street photographers take photographs of fleeting moments that may exist in a greater narrative” (Complex). Cunningham clearly believed that these fleeting moments had narratives worth sharing, and as he did share these moments, he received booming results. Candid photos are better received than posed pictures, and that's exactly what Bill Cunningham was getting at. The fact that he was one of the first people to think about doing this is awesome, and very impressive. He would carry his camera wherever and snap pictures. He had crates, full of candid photograph negatives in his home, neatly tucked away until needed to be taken out. This type of permanence to these unposed photos, creates a particular attraction for wanting to take more, leading to unanticipated and surprisingly joyful
From the film, “Documenting the Face of America: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers”, we, the viewer, are able to gain an understanding about all that the photographers witnessed and how they handled each of the situations they saw. Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Edwin and Louise Rosskam, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott, Esther Bubly, Russell Lee, John Collier Jr., Edwin Locke, and Walker Evans are the famous photographers that are discussed in this particular documentary. Almost all of the things that photographers witnessed while working on this project were things that people who lived in the city would never have seen unless they have visited or were originally from the country.
“The documentary tradition as a continually developing “record” that is made in so many ways, with different voices and vision, intents and concerns, and with each contributor, finally, needing to meet a personal text” (Coles 218). Coles writes “The Tradition: Fact and Fiction” and describes the process of documenting, and what it is to be a documentarian. He clearly explains through many examples and across disciplines that there is no “fact or fiction” but it is intertwined, all in the eye of the maker. The documentarian shows human actuality; they each design their own work to their own standards based on personal opinion, values, interest and whom they want the art to appeal to. Coles uses famous, well-known photographers such as Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans, who show the political angle in their documentations and the method of cropping in the process of making the photo capture exactly what the photographer wants the audience to view. In this paper I will use outside sources that support and expand on Coles ideas with focus on human actuality, the interiority of a photograph, and the emotional impact of cropping.
Photographs are able to give many points of view as well but by changing the lighting it could seem to have been shot at a different time of day; change the angle and it could look like a completely different thing. Although these two combined would make a great story, photographs alone aren’t always enough or reliable; they could be taken out of context and misinterpreted by the public. Because the fact that photographs are easier and have many ways of being manipulated, they don’t really apply to the ethos, pathos and logos of a narrative, which is why a narrative is more important to a story.
Susan Sontag once wrote, “To collect photographs is to collect the world.” In her article entitled “On Photography,” she overviews the nature of photography and its relation to people using it. Sontag discusses photography’s ability to realistically capture the past rather than an interpretation of it, acting as mementos that become immortal. Continuing on to argue the authenticity of photography and how its view points have shifted from art into a social rite.With the use of rhetorical devices, Sontag scrutinizes the characteristics of photography and its effects on surrounding affairs; throughout this article Sontag reiterates the social rites, immortality and authenticity of photographs, and the act of photography becoming voyeuristic. With the use of the rhetorical devices pathos, appeal of emotion, ethos, appeal to ethics and credibility, and logos, appeal to logic, Sontag successfully persuades the audience to connect and agree with her views.
It’s his compassion for his subjects and his commitment to them that surpasses the act of making a pretty picture. Spending days with his subjects in the slums of Harlem or the hardly developed mountains of West Virginia, he immerses himself into the frequently bitter life of his next award-winning photo. Often including word for word text of testimonials recorded by junkies and destitute farmers, Richards is able to provide an unbiased portrayal. All he has done is to select and make us look at the faces of the ignored, opinions and reactions left to be made by the viewer. Have you ever been at the beach safely shielded by a dark pair of sunglasses and just watched?
During this time he photographed members of high society such as Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn as well as members of the royal family including Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles. His work portrayed elegance and grace, which he achieved by creat...
He wanted to get his point across to other people, and photography was one of the easiest ways, because each picture was worth a thousand words and expressed more emotion than did in his writing. However, he used pictures to be the main support of his very famous novel, “How the Other Half Lives,” in which he details in writing his experiences and thoughts about tenement housing and social
Practiced by thousands who shared no common tradition or training from the earliest days of taking photos, the first photographers were disciplined and united by no academy or guild, who considered their medium variously as a trade, a science, an art, or an entertainment, and who often were unaware of each other’s work. Exactly as it sounds photography means photo-graphing. The word photography comes from two Greek words, photo, or “light”, and graphos, or drawing and from the start of photography; the history of the aforementioned has been debated. The idea of taking pictures started some thirty-one thousand years ago when strikingly sophisticated images of bears, rhinoceroses, bison, horses and many other types of creators were painted on the walls of caves found in southern France. Former director of photography at New Yorks museum of modern art says that “The progress of photography has been more like the history of farming, with a continual stream of small discoveries leading to bigger ones, and in turn triggering more experiments, inventions, and applications while the daily work goes along uninterrupted.” ˡ
In a society that is focused on visual stimuli, it isn't uncommon to see a person taking a picture with a camera or making a "movie" with their camcorder. But, in the 1840s and 1850s, life just wasn't like that. If someone said they could make a picture of a mining town or of the route to the West without a pencil or paint people would have laughed at them. Laughing would have been appropriate because photography didn't come into being until 1839. James Horan reveals in his book, Mathew Brady: Historian with a Camera, that it wasn't even called photography then, it was called the "new art" (5). There were very few people who knew what it was to take a picture, or make a picture with light. The only pictures that were around at that time were those that were drawn, painted, or printed from lithographs or etchings. Newspapers didn't have real live pictures that showed the actual things that were written about. The population of America as it was in 1800 didn't know what the "West" looked like. According to Eugene Ostroff, sketches and paintings were the only illustrations of the West before photography (9). Ostroff tells us that these weren't usually accepted if the painter had taken artistic license (9). All Americans knew were the stories of the people who returned because it was too difficult to live there or the letters from friends and family telling the horrors they saw. So, with the invention of photography, especially the ability to "fix" the image onto the paper or metal plate had a major effect on the expansion to the West because the pictures that were taken showed how the West really was beautiful. Unfortunately, it was a while before the public was able to see the pictures that were taken by the photographers of the West because 1839 was only the very beginning of photography as a profession and a hobby.
Photography and portraiture is a powerful medium for art. Through photography and portraiture we are able to capture the essence and being of individuals and moments. Many artists that primarily work within these genres do so for that very reason. Famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was no different, using his photographs to capture portraits of the various characters that made up the fabric of his social existence as a gay white male living in New York City. Robert Mapplethorpe, as a member of a fringe lifestyle and culture within America, wanted to utilize his work to bring to the public conscious, recognition and appreciation of these fringe groups and cultures, even if it required shocking depictions and imagery.
Most photographers have a statement in mind and look for a picture that expresses it. Erwitt observes what life wants to say and then records it so others can hear. For me this is what photography is about. I believe a scene should inspire you not be staged. Like Erwitt’s work I try to take pic...
Born to Nettie Lee Smith and Bill Smith on December 18, 1918 in Wichita, Kansas was William Eugene Smith, who would later revolutionize photography. His mother Nettie was into photography, taking photos of her family, especially her two sons as they grew up, photographing events of their lives (Hughes 2). Photography had been a part of Smith’s life since he was young. At first it started out always being photographed by his mother, and then turned into taking photographs along with his friend Pete, as he got older. They often practiced developing photos in Nettie’s kitchen, and he later began to create albums with his photographs. His photographs diff...
In 1958, Irving Penn was named one of "The World’s 10 Greatest Photographers" in an international poll conducted by Popular Photography Magazine. Penn’s statement at the time is a remarkable summation of purpose and idealism: "I am a professional photographer because it is the best way I know to earn the money I require to take care of my wife and children."
I am quite interested in the topic of street photography; one of the biggest reasons is because in most cases street photography is very real. Street photography is all candid images, they are not posed, they are not set up; but they are real, they are in the moment and most of the time the artists are so stealthy about the way that they capture the photographs that no one really ever knows that they are even taking the photographs. There are a few photographers that are very important to street photography that I would like to talk about; Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus and Winogrand. These are photographers really created what people might consider to be the face of street photography, you can think of street photography without thinking of one of their works. Personally, I am very fascinated with street photography. I believe it to be very beautiful. In my opinion street photography seems to be a lot similar to photojournalism, in the way that both of the photography styles are extremely, I do not know if I would use the word ‘candid’, I am not sure if that would be exactly the right way of putting it, however maybe the right word would be more like, well a phrase really, both of the photography styles of both photojournalism and street photography are really quite in the moment, they are not set up, instead of making the shot perfect, finding the camera angles and waiting for just the right moment to make that image wonderful and amazing.
Photojournalism plays a critical role in the way we capture and understand the reality of a particular moment in time. As a way of documenting history, the ability to create meaning through images contributes to a transparent media through exacting the truth of a moment. By capturing the surreal world and presenting it in a narrative that is relatable to its audience, allows the image to create a fair and accurate representation of reality.