In the early 1960s, most photographs were taken for a purpose, and that purpose was for news articles, magazines, or advertisement. There was very little consideration of photography as art. This change in the way photography was approached was in large part to photographers such as Garry Winogrand, who turned photography into an art.
Winogrand symbolized a new generation of photographers on the rise in the mid-1960s known as “street photographers.” While each photo is of simple, everyday life, they each contain an individual message and meaning much deeper than what was seen through the lens. His impact is still being felt in photography today and has been identified as a turning point in American photographic history.
Garry Winogrand was born on January 14, 1928 in the Bronx in New York City. His parents were Abraham and Bertha, a leatherworker and seamstress. Winogrand was brought up in a predominately Jewish working class area of New York. At a young age, Winogrand began practicing what would be his legacy. Late at night, he would walk the streets of New York; it was here that he found privacy and solitude. After high school, Winogrand was enlisted in the United States Air Force, after which he used his GI Bill to return to school. He studied painting at City College of New York, after which he studied painting and photography at Columbia University until 1948 (Evans). In 1951, Winogrand’s passion for photography really took flight while at Columbia, he met classmate George Zimbel and together they started the ‘Midnight to Dawn Club’; photographing by day and developing all through the night. He enrolled in a photojournalism class taught by Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research. Brodovitch rose to fame in...
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...n, Phillip. "Review of Winogrand, Figments from the Real World." photo.net. NameMedia Inc., n.d. Web. 3 Nov 2011. .
Gould, Mark R. . "His Ambition Through Photography Was to Know Life: Garry Winogrand." @your Library. American Library Association, 2011. Web. 4 Nov 2011. .
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. The Man in the Crowd - The Uneasy Streets of Garry Winogrand . First. New York: Art Publishers, Inc., 1999. Print.
"Winogrand 1964." tfaio.com. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, INC, 2003. Web. 4 Nov 2011. .
Zellen, Jody. "Garry Winogrand." Art Scene. ArtSceneCal, 2010. Web. 4 Nov 2011. .
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.
For Emerson, the reticent beauty of nature was the motivator. To him, photography should be recognized because its still-life beauty was able to persuade the public’s appreciation of the life and nourishment
Johnson, Brooks. Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their Art.” New York: Aperture Foundation Inc., 2004. Print.
As the camera’s popularity grew, the use of it shifted from an art form into a social rite, a statement of authority and security. The act of taking photographs, and the photos produced, act as mementos or proof of the past. Photographs summarize an event all within itself, creating an immortal piece, allowing the people to grasp onto the ownership of area in which they feel insecure. On the other hand, Sontag states that the deed of taking photographs occupies the same need for “cosmopolitans […] as it does for lower-middle-class [citizens]”(177). With that being said, how can there be any power at all in photography, but a fake sensation we created from the act of photography to fill our insecurities. By tapping into the insecurities of the readers, Sontag forces them to connect with the words and consider their actions relating to photography more
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?
5 Light, Ken. Tremain, Kerry. Witness in our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.
Diane Arbus was born Diane Nemerov to a wealthy Jewish family in New York City on March 14, 1923. She was the second of three children, between her elder brother Howard Nemerov, a prize-winning poet and her younger sister Renee Sparkia, who became a sculptor and designer. Her father, David Nemerov was a very successful businessman. He married Gertrude Russek, whose family had started Russek's Fur store which later became Russek's of Fifth Avenue under David's management. At the age of fourteen Diane met Allan Arbus, who was nineteen, working in the art department of Russek’s. They became deeply involved with each other and fell in love. Although her parents did not approve of their affair, Diane and Allan continued to meet in secrecy for the next four to five years. Soon after Diane turned 18, they were married by a rabbi on April 10, 1941. Faced with reality, her parents gave their blessing to the marriage. They were married for twenty-eight years, and had two children Doon and Amy Arbus. Although Diane and Allan separated after nineteen years, Allan continued to be a emotional support in her life. It was Allan who introduced Diane to photography, when her father gave the couple their first job making advertisement photographs for his store. Allan always encouraged Diane to take her own photos and creativity, but she began to hate the world of fashion photography and start...
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.
Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty(tm)s Photography: Images into Fiction. Critical Essays on Eudora Welty. W. Craig Turner and Lee Emling Harding. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1989. 288-289.
"A photograph is not merely a substitute for a glance. It is a sharpened vision. It is the revelation of new and important facts." ("Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History."). Sid Grossman, a Photo League photographer expressed this sentiment, summarizing the role photography had on America in the 1940’s and 50’s. During this era, photojournalism climaxed, causing photographers to join the bandwagon or react against it. The question of whether photography can be art was settled a long time ago. Most major museums now have photography departments, and the photographs procure pretty hefty prices. The question of whether photojournalism or documentary photography can be art is now the question at hand. Art collectors are constantly looking to be surprised; today they are excited by images first seen in last week’s newspapers as photojournalism revels in the new status as art “du jour” or “reportage art”.
Steven Winn. "PAINTING A PICTURE OF THE CREATIVE MIND / It's in this delicate negotiation of conscious choices and unconscious summons that art finds its form and communicative power :[FINAL Edition]. " San Francisco Chronicle 28 May 2007, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.
The film Basquiat explores the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Haitian-Puerto Rican painting in New York City during the 1980s. Working closely with Andy Warhol, Basquiat was exploited for his unique “urban ghetto” graffiti and crude style of representation. Schnabel’s film further exploits this image of the painter, depicting him in various scenes of poverty and drug addiction, dirty poor love and desperation. Our understanding of the artist is framed by excerpts from essays by art critic Rene Ricard, depicted as a flaming homosexual who leeches off of his artistic friends. Ricard observes the hypocrisy and self-indulgence of the art scene that is vital to...
Masters. With his small hand camera he unobtrusively photographed people’s lives around the world. He was solely responsible for bridging the gap between photojournalism and art. He has published more than a dozen books of his work. The greatest museums in the world have shown his work.
“Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing, which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power” (Sontag 8). After reading this quote in my head multiple times, I started to realize that people use it for different purposes. When I took a photography class in college, it was under the category “art.” Which made me think of it as a form of art, when there are so many other ways to view photography. Sontag changed my opinion about photography after further interpreting her quote because to have a camera in our hand, being able to capture the world through our lens is to have a tool of
Photography gives us a greater resemblance to what is portrayed as paintings can be askew from reality as the artist can have a bias, although, a camera takes in light and gives us a more accurate depiction. During the 1860s it was typical for photography to be black and white as the only way to photography was in black and white (New York