Irving Penn, An American Photographer

1078 Words3 Pages

Ricki Cepero
HUA 130
11/10/16

Who is Irving Penn? Irving Penn is an American photographer whose intentions were to become a painter, but when he was twenty six he took a offer to design photographic covers for the magazine Vogue. Soon after, Penn started photographing his own ideas for covers and then established himself as a fashion photographer.
Irving Penn was born on June 16th 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey. His younger brothers name is Arthur Penn who is the motion picture director. Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art for four years in 1934. He studied art design and trained to become an art director. When graduating in 1938, his first job was the art director of the "Junior League magazine". Penn moved to Mexico …show more content…

His work was still very interesting although the subject was almost always the center of attention. Penn was one of the first photographers to do this simple white or grey backdrop and use it effectively. Penn's work was best known for his fashion photography, but some of best work also includes portraits of celebrities, photographs of different ethnicities from all over the world, and still lifes of food, bones, metales and randomly found objects. Irving Penn can make a simple photo of fruits look like a beautiful painting. Penn states "Photographing a cake can be art." His work has great detail and his very abstract with lines and volume.When taking a portrait of someone, Penn would like to capture the nature look of the person rather than the face or pose they wanted everyone to see. As Irving Penn once said "Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world. ...Very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to …show more content…

Seeing his photos made it even more interesting to learn more about him. Being that most of his best photos were portraits I related well with his work because I like taking portraits as well. I like that Penn uses simple backgrounds in his pictures letting the subject speak for itself. Penn shows perfection in his work, with many detail in the postures and style of his subject. It's cool to me that Penn did not limit himself to just one thing being that he photographed everything. He can go from still-lifes of vegetables to a celebrity or a random person. Irving Penn inspired my work to let my subject be the main focus and the background to be simple.

Irving Penn now has his own foundation. He is one if not the most important modern masters of photography. Penn is a inspiration to photographers of all genres with his work of portraits, still lifes, and fashion photos. He was Vogues magazine photographer along with many personal projects that he created. Irving Penn's work has a huge impact as well as playing a roll in the world's most renowned public and private photography collections. Quoted from Clinique "Irving Penn gave us the truth and made it so inviting we never needed the fantasy. He transformed beauty for us and the

Open Document