Famous Photographers & Images

AWQ 3O & 4M

Mr. C. Murray

Nicephore Niepce – was a French inventor, most noted as a pioneer in photography.

The earliest known surviving example of a Niépce photograph (or any other photograph) was created in June or July of 1827. In 2002 another early photograph by Niepce was discovered. It was taken in 1825 of a young stable boy leading a horse, the photograph was auctioned off in France for more than 500,000 Euros ( approx. 678,000 USD ). Niépce called his process "heliography", meaning "sun writing". The exposure time required is an issue still debated today, somewhere between 8 and 20 hours. Because of the very long exposure time, the process was used to photograph buildings and inanimate objects, but could not be practically used to photograph people.

Left: Niepce’s earliest surviving photograph, circa 1827

- Starting in 1829 he began collaborating on improved photographic processes with Louis Daguerre.

- The Niepce crater on the Moon has been named after him in recognition of his accomplishments

Left: NicephoreNiepce, circa 1795.

Photographers from the Civil War:

Mathew Brady & Timothy O’Sullivan

- recorded U.S. Civil War- documentation of the horrors and disasters of war-Mathew Brady did not actually shoot many of the Civil War photographs attributed to him. He was more of a project manager and he spent most of his time supervising his traveling photographers, preserving their negatives and buying others from private photographers when theyreturned fresh from the battlefield- Brady routinely took credit for the work of his staff photographs

Mathew Brady, 1861

Joseph Hooker, 1814-1879

Mathew Brady StudioAlbumen silver print, 1863

Ulysses S. Grant, 1822-1885

Mathew Brady StudioAlbumen silver print, 1864

Mathew B. Brady, circa 1875

Timothy H. O’Sullivan (1840-1882)

- as a teenager he was employed by Matthew Brady, a Civil War photographer- Under the employ of Mathew Brady photographers were sent out to document the war. To

do this they had traveling darkrooms so that collodion plats could be processed on the spot.- In 1862 or 1863, he joined the studio of Alexander Gardner, who included forty-four of O'Sullivan's photographs in Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, the first published collection of Civil War photographs. After the war he photographed the American West.

The Harvest of Death: Union dead on the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, photographed July 4, 1863.Albumen print, 7 x 8 11/16 in.

“Slowly, over the misty fields of Gettysburg--as all reluctant to expose their ghastly horrors to the light--came the sunless morn, after the retreat by [General Robert. E.] Lee's broken army. Through the shadowy vapors, it was, indeed, a "harvest of death" that was presented; hundreds and thousands of torn Union and rebel soldiers strewed the now quiet fighting ground, soaked by the rain, which for two days had drenched the country with its fitful showers.”

Although Gardner's caption identifies the men in the photograph as "rebels represented...without shoes," they are probably Union dead. During the Civil War, shoes were routinely removed from corpses because supplies were scarce and surviving troops needed them.

Timothy O'Sullivan

Photographers Wagon & Tent

Timothy H. O'Sullivan,Field Where General Reynolds Fell, Gettysburgnegative July 1863; print 1866 Albumen print 6 15/16 x 9 in.

Timothy H. O'SullivanDesert Sand Hill near Sink of Carson, NevadaAmerican, Nevada, 1867 Albumen print8 13/16 x 11 7/16 in.

Timothy O'Sullivan's darkroom wagon, pulled by four mules, entered the frame at the right side of the photograph, reached the center of the image, and abruptly U-turned, heading back out of the frame. Footprints leading from the wagon toward the camera reveal the photographer's path. Made at the Carson Sink in Nevada, this image of shifting sand dunes reveals the patterns of tracks recently reconfigured by the wind. The wagon's striking presence in this otherwise barren scene dramatizes the pioneering experience of exploration and discovery in the wide, uncharted landscapes of the American West.

EdweardMuybridge (1830 - 1904)

- known primarily for his early use of multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that predated celluloid film strip used today. - The Horse in Motionshows that the hooves all leave the ground at the moment when all the hooves are tucked underthe horse, as it switches from "pulling" from the front legs to "pushing" from the back legs.

In 1872, soon-to-be Governor of California Leland Stanford, a businessman and race-horse owner, had taken a position on a popularly-debated question of the day: whether during a horse's gallop, all four hooves were ever off the ground at the same time. Stanford sided with this assertion, called "unsupported transit", and took it upon himself to prove it scientifically. (Though legend also includes a wager of up to $25,000, there is no evidence of this.) Stanford sought out Muybridge and hired him to settle thequestion.

To do this Muybridge developed a scheme for instant motion picture capture as well as improving chemical formulas and development of an electrical trigger.

Eadweard Muybridge

- he conducted research in order to improve the chemistry of his development methods to better capture motion in his photography- Muybridge many techniques to photograph people and animals to study their movement. The people were often photographed in little or no clothing in a variety of undertakings. From boxing, to walking down stairs, and even small children walking to their mother were sufficiently interesting to Muybridge to be the subject of his photographs. In any case, Muybridge's work stands near the beginning of the science of biomechanics and the mechanics of athletics.

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/anima/optical/zoopraxi/index.htm

In the 1880’s, Muybridge invents the zoopraxiscope which produced a series of images of a moving subject. The Zoopraxiscopeprojected a series of images (hand painted from Muybridge's photographic sequences) on a circular rotating glass plate. The images were elongated to compensate for the distortion caused by projection through a rotating shutter.

Murder & Opera

In 1874, still living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Muybridge discovered that his wife had a lover, a Major Harry Larkyns. On October 17, 1874, he sought out Larkyns; said, "Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here is the answer to the letter you sent my wife"; and shot and killed him.

Muybridge thought his wife's son had been fathered by Larkyns (although, as an adult, the young man had a remarkable resemblance to Muybridge). He was put on trial for the killing, but acquitted of the killing on the grounds that it was "justifiable homicide." The inquiry interrupted the horse photography experiment, but not Stanford's support of Muybridge; Stanford paid for his criminal defense.

After the acquittal, Muybridge left the U.S. for a time and photographed in Central America, returning in 1877. The son, Florado Helios Muybridge (nicknamed "Floddie" by friends) was placed in an orphanage, and worked as a ranch hand and gardener as an adult. He died at age 69 in 1944, after being hit by a car.

This episode in Muybridge's life is the subject of The Photographer, a 1982 opera by Philip Glass, with words drawn from the trial and Muybridge's letters to his wife.

U2 – Lemon

Video using imagery in the style of Muybridge.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 – 1879)

– was known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for romantic/dreamy themed images (with far-away looks and limp poses and soft lighting)

- work had a huge impact on the development of modern photography, especially her closely cropped portraits which are still mimicked today

- her career was short and came late in her life – her daughter gave Julia her first camera when she was 48 years old

- Cameron strove to capture beauty in her images and her images often employ a soft focus technique as well as vignetting

- most her work falls into two categories: closely framed portraits and illustrative allegories based on religious and literary works.

Left: ”I Wait”, 1860s

Above: “Self-Portrait by Julia Margaret Cameron.

Above Right:“The Parting of Sir Lancelot and

Queen

Guinevere”

Left: ”Pomona”, 1872

Left::”Mrs. Herbert

Duckworth”, April 1867

Below: “Sadness”, 1864

Nadar or Gaspard-Felix Tournachon(1820 – 1910)

– was born in 1820, he was a caricaturist for a Paris newspaper

- He took his first photographs in 1853 and in 1858 he became the first person to take aerial photographs and use artificial lighting

- he used artificial lighting (magnesium flares) when descending into the sewers and catacombs of Paris

- he built a huge hot air baloonnamed Le Geant (The Giant) and took aerial photographs of Paris –he later crashed the balloon

André Gill, La LuneJune 2, 1867Hand-colored Engraving 12"w x 18"h

Nadar

Above:Self-Portraitc. 1855

Above Right:Sarah Bernhardtc. 1825

Right::The Sewers1864-65

George Eastman(1854-1932)

- founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented roll film which helped bring photography into the mainstream.

- roll film was also the basis for motion picture film

- In 1884, he patented a photographic medium that replaced fragile glass plates with a photo-emulsion coated on paper rolls. The invention of roll film greatly speeded up the process of recording multiple images.

- He coined the marketing phrase “You push the button, we do the rest.”

- The camera owner could return it with a processing fee of $10, and the company would develop the film and return 100 pictures, along with a new roll of 100 exposures.

- The letter “K” had been a favourite of Eastman’s, he is quoted in saying it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter". He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it must be short, you can not mispronounce it, and it could not resemble anything or be associated with anything but Kodak In 1932, Eastman died by his own hand, leaving a suicide note that read, "My work is done. Why wait?“.

Lewis Hine (1874 – 1940) – was an American photographer who used the camera both as a research tool and an instrument of social reform.

As a teacher in New York he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium. He took his classes to Ellis Island to photograph the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day to America. Eventually the realized that his vocation was photography.

In 1908 he became the photographer for the National Child Labour Committee and he documented child labour in American industry in order to end the practice.

Above: Power house mechanic working on a steam pump, 1920

Left: Girl worker in Carolina cotton mill, 1908

LEWIS HINE (American 1874-1940)

CHILD LABOUR SERIES

ABOVE: Boy carrying homework from

New York sweatshop, 1912

RIGHT TOP: Newsies and Bootblacks

shooting craps, 1910

RIGHT BOTTOM: Newsies selling in saloons

at night. New England, 1912

Lewis Hine

In 1920 he made a series of “work portraits” which emphasized the human contribution to modern industry. In 1930, Lewis Hine was commissioned to document the construction of The Empire State Building. Hine photographed the workers in precarious positions while they secured the iron and steel framework of the structure, taking many of the same risks the workers endured. In order to obtain the best vantage points, Hine was swung out in a specially designed basket 1,000 feet above Fifth Avenue

Above: “Worker on the Empire State building” circa 1931

Left: “Construction worker on the Empire State building, working on some type of wire." Circa 1931

Alfred Stieglitz (1820 – 1910)

– American-born photographer who was instrumental over his fifty year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture.

-Published magazines that promoted photography as an art form

- founded the Photo-Secession group to force the art world to recognize photography “as a distinctive medium of individual expression.”

"The Steerage" 1907 photograph by Alfred Stieglitz.Photograph of working class people crowding two decks of a transatlantic steamer

He was insistent that "photographs look like photographs," so that the medium of photography would be considered with its own aesthetic credo and so separate photography from other fine arts such as painting, thus defining photography as a fine art for the first time.

This approach by Stieglitzto photography gained the term "straight photography" in contrast to other forms of photography such as "pictorial photography" which practiced manipulation of the image pre and/or post exposure.

Cunningham, Imogen American (1883-1976) Alfred Stieglitz in American Place

1934

Alfred Stieglitz (above right & above)The Terminal, New York, 1892 Flat Iron Building, New York, 1903.

Dorothea Lange (1895 – 1965)

– was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist

-She is best known for her Depression era work for the Farm Security Administration

- her photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography

- she started off as a portrait photographer with her own studio. With the onset of the Depression. Lange turned her camera lens from the studio to the streets

- her work brought the plight of the poor and forgotten, displaced farm families, and migrant workers to public attention

- her images were distributed free to newspapers across the country and became icons of the era

Migrant Mother

(Florence Owens Thompson),Nipomo, California1936

White Angel Bread Line1932

Lange actually took six images that day, the last being the famous "Migrant Mother". Below is a montage of the other five pictures.

Persons in picture (left to right) are: Viola (Pete) in rocker, age 14, standing inside tent; Ruby, age 5; Katherine, age 4, seated on box; Florence, age 32, and infant Norma, age 1 year, being held by Florence.

Pete has moved inside the tent, and away from Lange, in hopes her photo can not be taken. Katherine stands next to her mother. Florence is talking to Ruby, who is hiding behind her mother, as Lange took the picture.

Florence is nursing Norma. Katherine has moved back from her mother as Lange approached to take this shot. Ruby is still hiding behind her mother.

Left to right are Florence, Ruby and baby Norma.

Florence stopped nursing Norma and Ruby has come out from behind her. This photograph was the one used by the newspapers the following day to report the story of the starving migrants.

Comments on Migrant Mother:

Over 10 minutes Lange took 6 images. Lange wrote of the meeting:

"I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that

they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the

children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food."

Her son Troy Owens recounts:

"There's no way we sold our tires, because we didn't have any to sell. The only ones we had

were on the Hudson and we drove off in them. I don't believe Dorothea Lange was lying, I just

think she had one story mixed up with another. Or she was borrowing to fill in what she didn't

have.“

It was only in the late 1970s that Florence's identity was made known, after a letter she had written was published in a local newspaper and the Associated Press sent a story around entitled "Woman Fighting Mad Over Famous Depression Photo." Florence was quoted as saying "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."

Dorothea Lange taking photos from her car.

Dorothea Lange

White Angel Bread Line1932

Dorothea Lange

Ditched, Stalled, and StrandedSan Joaquin Valley, California1935

Dorothea Lange

Hoe Culture,near Anniston, Alabama, 1936

Margaret Bourke-White (1904 – 1971)

– was an American photographer and photojournalist- photographed during the Depression like Dorothea Lange- she was the first female war correspondent and first woman to be allowed

to work in combat zones during World War II

- she was the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union

- she was the first female photojournalist for Life magazine

- her photographs of the construction of the Fort Peck Dam were featured in Life’s first issue, including the cover

- As the war progressed, she was attached to the U.S. army air force in North Africa, then to the U.S. Army in Italy and later Germany. She repeatedly came under fire in Italy in areas of fierce fighting.

- "The woman who had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean, strafed by the Luftwaffe, stranded on an Arctic island, bombarded in Moscow, and pulled out of the Chesapeake when her chopper crashed, was known to the Lifestaff as 'Maggie the Indestructible.'“

- In the spring of 1945, she traveled through a collapsing Germany with General George S. Patton. In this period, she arrived at Buchenwald, the notorious concentration camp. She is quoted as saying, "Using a camera was almost a relief. It interposed a slight barrier between myself and the horror in front of me."

Above: Self-Portrait during a WWII photo assignment

Left: German civilians made to face their nation's crimes, Buchenwald,

1945

Bottom: Prisoners at Buchenwald, 1945

She had a knack for being at the right place at the right time: She interviewed and photographed Mohandas K. Gandhi just few hours before his assassination. Eisenstaedt, her friend and colleague, said one of her strengths was that there was no assignment and no picture that was unimportant to her. She also started the first photo lab at Life.

Margaret Bourke-White contributed many things to the world of photography. She was a woman, doing a man's job, in a man's world, from the foundries of Cleveland to the battlefields in World War II. She was an original staff photographer for two of the most prominent magazines of her day, Fortune and Life. She led a life full of adventure, pioneering a new art form: photojournalism. Margaret Bourke-White was, and still is, one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century.

“Ghandi at Spinning Wheel”, 1946

The halftone process, perfected in the 1880’s, permitted photographs and type to be printed together, and photographs became unexpected additions to news stories. The photo essay, a sequence of photographs plus brief textural material, came of age in the 1930’s.

The halftone process converts the continuous shades of gray in a photograph into distinct units of black and white that can be printed with ink on paper

First LIFE magazine cover, dated Nov. 23, 1936, with logo and picture of Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White

Magazines such as LIFE became immensely popular as they were the most accessible, exciting, up-to-date form of news available. Today they are replaced by the mass media of television, newspapers, and the internet. But photojournalism has existed for the last 150 years, and photojournalists have spent that time on the front lines, not only in times of war but in times of peace, recording the important events of contemporary history alongside the situations of everyday life, condensing the essential of a story in just a few pages of pictures.

Brassai (1899 – 1984)

– was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to fame in France

- His job as a journalist and love of the city, whose streets he often wandered late at night, led to photography. He later wrote that photography allowed him to seize the Paris night and the beauty of the streets and gardens, in rain and mist.

- Gyula Halász went by the pseudonym"Brassaï," which means "from Brasso." As Brassaï, he captured the essence of the city in his photographs, publishing his first book of photographs in 1933 titled "Paris de nuit" ("Paris by Night").

- His efforts met with great success, resulting in his being called "the eye of Paris". In addition to photos of the seedier side of Paris, he also provided scenes from the life of the city's high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and the grand operas. He photographed many of his great artist friends, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti.

Brassai (Gyula Halasz), Open Gutter, From "Paris by Night“, 1933

Prostitute at angle of Rue de la Reynieand Rue Quincampoix From "Paris by Night“, 1933

-his images depict in a non-judgmental and keenly observed fashion the prostitutes, opium addicts, lovers (homosexual and heterosexual), street hoodlums, performers and nighttime revelers of prewar Paris.

- Brassaï described himself as nocturnal, rising only at sunset and going to bed at sunrise, walking for long hours around the city, sometimes with a companion, but more often alone. At first he worked simply with available light, using long exposures on a tripod. Paris was getting significantly lighter out of doors at night, with electric street lighting beginning to take the place of gas.

- Brassai had used some very long exposures - perhaps half an hour -for his night pictures.

"Bijou" of the Montmartre cabaretsFrom "Paris by Night“, 1933

Parisian couple, 1926

- He often chose conditions of mist or light rain and tried to mask close bright light sources behind trees or other barriers in the scene to avoid problems of excessive exposure in these areas. Both served to reduce the excessive contrast which was the main problem in night photography.

-The weather conditions he chose at least in part on technical grounds added to the work, producing strong moods and a tangible atmosphere.

- Brassaï generally timed his exposures using a cigarette -the cheap, fast-burning Gauloise which incorporated an oxidiser being suitable for brighter conditions and a more expensive slower burning brand for darker areas.

“The Stairs" by Brassaï

Above: Brassaï @ workBelow: Portrait of Brassaiby another photographer

“Brouillard" by Brassaï

Weegee aka Arthur Fellig (1899 – 1968)

– was an American photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography

- His nickname was a phonetic rendering of Ouija, because he frequently arrived at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities

-best known as a candid news photographer whose stark black-and-white shots documented street life in New York City. Weegee's photos of crime scenes, car-wreck victims in pools of their own blood, overcrowded urban beaches and various grotesques are still shocking,

- Fellig was the only New York newspaper reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio. He maintained a complete darkroom in his trunk of his car, to expedite getting his free-lance product to the newspapers.

- Weegee worked mostly at night; he listened closely to broadcasts and often beat authorities to the scene

"He will take his camera and ride off in search of new evidence that his city,

even in her most drunken and disorderly and pathetic moments, is

beautiful." -William McCleery in Naked City

-His acclaimed first book collection of photographs, Naked City (1945), became the inspiration for a major 1948 movie The Naked City, and later the title of a pioneering realistic television police drama series.

-Fellig is also referred to in an episode of The X-Files in which Agent Dana Scully is assigned to work with a crime scene photographer named Alfred Fellig whose subjects may in fact be his victims.

- had no formal photographic training but was a self-taught photographer and relentless self-promoter. He is sometimes said not to have had any knowledge of the New York art photography scene; but in 1943 the Museum of Modern Art included several of his photos in an exhibition

- Most of his notable photographs were taken with very basic press photographer equipment and methods of the era, a 4x5 Speed Graphiccamera preset at f/16, @ 1/200 of a second with flashbulbs and a set focal length of ten feet.

Charles Sodokoff and Arthur Webber Use Their Top Hats to Hide Their Faces, January 27, 1942

The Fashionable People, [title first used for "The Critic" in LIFE Magazine], published December 6, 1943

- "The Critic" is probably Weegee's most famous image, and most widely published. It taken at the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera in 1943. In an interview, Louie Liotta, Weegee's assistant, recalled that Weegee has been planning this photograph for a while. Liotta, at Weegee's request, picked up one of the regular women customers at Sammy's on the Bowery at about 6:30 p.m. With a sufficient amount of cheap wine for the woman, they proceeded to the opera house. When they arrived, the limousines owned by the members of high society were just beginning to discharge their passengers. With a signal worked out in advance, Weegee gave the sign to Liotta, who releasdthe woman, hoping all the while that she could keep her balance long enough for Weegee to expose several plates. The moment had finally arrived: Mrs. George Washington Kavenaugh and Lady Decies were spotted getting out of a limousine. Both women were generous benefactors to numerous cultural institutions in New York and Philadelphia, and Weegee knew that they were known to every newspaper in New York. Liotta recalled the moment he released the disheveled woman: "It was like an explosion. I thought I went blind from the three or four flash exposures which Weegee made within a very few seconds." For his part, Weegee told the story that he "discovered" the woman viewing the opera patrons after the negative had been developed, never revealing the prank, saying it was as much a surprise to him as anyone.

In the Lobby at the Metropolitan Opera, Opening Night, , November 22, 1943

Jacob Riis(1849 – 1914)

– a Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. As one of the first photographers to use flash, he is considered a pioneer in photography

Bandit's Roost by Jacob Riis, 1888, from How the Other Half Lives. This image is Bandit's Roost at 59½ Mulberry Street, considered the most crime-ridden, dangerous part of New York City.

W. Eugene Smith(1918 – 1978)

– was an American photojournalistknown for his refusal to compromise professional standards and his brutally vivid World War II photographs.

- Smith was injured while taking photographs of WWII. During his two year of recovery and plastic surgery he took no pictures and debated whether he would ever be able to return to photography. Then one day Smith took a walk with his two children and even though it was still intensely painful for him to operate a camera he came back with one of the most famous photographs of all time: "A Walk to Paradise Garden." This memorable image was to serve as the final picture in the famous "Family of Man" Exhibition.

Right: An example of Smith's war photography for Life.

-He began his career by taking pictures for local newspapers. He went to New York City and began work for Newsweek and became known for his incessant perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was fired from Newsweek for refusing to use medium format cameras and joined Life Magazine in 1939.

- As a correspondent, Smith entered World War II on the front lines of the island-hopping American offensive against Japan, photographing U.S. Marines and Japanese prisoners of war. On Okinawa, Smith was hit by mortar fire. After recovering, Smith continued at Life and perfected the photo essay, a set or series of photographs that are intended to tell a story or evoke a series of emotions in the viewer.

Above: Marine Mop-up Following Japanese Suicide Charge, Saipan, 1944 Left: Marine Demolition Team Blasting Out a Cave on

Hill 382, Iwo Jima, 1945

-In the early 1970s, William Eugene Smith lived with his wife, in Minamata, Japan.William Eugene Smith took this photo. as well as many others, of the effects of long term environmental industrial mercury poisoning on the local population.

- Here, on the Japanese Island of Kyushu, we see an image of an outwardly healthy mother bathing her fetal-poisoned 16 year old daughter, Tomoko Uemura, grotesquely deformed, physically crippled and blind since birth due to environmental industrial mercury poisoning in the local Minamata, Japan, water supply.

- This may well be the first environmental pollution photojournalism. The photograph is from a series on industrial pollution by William Eugene Smith and Aileen Mioko SpraugeSmith for which they jointly received the World Understanding Award-U.S.A. William Eugene Smith, who was severely beaten by goons hired by the offending chemical company, also received the Robert Capa Gold Modal-U.S.A. for "photography requiring exceptional courage and enterprise."

Tomoko Uemura in Her

Bath, Minamata, 1972

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004)

– a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism, an early adopter of 35mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the "street photography" style that has influenced generations of photographers that followed.

- “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment" Cartier-Bresson applied this to his photographic style. He said: "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression."

Children in Seville, Spain, photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1933.

- He believed in composing his photographs in his camera and not in the darkroom, showcasing this belief by having nearly all his photographs printed only at full-frame and completely free of any cropping or other darkroom manipulation -- indeed, he emphasized that the entire negative had been used by extending the area reproduced on the print to include a thick black border around the frame.

Behind the

Gare St.

Lazare, Paris

There was a plank fence around some repairs behind the Gare Saint-Lazare train station. I happened to be peeking through a gap in the fence with my camera at the moment the man

jumped.

- Cartier-Bresson exclusively used Leica 35 mm rangefinder cameras equipped with normal 50mm lenses or occasionally a wide-angle for landscapes. He often wrapped black tape around the camera's chrome body to make it less conspicuous. With fast black and white films and sharp lenses, he was able to photograph almost by stealth to capture the events. He never photographed with flash, a practice he saw as “impolite...like coming to a concert with a pistol in your hand.”

Brussels, Belgium,

1932

The Var department, Hyères, France 1932.

Berenice Abbott (1898 – 1991)

– an American photographerbest known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.

- Abbott's first became involved with photography in 1923, when Man Ray, hired her as a darkroom assistant at his portrait studio. Later she would write: "I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else." Ray was impressed by her darkroom work and allowed her to use his studio to take her own photographs

Berenice Abbott

Canyon: Broadway and Exchange Place, c. 1935-39

Above: Columbus Circle, Feb. 10, 1938

Right: Cliff and Ferry Street, Nov. 29, 1935

In early 1929, Abbott visited New York City and immediately saw its photographic potential. Accordingly, she went back to Paris, closed up her studio, and returned to New York in September. Her first photographs of the city were taken with a hand-held Kurt-Bentzincamera, but soon she acquired a Century Universal camera which produced 8 x 10 inch glass plate negatives. Using this large format camera, Abbott photographed New York City with the diligence and attention to detail she had so admired in EugèneAtget. Her work has provided a historical chronicle of many now-destroyed buildings and neighborhoods of Manhattan.

Abbott was part of the straight photographymovement, which stressed the importance of photographs being unmanipulated in both subject matter and developing processes. Throughout her career, Abbott's photography was very much a display of the rise in development in technology and society. Her works documented and praised the New York landscape. This was all guided by her belief that a modern day invention such as the camera deserved to document the 20th century.

Man Ray(1890 – 1976)

– an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal.

-Best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painterabove all.

- In 1999, ARTnews magazine named him one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century, citing his groundbreaking photography as well as "his explorations of film, painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage, and prototypes of what would eventually be called performance art and conceptual art" and saying "Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its 'pursuit of pleasure and liberty,'" — Man Ray’s stated guiding principles — "unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would."Rayography Spiral, 1923

Man Ray involved himself with Dada, a radical anti-art movement, and abandoned traditional painting, started making objects, and developed unique mechanical and photographic methods of making images. Like Duchamp, he made "readymades" - objects selected by the artist, sometimes modified and presented as art. His Giftreadymade (1921) is a flatiron with metal tacks attached to the bottom, and Enigma of Isidore Ducasse is an unseen object (a sewing machine) wrapped in cloth and tied with cord. His approach to photography was always to challenge the traditional ways of seeing. His extreme close-up of an eye with perfectly round tears is an arresting image. He is also known for his experiments with a darkroom process called solarization, in which the image is treated with special chemicals and exposed to light before it is thoroughly developed.

Left: Objet Indestructible(1923-1975) -(Readymade wooden metronome with photograph of an eye )

Bottom Left: Larmes, 1932

Bottom Middle: Le Violond'Ingres, 1924

Bottom Right: Woman, 1931

Man Ray Trivia

- One famous Man Ray painting was the inspiration for the infamous lips logo of The Rocky Horror

Picture Show

- There is a character called "Man Ray" in SpongeBob

SquarePants

A l'heure de l'observatoire - Les amoureux

Yousef Karsh (1908 – 2002)

– a Canadian photographer of Armenian birth, and one of the most famous and accomplished portrait photographers of all time

-when he came to Canada he established a studio on Sparks Street in Ottawa, close to Canada’s seat of government. Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King discovered Karsh and arranged introductions with visiting dignitaries for portrait sittings.

- Karsh's work attracted the attention of varied celebrities, but his place in history was sealed in 1941 when Winston Churchill came to Ottawa and was photographed by him

- as the story goes, Karsh was only given two minutes to photograph when Churchill marched into the room scowling, "regarding my camera as he might regard the German enemy." His expression suited Karshperfectly, but the cigar stuck between his teeth seemed incompatible with such a solemn and formal occasion. "Instinctively, I removed the cigar. At this the Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward belligerently, and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger."The image captured Churchill and the England of the time perfectly — defiant and unconquerable. Churchill later said to him, "You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed." As such, Karsh titled the photograph, The Roaring Lion.

Winston

Churchill

1941

Humphrey Bogart, 1946 Albert Einstein, 1948 George Bernard Shaw 1943 Ernest Hemingway, 1957

Rush by Yousuf Karsh (1984)

Karsh was a master of studio lights. One of Karsh's distinctive practices was lighting the subject's hands separately. He photographed many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation. It was said that "when the famous start thinking of immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa.“ Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant of his portrait. As Karsh wrote of his own work in Karsh Portfolio in 1967, "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize."

Photos Left:

Man Ray, 1965

Ansel Adams,1977

Self-Portrait,1938

Ansel Adams (1902 – 1984)

– an Americanphotographer, best known for his black and whitephotographs of California's Yosemite Valley.

-Adams also authored numerous books about photography, co-founded Group f/64 along with other photographic masters and created the zone system - a technique which allows photographers to translate the light they see into specific densities on negatives and paper, thus giving them better control over finished photographs.

- Adams also pioneered the idea of visualization of the finished print based upon the measured light values in the scene being photographed

The Tetons - Snake River, (1942)

- when he was 4 years old he broke his nose in an aftershock from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It was never corrected and appeared crooked for his entire life.

- his original passion was to become a concert pianist and alternated between the two at the start of his career

Ansel Adams was a dedicated artist-activist, playing a seminal role in the growth of an environmental consciousness in the U.S. and the development of a citizen environmental movement. His photographs continue to inspire the artist and conservationist alike.

Top Left: Moon and Half Dome,Yosemite Valley, 1960

Above: Oak Tree, Snowstorm,Yosemite National Park, 1948

Above Right: Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, 1944

Right: Portrait of Ansel Adams, 1960 by Nancy Newhall

Bottom Left: Close up of leaves in Glacier National Park, 1942

Edward Weston (1886 – 1958)

– an American photographer, and co-founder of Group f/64. Most of his work was done using an 8 by 10 inch view camera.

- after operating a traditional photographic studio for a few years, he began a new period of transition in 1922. Renouncing pictorialism in favor of straight photography and he would later become known as the "pioneer of precise and sharp presentation" with images of natural forms such as the human figure, seashells, plants, vegetables, and landscapes.

-Weston worked mainly with nudes, still life - his shells and vegetable studies were especially important -and landscape subjects.

- Price History: 1970's: $500 - $1,500 1980's: $3,000 - $50,000 1990's: $10,000 -$300,000 Current: $5000 - $500,000

- Even though he was a celebrated photographer he survived selling his photos for a humble price of $7-10. Now, they have gone up over 1,000,000% in value.

- he co-founded Group f/64 in 1932 with AnselAdams, and others. The term f/64 referred to the smallest aperture setting on a large format camera, which secured maximum depth of field, rendering a photograph evenly sharp from foreground to background. This corresponded to the philosophy of straight photography that the group promoted in response to the pictorialist methods that were still in fashion at the time.

Nude, 1936 White Dunes, Oceano, California, 1936

Top Left: Shells, 1927

Top Middle: Excusado, 1925

Above: Artichoke Halved1930

Far Left: Pepper, 1929

Left: Nude 1927

Edward Weston

Bill Brandt(1904 – 1983)

– an influential Britishphotographer and photojournalistknown for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes

- Brandt became Britain's most influential and internationally admired photographer of the 20th century. Many of his works have important social commentary but also poetic resonance. His landscapes and nudes are dynamic, intense and powerful, often using wide-angle lenses and distortion.

- Bill Brandt was largely self-taught in photography and worked as a student-assistant to Man Ray in Paris from 1929 to 1930. This exposure to Man Ray and his work would determine the surrealist undercurrent and tension of many of Brandt’s images

Diane Arbus (1923 – 1971)

– an American photographer, noted for her portraits of people on the fringes of society

-Arbus' early work was created using 35mm cameras, but by the 1960s Arbus adopted the Rolleiflex medium format twin-lens reflex. This format provided a square aspect ratio, higher image resolution, and a waist-level viewfinder that allowed Arbus to connect with her subjects in ways that a standard eye-level viewfinder did not.

- Arbus also experimented with the use of flashes in daylight, allowing her to highlight and separate her subjects from the background.

Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967

Arbus' photograph Identical Twins is tenth on the list of most expensive photographs having sold in 2004 for $478,400.

Arbus is noted by critics and art historians for her photographs depicting outsiders, such as tranvestites, dwarves, giants, prostitutes, and ordinary citizens in poses and settings conveying a disturbing uncanniness.

Child with

Toy Hand

Grenade in

Central

Park, New

York City

,1962

Jewish

Giant at

Home

with his

Parents,

1970

Two Men

Dancing at

Drag Ball,

New York

City, 1970

Double Exposure

A Moment With Diane Arbus Created A Lasting

Impression

By David Segal, Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, May 12, 2005

NEW YORK They remember none of it. Not the lady with the camera, arranging them by a wall at the Knights of Columbus hall in their home town of Roselle, N.J. Not the chocolate cake they had just finished, which is very faintly visible in the picture at the creases of their lips. The Wade sisters, as they were known before they each married, recall nothing about the day they gazed into the lens of Diane Arbus and became part of American photographic history. Unless you count the dresses."We still have them," says Colleen."Our mother made them," says Cathleen. "They look black in the photograph but they're actually green."They were 7 years old in 1967, when Arbus found the girls at a Christmas party for local twins and triplets. Nobody is quite sure how Arbus heard about the gathering, but a few parents obliged when she asked their children to pose. Which is how the Wade sisters wound up on a sidewalk, standing close enough to seem joined at the shoulder, their expression a kind of spectral blank.It would become one of the most famous photographs of the era's most compelling photographer. Arbus killed herself in 1971, at the age of 48, leaving behind a gallery of characters -- some of them spooky, some of them bizarre, all of them vaguely tragic -- who won't go away. There's a retrospective of her work called "Revelations" now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it's a menagerie of weirdoswe seem to have known all our lives: those two men waltzing at a drag ball, that Mexican dwarf, the grimacing kid with a toygrenade.

Harold Edgerton(1903 –1990)

– was a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

- He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device seen in nearly

every camera

Shooting the Apple, 1964

Left: Milkdrop Coronet, 1957Top Right: Densmore Shute Bends the Shaft, 1938Above: Cutting the Card Quickly, 1964 & political cartoon spoof

Jerry Uelsmann (1934 – )

– a master printer producing composite photographs with multiple negatives and extensive darkroom work. He uses up to a dozen enlargers at a time to produce his final images.

-Today, with the advent of digital cameras and Photoshop, photographers are able to create a work somewhat resembling Uelsmann's in less than a day, however, at the time Uelsmannwas considered to have almost "magical skill" with his completely analog tools.

- Uelsmann used the darkroom frequently, sometimes using three to ten enlargers to produce the expected effect.

Untitled1976

Anne Geddes (1956 – )

– an Australian-born photographer, clothing designerand businesswoman who now lives and works in New Zealand. She is well-known for her stylised depictions of babies and motherhood.

Steve McCurry (1950 – )

– an American photojournalist best known for his evocative color photography. Capturing the essence of human struggle and joy, in the finest documentary tradition, is one of his artistic trademarks. McCurry has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including the Iran-Iraqwar, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and continuing coverage of Afghanistan. McCurry's work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in National Geographic magazine.

http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php

David Doubilet (1946 – )

– a well known underwater photographer known primarilly for

his work published in National Geographic Magazine

http://www.daviddoubilet.com/

Annie Leibovitz(1949 – )

– a noted Americanportrait photographerwhose style is marked by a close collaboration between the photographer and the subject

James Natchwey( – )

–

Freeman Patterson ( – )

–

Edward Burtansky ( – )

–