portraiture part 1: diane arbus and others

Diane Nemerov came from a wealthy family, who owned a fifth avenue department store.. yet this was not the life she felt comfortable or happy with.  she left home at a very young age leaving the sheltered life she had grown up in, watching as all those that suffered at the hands of the 30's depression while she and her family lived a priviliged life.  she met and married Allan Arbus when she was 18 changing her name to Diane Arbus.

As a photographer she soon became one of the most renowned and controversial portraiture photographers of all time.  Arbus found her photography as an escape, it is said that through her pictures she was always trying to be someone else, looking at their lives through the lense of her camera.

one of her most famous works was the portraits of the Matthei family, one of New Yorks social elites.  she altered the way she took the pictures, instead of asking the Mattheis to smile and pose, she would captivate them by drawing them in with her quiet voice getting them to pose naturally and when they were fully unaware thats when she would take the picture.  above is Marcella Matthei, this portrait is one of Diane Arbus' most famous works and paved her way into taking photos of New Yorks rich and famous.  In 1971 Arbus took her own life, but her work has proved influential to so many after her.

"Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child." Norman Mailer

One of the other key photographers of the 70's was Larry Clark, who produced one of the most famous collections of portraits know to the photography world.  "Tulsa" by Larry Clarke showed the dark and dirty side to social elites of America, it is an album composed completely of the inner workings of the the herion dens of America.  it contains images of group sex, herion addiction and the destruction of the human body.  still controversial Larry Clarks work is still important to photography, this was a never before seen America.

one more of portrait photographys great masterpieces is Pablo Picasso by Tony Vaccaro.  the war photographer was invited to do something that only one other before him had done, take a picture of one of the greatest artists of all time, Pablo Picasso.  the only person who had done this before him was Bresson, the mac daddy of photography.  Vaccaro took many pictures of Piccaso, but none showed the real him, so he told Piccaso to relax, and when he was unaware, thats when he took the picture, capturing Picasso in his normality.

                                               Tony Vaccaro "Pablo Piccaso"

Photojournalism part 2 - war photography

When photo journalism reached the front lines of combat, it introduced to the world the horrific and brutal truth of war, photos the likes of which the world had never seen.  First introduced in the 19th century, war photo journalism made a real impact during the Spanish civil war and world war II.

possibly the most celebrated war photographer was Robert Capa, a photo journalist for life magazine was sent with the troops into the battlefield and capture the shocking images of war. this gave the world a true view of war and a glimpse of what soilders experience.  the image which gave Capa his journalistic fame was "the falling soldier" a picture taken during the spanish civil warn showing a loyalist soldier falling to his death while in the act of being shot.

This image gave Capa his fame and placed his war photo's in demand.  and soon his photo's would be more in demand than ever with the start of the second world war, during this time Capa was living in New York, USA due to the fact he fled from paris to escape Nazi persucution for his photo's and how they were used against their party.

In 1944 Capa joined the D-Day landings at Ohama, this was incredible dangerous, he was taking pictures whilst so many were dying around him.  Papers and modern photographers would say that Capa captured the reality of war in his images.

Whilst Capa was a significant war photographer, he was not the only one.. Tony Vaccaro offered a unique look to the world of war photography as he was a soldier, not a hired photographer, he had to both fight the enemy and take pictures at the same time.  His work was unique as it developed in army helmets while the soldiers were camping and he had to do it in the night time as he lacked a dark room.

War photo-journalism was the first way of showing civilians the horrors of the war.  Even today many of the controversial images are only just being legalised and allowed to the general public.  Capa and Vaccaro were the first on site reporters in combat zones and paved the way for all those that followed.

the decisive moment

Henri Carter Bresson, was probably the most significant man the world of photography has ever seen.  He was a surrealist and took photographs unlike any other, prior to when his signature photo was taken.  Before this photography was when people would pay to pose and have portraits taken of them and their family.

Bresson would find a spot from where he could take his picture, sit and wait for “the decisive moment” a moment in time that complete changes the photograph from a picture to a work of art.  Bresson was renowned for having an eye for this moment; he would wait for hours on end for just this one photograph.

His most famous photograph showed a man jumping across a puddle with broken bikes and machines inside it.  It modern days it is seen almost as a vision showing the state the world would be in the first world war, which was soon approaching...  the broken bike and machines symbolise the fragility and state of Europe during that war, it is broken and in pieces.  And the man leaping into the puddle is meant to represent the soldiers in the war leaping into the unknown.

The camera that Bresson used was the Leica, a revolutionary device that was the first handheld film camera that used light filters and shutters to take an instant picture.  Before this cameras would need stands and take at minimum an hour to complete the picture.  The Leica was also public available, an everyman’s camera.  And even today the work that Bresson did with this camera, his work which inspired others has immortalised this camera keeping it forever culturally significant and a legend to the camera world.