PHOTOGRAPHERSPast & Present

Unit 9

Genre different ‘forms’ of photography

• Portrait

• Fashion

• Photo Journalism

• Advertising

• Press

• Documentary

• Still Life

• Architectural

• Sports

• War

• Underwater

• Food

• Scientific

• Landscape

Historic Photography

• Research and display different forms (genres or types) of photography from the past, i.e. film photography before the digital era.

• Choose forms which contrast each other, i.e. Fashion, Documentary and Food

• Find a famous photographer which specialised in one of these ‘forms’. – Research and analyse their work and include examples of their

photographs. – Describe their influences and where their work has been

published, used or shown and what impact their work has had on contemporary photography.

– Explain the techniques they used and how it differs from contemporary digital processes.

(Tip: You may find they have their own website!)

Dorothea LangePortrait/Documentary Photographer

Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) Lange's best-known picture is titled "Migrant Mother." The woman in

the photo is Florence Owens Thompson a Californian migrant worker with her three children. The face of the young woman is

marked by wrinkles, the gaze full of worry directed in the distance. To the right and left the two older children, seeking protection, lean against her shoulders, hiding their faces from

the camera, while the small baby has fallen asleep on its mother's lap. This highly concentrated, tightly composed image

has made Dorothea Lange an icon of socially committed photography.

She is best known for her chronicles of the Great Depression and for her photographs of migratory farm workers.

From 1935 to 1939, Lange's work brought the plight of the poor and forgotten — particularly sharecroppers, displaced farm

families, and migrant workers — to public attention. Distributed free to newspapers across the country, her poignant images

became icons of the era.

Ansel AdamsNature/Landscape Photographer

Ansel Adams (Feb. 20 1902 — Apr. 22, 1984), photographer and environmentalist, was born in San Francisco, California. Adams's love of nature was

nurtured in the Yosemite Sierra. He spent substantial time there every year from 1916 until his death.

Adams was the last and defining figure in the romantic tradition of nineteenth-century American landscape

painting and photography. From his first visit, Adams was transfixed and

transformed. He began using the Kodak No. 1 Box Brownie his parents had given him.

1927 was the pivotal year of Adams's life. He made his first fully visualized photograph, Monolith, the Face of

Half Dome, and took his first High Trip. Adams's star rose rapidly in the early 1930s, propelled in part by his ability and in part by his effusive energy and activity. He made his first visit to New York in 1933, on a

pilgrimage to meet photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the artist whose work and philosophy Adams most admired

and whose life of commitment to the medium he consciously emulated .

Adams's technical mastery was the stuff of legend. More than any creative photographer, before or since, he reveled in the theory and practice of the medium. He served as principal photographic consultant to

Polaroid and Hasselblad and, informally, to many other photographic concerns.

Adams developed the famous and highly complex "zone system" of controlling and relating exposure and

development, enabling photographers to creatively visualize an image and produce a photograph that

matched and expressed that visualization .

http://www.anseladams.com/anseladams_biography_s/51.htm

Contemporary Photography

• Research and display different forms (genres or types) of contemporary (present day) photography, (think of the different ‘forms’ which are now possible due to digital technology).

• Choose forms which contrast each other, i.e. Underwater, Fashion, Landscape

• Find a famous photographer which specialises in one of these ‘forms’. – Research and analyse their work and include examples of their

photographs. – Describe their influences and where their work has been

published, used or shown and identify the techniques they have used and how these vary from photographers from the past.

(Tip: You may find they have their own website!)

Annie LeibovitzCelebrity Photographer

Annie Leibovitz's portraits have appeared in magazines for over 25 years. She began her career as a

photographer for Rolling Stone and now has a long-standing affiliation

with Vanity Fair and Vogue. Leibovitz’s first assignment: shoot was John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Leibovitz’s black-and-white portrait

of the shaggy-looking Beatle graced the cover of the January 21, 1971

issue. Two years later she was named Rolling Stone chief

photographer.

At Vanity Fair she became known for her wildly lit, staged, and

provocative portraits of celebrities. Most famous among them are

Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a bath of milk and Demi Moore naked

and holding her pregnant belly.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/annie-leibovitz/life-through-a-lens/16/http://www.nytimes.com/library/photos/leibovitz/interview.html

David LaChapelleCelebrity

http://www.lachapellestudio.com/celebrities/

His objective is to document America's obsessions and compulsions using publications as a means to reach the

broadest possible audience. He employs "pop" in the broadest sense of the word and photographs the most popular people in the world to the most marginalized always attempting to communicate to the public in an

explicit and understandable way.

The images are meant to attract, not alienate. Inclusion has always been his goal when making these pictures.

After establishing himself as a fixture amongst contemporary photography, LaChapelle expanded his work to include direction of music videos, live theatrical

events, and documentary film. His directing credits include music videos for artists such as Christina

Aguilera, Moby, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, The Vines and No Doubt.

His stage work includes Elton John's The Red Piano, the Caesar's Palace spectacular he designed and directed

in 2004, which just recently ended its five year run in Las Vegas. His burgeoning interest in film led him to make the short documentary Krumped, an award-winner at Sundance from which he developed RIZE, the feature film acquired for worldwide distribution by Lions Gate

Films. The film was released in the US and internationally in the Summer of 2005 to huge critical

acclaim, and was chosen to open the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City

Sebastião SalgadoPhoto Journalist

A committed photojournalist, Salgado is one of the most outstanding and versatile

of contemporary photographers. A humanist who conveys his feelings with powerful, beautiful photographs, he has revealed a world of human despair from

the miserable conditions endured by Brazilian coal miners to African famine

victims to oil well firefighters in Kuwaiti oil fields.

Salgado, who lives in Paris, has won various awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Award in 1982 for his essay and

series Ethiopian Famine. In 1985 he won the Oskar Barnack Award. He was

named Photographic journalist of the Year by the International Center of

Photography in 1986 and received the Hasselblad Award in 1989.

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_chimborazo.html