Alicia Helm Second Blog Assignment

Smoke and Veil, Paris Vogue, 1958

Broadway and 103rd St., New York 1954

William Klein

William Klein is best known for his fashion and journalistic portraiture. He trained as a painter but after an exhibition in Milan with his kinetic sculptures, Alexander Liberman, then art director of Vogue hired him. He is able to create powerful images using shallow shots and tension within the photograph. This tension doesn't necessarily stem from the tension of what the subjects are doing. By trying to squeeze the most into the frame, he can equilibrate the balance of subject and abstract tension.

Marcel Duchamp

Salvador Dali

Irving Penn

Irving Penn is one of the century's most influential fashion photographers. He worked for Vogue in 1953- a remarkable time for the growth of American fashion. He was not primarily a fashion photographer. He shot still lifes and pictures of food saying once that "photographing cake can be art too." He graduated from the Philadelphia University of the Arts in 1938. He passed away last year, yet his legacy lives on in the modern fashion photographer's heart. The two pictures above show a different technique he possessed. Using a narrow triangle as the background forced the subject out of the frame making them seem more 3-dimensional.

The Beatles

April 18th 1963

Twist and Shout (album cover)

The Beatles

Fiona Adams

Fiona Adams studied photography at Ealing School of Art. She went through several phases of photography before landing her claim to fame photographing the Beatles (little known at the time) outside London for Boyfriend Magazine. The photograph on top made the album cover for the album Twist and Shout. The most interesting thing about her is the innovative quality of the shot. She didn't stick to the traditional studio-posed shot (like the first shot below). My favorite part of the story is imagining her cramming into a taxi with her equipment and the four Beatles. After this, she started photographing other icons of the 1960s like Jimi Hendrix and Twiggy.

Andy Warhol

Painter, Printmaker, The Factory, New York

1973

Leonard Bernstein

Philharmoic Hall, New York

1968

Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman spent two years at University of Miami studying painting and drawing before leaving because of finanical troubles. He then moved to Pennsylvania and worked at a print shop. This started his journey into the world of photography. He photographed celebrities and personalities such as Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol (pictured above), and Ronald Reagan. Although he photographed all of these people, their fame did not matter to him. His ideology was to photograph with intention- the composition was the key element that spoke to the viewer whether the subject was famous or not. I like his work because I agree with his ideas completely. He can make the most average person look important just by using his eyes and composing them as such.