American photography Archives

Ansel Adams: 1902-1984

February 20, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born in San Francisco, California on February 20, 1902, Ansel Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist known for his technical expertise and his stunning black-and-white photographs of the American Southwest, Yosemite National Park, and the California coast.

Considered a hyperactive child, Adams was unsuccessful in the schools he had attended and as a result, his father and aunt tutored him at home. Leading a somewhat solitary childhood, Adams spent much of his time in nature, exploring the beaches and the heights facing San Francisco Bay.

At the age of twelve Adams taught himself to play the piano and read music. Soon after, he began lessons and for the next twelve years he studied piano, intending to make his living as a concert pianist. Adams ultimately gave up piano for photography but these early studies “brought substance, discipline, and structure to his frustrating and erratic youth. Moreover, the careful training and exacting craft required of a musician profoundly informed his visual artistry, as well as his influential writings and teachings on photography.”

In 1916, Adams visited Yosemite National Park with his family. His father gave him a Kodak Brownie box camera with which he took his first photographs. The next year, Adams returned to Yosemite with a better camera and a tripod. That winter, he worked part-time for a San Francisco photo finisher where he learned basic darkroom techniques. Adams explored the High Sierra, in summer and winter, developing the stamina and skill needed to photograph at high altitudes and in difficult weather.

When he was 17, Adams joined the Sierra Club, a group dedicated to “preserving the natural world’s wonders and resources”. He was the custodian of the organization’s headquarters at Yosemite, for four years. Adams retained his membership throughout his lifetime and served on the board for 37 years.

Adams’ first photographs were published in 1921 and Best’s Studio in Yosemite Valley began selling his prints in 1922. In the mid-1920s, he experimented with soft-focus, etching, Bromoil Process, and other techniques of the pictorial photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz who attempted to produce photography on an equal artistic plane with painting by trying to mimic it. Adams eventually rejected the pictorial method for a more realist approach which relied on sharp focus, heightened contrast, precise exposure, and darkroom craftsmanship.

In the late 1920s, with the promotion of an arts-connected businessman Albert Bender, Adams’ first portfolio was a success and he began receiving commercial assignments to photograph the wealthy patrons who had purchased his portfolio. In 1928, Adams began working as an official photographer for the Sierra Club.

In 1930, Taos Pueblo, Adams’ second portfolio, was published with text by writer Mary Austin. Through a friend with Washington connections, Adams was able to hold his first solo museum exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in 1931.

In 1932, Adams and other photographers, including Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston, founded the group f64, (a very small aperture setting that gives great depth of field), which maintained an interest in the technically perfect photographic print.

Adams developed the “zone system” as a way to explain exposure and development control and published his first book on how to master photographic technique in 1935. Over the next several years, Adams published a number of books and articles including “The Camera and the Lens” (1948), “The Negative” (1948), “The Print” (1950), “Natural Light Photography” (1952), and “Artificial Light Photography” (1956).

In the 1930s, Adams began to use his photographs to promote the cause of wilderness preservation. In 1938, he published “Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail”, with the Sierra Club, in an effort to secure the designation of Sequoia and Kings Canyon as national parks. The book and his testimony before Congress played a vital role in the success of the effort, and Congress designated the area as a National Park in 1940.

In 1940, Adams organized “A Pageant of Photography”, the most important and largest photography show in the West to-date, attended by millions of visitors. Adams completed a children’s book with his wife Virginia Best and the “Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley” during 1940 and 1941. Adams also began teaching in 1941 at the Art Center School of Los Angeles and in 1945, he was asked to form the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts. In 1952, Adams was one of the founders of the magazine “Aperture”, a journal of photography showcasing its best practitioners and newest innovations. In June 1955, Adams began annual workshops, teaching thousands of students right up until 1981.

Until the 1970s, Adams was financially dependent on commercial projects. Some of his clients included Kodak, Fortune magazine, Pacific Gas and Electric, AT&T, and the American Trust Company. In 1974, he had a major retrospective exhibition at the “Metropolitan Museum of Art”. During the 1970s, much of his time was spent curating and re-printing negatives to satisfy the demand of art museums which had created departments of photography. He also spent a lot of his time writing about environmentalism, focusing mainly on the Big Sur coastline of California and the protection of Yosemite. President Jimmy Carter commissioned Adams to make the first official portrait of a president made by a photograph.

Ansel Adams died on April 22, 1984 from heart failure aggravated by cancer. “Adams’ lasting legacy includes helping to elevate photography to an art comparable with painting and music, and equally capable of expressing emotion and beauty. ” The Minarets Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest was renamed the Ansel Adams Wilderness in 1985 in his honor. Mount Ansel Adams, an 11,760 ft (3,580 m) peak in the Sierra Nevada, was named for him in 1985.

Sources: Ansel Adams Gallery, Wikipedia, Museum of Contemporary Photography

Paul Strand: 1890 – 1976

October 16, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Portrait of Paul Strand by Louise Dahl-Wolfe

Born on October 16, 1890, in New York City, Paul Strand was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century.

Strand studied with documentary photographer Lewis Hine at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York. By 1909, he had set up his own commercial studio and also did work on the side in a pictorialist style that was exhibited at the New York Camera Club. In the early 1920s, Strand’s work experimented with formal abstraction and also reflected his interest in social reform. He was one of the founders of the Photo League, an association of photographers who advocated using their art to promote social and political causes.

“Strand visited New Mexico in 1926 and, beginning in 1930, returned for three consecutive summers, making portraits of artist friends and acquaintances. It was there, amidst a community of visual artists and writers, that Strand began to develop his belief in the humanistic value of portraiture.”

Strand traveled to Mexico again in 1934 where he photographed the landscape, architecture, folk art, and people and produced a film about fishermen for the Mexican government. He returned to New York late in 1934 and devoted his time to theater and filmmaking cooperatives.

In 1943, Strand resumed his still photography, focusing on the people and surroundings of New England. In June 1949, he left the United States to present Native Land at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia. This marked the beginning of Strand’s long absence from the United States due to McCarthyism. “Although he was never officially a member of the Communist Party, many of Strand’s collaborators were either Party members or were prominent socialist writers and activists. Many of his friends were also Communists or were suspected of being so. Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than twenty organizations that were branded as ‘subversive’ and ‘un-American’ by the U.S. Attorney General.”

“The remaining 27 years of Strand’s life were spent in Orgeval, France. In the early 1950s, he spent six weeks in the northern Italian agrarian community of Luzzara and later travelled to the Outer Hebrides, islands off the northwest coast of Scotland. He also travelled and photographed in North and West Africa in the 1960s.”

Paul Strand died on March 31, 1976 at his home in France.

About the short film above: In 1920 Paul Strand and artist Charles Sheeler collaborated on Manhatta, a short silent film that presents a day in the life of lower Manhattan. Inspired by Walt Whitman’s book Leaves of Grass, the film includes multiple segments that express the character of New York. The sequences display a similar approach to the still photography of both artists. Attracted by the cityscape and its visual design, Strand and Sheeler favored extreme camera angles to capture New York’s dynamic qualities. Although influenced by Romanticism in its view of the urban environment, Manhatta is considered the first American avant-garde film.

Sources: Wikipedia, Getty Museum, Lee Gallery

Annie Leibovitz: Photography

October 2, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on October 2, 1949, in Waterbury, Connecticut, Annie Leibovitz has been documenting American popular culture since the 1970s and is one of the most sought-after portrait photographers today.

The Leibovitz family moved frequently with her father’s duty assignments in the U.S. Air Force and Annie took her first photos when they were stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War. Leibovitz studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and after a summer trip to Japan with her mother, she began taking night classes in photography and developed her skills as a photographer. Early influences include Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

In 1970, Leibovitz approached the editor of the recently launched Rolling Stone Magazine for employment. Her first assignment was a photo shoot with John Lennon and her photo appeared on the January 1971 issue. Leibovitz was named chief photographer two years later.

In 1980, Leibovitz was sent to photograph John Lennon and Yoko Ono and created the now-famous Lennon nude curled around a fully clothed Ono. Several hours after the photo shoot, Lennon was shot and killed. The photograph ran on the cover of Rolling Stone Lennon commemorative issue and in 2005 was named best magazine cover from the past 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

In 1983, Leibovitz became a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair magazine and became known for her provocative celebrity portraits including Whoopie Goldberg, Demi Moore, Brad Pitt, Ellen DeGeneres, Queen Elizabeth II, and countless others. Her portraits have also been featured in national media including Vogue, The New York Times, The New Yorker, as well as media ads for American Express, the Gap, and the Milk Board.

Leibovitz began a long-term romantic relationship with writer Susan Sontag in 1989. Sontag had a strong influence on her work including her photos documenting the Balkan war in Sarajevo and Women, a book they published together in 2000. The couple lived apart but maintained a close relationship until Sontag’s death in 2004.

Leibovitz has received numerous awards including a Commandeur des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government as well as designation as a living legend by the Library of Congress. In 1991, she had her first museum show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. – a show that toured internationally for six years.

With several book publications under her belt, Leibovitz’s most recent book A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005 features her trademark celebrity portraits as well as personal photographs from her own life.

Leibovitz has three children, Sarah Cameron who was born when Leibovitz was 51 years old, and twins Susan and Samuelle who were born to a surrogate mother in May 2005.

To see more of Annie Leibovitz’s photographs visit Contact Press. There is also a PBS documentary called Annie Leibovitz, Life Through a Lens that features interviews from celebrities and with the photographer about the her work over the last few decades.

Sources: PBS, Wikipedia

Helen Levitt: 1913-2009

August 31, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Since I’m inarticulate, I express myself with images. —Helen Levitt

Born on August 31, 1913 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, Helen Levitt was once called (by David Strauss in a 1997 Artforum International article) “the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time.” Perhaps this lack of recognition stems from Levitt’s tendency to be an “intensely private” person who did not seek fame and rarely gave interviews. Perhaps it was because she did not wish to assign “social meaning” to her photographs—a lesson she learned after meeting photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson—that a photograph could “stand up by itself.”

Leaving high school in her senior year, Levitt began working in 1931 for the commercial portrait photographer J. Florian Mitchell, who was known to the family. “I helped in darkroom printing and developing,” she said. “My salary was six bucks a week.” It was during this time that she taught herself photography.

Levitt was influenced by the photographic styles of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn. She met and accompanied Cartier-Bresson on a photographic shoot of the Brooklyn waterfront in 1935 and the following year, bought a second hand Leica, the camera Cartier-Bresson preferred. Between 1938-39, Levitt was mentored by and worked with Walker Evans but she gave more credit to photographer Ben Shahn and his gritty photos of New York of the 1930s.

Levitt found success early on, and in July 1939, her work was published in Fortune magazine. In 1940, her Halloween photograph was included in the inaugural exhibition at Museum of Modern Art as part of its new photography section. In 1943, Levitt had her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (Helen Levitt: Photographs of Children March 10-April 18).

In a rare interview in 2001 for NPR, Levitt talked about her street photography: “It was a very good neighbourhood for taking pictures in those days, because that was before television, there was a lot happening. And then the older people would sometimes be sitting out on the stoops because of the heat. They didn’t have air conditioning in those days. It was, don’t forget, in the late ’30s. So those neighbourhoods were very active.” (listen to/read the interview)

Levitt also worked in film and spent most of her time from 1949-59 as a full-time film editor and director. Notably, during this period, she worked on two documentary films, In the Street with friend and painter Janice Loeb and the writer James Agee, and The Quiet One (1948). The Quiet One writers, Sidney Meyers, Loeb, and Levitt, were nominated for the Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Academy Award. The film was also nominated for Best Documentary Feature. The National Board of Review named it the second best film of 1949. Levitt continued working in film making for almost twenty-five years.

When Levitt returned to photography in 1959, she was among the first photographers to work in colour. She received Guggenheim fellowships in 1959 and 1960 for these projects. Sadly, a great deal of Levitt’s early colour work was stolen from her New York apartment in the late 1960s.

Comprehensive surveys of Levitt’s work were held at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York in 1980 and at the Laurence Miller Gallery in 1987. However, it was not until 1991 that she gained significant recognition when the first national retrospective of her work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was held. The exhibition showed at other major museums including the International Center for Photography, New York (1997), and the Centre National la Photographie, Paris (2001). In 2007, Helen Levitt: Un Art de l’accident poetique, opened at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris. In 2008, Levitt was the recipient of the Spectrum International Photography Prize which included a major retrospective at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, Germany. Also in the fall of 2008, a major retrospective was held at FOAM Museum in Amsterdam. In that same year, Levitt received the Francis Greenburger award for excellence in the arts.

On March 29, 2009, Helen Levitt died in her sleep at the age of 95.

James Agee (1909-1955), a good friend of Levitt, wrote “Helen Levitt’s photographs seem to me as beautiful, perceptive, satisfying, and enduring as any lyrical work that I know. In their general quality and coherence, moreover, the photographs as a whole body, as a book, seem to me to combine into a unified view of the world, an uninsistent but irrefutable manifesto of a way of seeing, and in a gentle and wholly unpretentious way, a major poetic work.“

Sources: New York Times, NPR, Artsy, Lawrence Miller Gallery

Alfred Cheney Johnston: 1885 – 1971

April 8, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Alfred Cheney Johnston was born on April 8, 1885 in New York to a wealthy family who had connections with New York’s upper class. In 1903, Johnston attended The Art Students League of New York but transferred to the National Academy of Design in New York in 1904 where he studied illustration and experimented with photography. While there, he met fellow student Norman Rockwell with whom he became lifelong friends.

In 1908, Johnston graduated from the Academy and married classmate and painter Doris Gernon in 1909. With the encouragement of family friend Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the “Gibson Girl”), Johnston continued to develop his photographic skills. His wife Doris was known to complete the darkroom retouch work on his prints and glass plates.

Johnston was invited to become official photographer of the Ziegfeld Follies by its founder Florenz Ziegfeld around 1916. Ziegfeld promoted his productions as “Glorifying the American Girl” and it was Johnston’s job to capture that vision in photographs. His photos were considered sexual at the time and his props included tapestry backgrounds, pearls, and shawls and scarves for draping.

Through his relationship with Ziegfeld, Johnston also became known for his portraits of silent film stars, the upper class society, advertising work, layouts for industrial firms and cigarette companies.

Johnston’s photographs became famous around the world and he had a very successful career with the Follies until the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent death of Ziegfeld in 1932.

In 1937, Johnston, with Swann Publications, published his book of artistic nude photographs entitled “Enchanting Beauty” which had only limited success. Johnston continued to work in New York until 1939 when he and his wife moved to a rural property in Oxford, Connecticut where they converted their barn into a studio space. There are few records of Johnston’s photographic work in Connecticut though he is known to have belonged to photographic clubs and associations where he gave numerous lectures. Johnston also taught photography from his studio during this time.

In the 1960’s, Johnston attempted to donate his studio and photographic works to several organizations in New York and Washington but received little interest in the proposal. Johnston died in 1971 at Griffin Hospital in Ansonia, Connecticut. In 2006, the book “Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Collection of Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston” by Robert Hudovernik was published. Today, Johnston is considered a top photographer of his time, among the ranks of Edward Steichen, Horst, Arnold Genthe, and others.

Sources: Alfred Cheney Johnston.com

Edward Weston: 1886-1958

March 24, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on March 24, 1886 in Highland Park, Illinois, Edward Henry Weston was a major American photographer and co-founder of Group f/64.

Weston began taking pictures at the age of sixteen when he received a Bull’s Eye #2 camera from his father. His first photos were of the parks of Chicago and his aunt’s farm. His first photograph was published in Camera and Darkroom in 1906. That same year, Weston moved to California where he sold his photographic services door to door, taking pictures of children, pets, and funerals.

In 1908, Weston moved back to Illinois and began his studies at the Illinois College of Photography. Completing the 12 month course, in six months, Weston returned to California where he gained employment as a re-toucher at the George Steckel Portrait Studio in Los Angeles. In 1909, Weston joined the Louis A. Mojoiner Portrait Studio as a photographer. In that same year, he married Flora Chandler with whom he had four children.

In 1911, Weston opened his own portrait studio in Tropico, California where he would remain for the next twenty years. He worked in a soft-focus, pictorial style which won him numerous exhibitions and professional awards. He gained an international reputation for his high key portraits and modern dance studies. Magazines such as American Photography, Photo Era, and Photo Miniature published articles about his work and Weston himself wrote many pieces for these publications.

In 1922, Weston visited the ARMCO Steel Plant in Middletown, Ohio. The photographs taken there began a turning point in his career. During this time, Weston turned away from his Pictorial style and placed a new emphasis on abstract form and sharper resolution of detail. “The industrial photographs were true straight images: unpretentious, and true to reality.” Weston later wrote, “The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.’ “

“Weston strove to capture the formal essence of his subject matter and present it as a revelation. Emphasizing line, careful cropping, and the interplay of shadows and light, Weston turned peppers, cabbages, egg slicers, rocks, and roots into objects of mystery and wonder.”

In 1923, Weston moved to Mexico City and opened a photographic studio with his apprentice and lover Tina Modotti. Many portraits and nudes were taken during this time and famous artists such as Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Jose Orozco hailed Weston as the “master of 20th century art.”

Weston returned to California in 1926 and began his work for which he is most famous: natural forms, close-ups, nudes, and landscapes. Between 1927 and 1930, Weston made a series of close-ups of seashells, peppers, and halved cabbages, bringing out the rich textures of their sculpture-like forms. In 1929, he moved to Carmel, California where he photographed his well known images of rocks and trees at Point Lobos.

In 1932, Weston joined with Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham and Sonya Noskowiak as a founding member of Group f/64. The group’s aim was to promote a “new Modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects.” The optical term was chosen because they frequently set their lenses to that aperture to secure maximum image sharpness of both foreground and distance.

In 1936, Weston began a series of nudes and sand dunes in Oceano, California, which are considered to be some of his best work. That same year, he became the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship for his experimental work. Weston spent the next two years taking photographs in the West and Southwest United States with assistant and future wife Charis Wilson.

In 1946, the Museum of Modern Art in New York featured a major retrospective of 300 prints of Weston’s work. In 1948, with advancing Parkinson’s disease, Weston took his last photograph.

Weston’s 50th Anniversary Portfolio was published in 1952 and a larger project known as “the Project Prints” took place between 1952 and 1955. These were a series of 8 -10 prints from 832 negatives considered to be Watson’s best photographs. In 1956, the Smithsonian held the show, “The World of Edward Weston” honouring his accomplishments in American photography.

Edward Weston died on January 1, 1958 at his home, Wildcat Hill, in Carmel, California. His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean at Pebbly Beach at Point Lobos.

Sources: Edward Weston.com, Wikipedia, Getty Museum

Rodney Smith: Photography

January 6, 2013 By Wendy Campbell

Celebrated photographer Rodney Smith graduated from the University of Virginia in 1970 and earned a Master of Divinity in Theology from Yale University in 1973. While at Yale, he also studied photography under Walker Evans.

In 1975, Smith received a Jerusalem Foundation Fellowship which enabled him to travel to Jerusalem for three months. The photos taken there resulted in his first book “In the Land of Light” which was published in 1983.

As well as his personal work, Smith has been commissioned for numerous major commercial assignments including American Express, IBM, Heinz, Starbucks Coffee, Ralph Lauren, The New York Times Magazine and others. His work has been exhibited in dozens of shows, has won approximately 75 awards, and is represented in numerous major galleries around the world. Smith is also a teacher and has an adjunct professorship at Yale University.

Smith’s second book, “The Hat Book” was published in 1993 as well as his book “The End” in 2008. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Snedens Landing – a community near New York City.

To see more of Smith’s work, visit RodneySmith.com.

Sources: Artnet

Matt Hoyle: Beauty in Imperfection

September 26, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

Before becoming a professional photographer, Matt Hoyle was a Creative Director in the advertising industry. This is where he developed a strong sense of concept and story. Today, his photography is recognized across the globe. His work has been featured in countless publications and won numerous awards including a Cannes Gold Lion. Hoyle has been selected as one of the 200 Best Ad Photographers by Lurzer’s Archive, and has appeared multiple times in the IPA Best of Show. His photographs have been exhibited in major galleries and his clients include Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO, GSD&M, Rolling Stone, New York Magazine, Wired, Fast Company, and others.

Of his work Hoyle says: “People have always interested me. It may actually be as boring as that. I love sub-groups and the sub-cultures. Whether that be aging boxers who used to be champions, winter swimmers or sideshow freaks. The imperfections of society are what interests me also and that’s why I try to unapologetically bring them out. I love the beauty in imperfection. They make great stories, don’t they? Every great story has a flawed character. I just try to magnify them.

See more of Matt’s work at MattHoyle.com and Behance. Check out more of Matt’s concept of Beauty in Imperfection (aka wabi-sabi) from this talk he gave at TEDx in Dubai.

Sources: F-Stop Magazine, Feature Shoot, Alt Pick

Nicolas Alan Cope & Dustin Edward Arnold: Photography

April 19, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

Nicolas Alan Cope & Dustin Edward Arnold met through a commercial job in 2007 and began collaborating on personal projects in October 2009. They are currently working on an ongoing series of four project-based publications entitled: “Vedas”, “Stamen”, “Putesco”, and “Aether”.

Raised in Maryland, Nicholas Alan Cope moved to Los Angeles in 2004 and attended Art Center College of Design. Cope has worked for a number of commercial and editorial clients as well as on personal projects.

Dustin Edward Arnold is a Los Angeles based art director who also works in sculpture, product development, and fine calligraphy.

See more on COPE1.COM, OR Cope-Arnold.com.

Peter Lippmann: Photography

April 1, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

Peter Lippmann is a New York born still life photographer who, though born in New York, has been living and working in Paris for the last 15 years. He has collaborated with the most famous French brands (Cartier, Guerlain, SFR Telecom, SNCF Rail, Pierre Gagnaire), as well as international brands such as Flora, Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne, Minute Maid, Chianti, Downy, Wilkinson Sword and is regularly published in magazines such as Vogue, New York Times Magazine, Marie Claire and Le Figaro. In his free time, he writes and sings in rock band ‘The Well Hung Curtains’, whilst sporting a mean trilby. (bio from Trayler & Trayler)

To see more, visit PeterLippmann.com.