Famous+Photographer+Assignment

= __Famous Photographer: Irving Penn__ =

__ Biography __

Irving Penn (1917-2009) was an American photographer who focused on still life, portraits and fashion photography. In his career he worked around the country, working for Vogue, Clinique and General Foods amongst other clients.

Penn was born on June 16th, 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey to Harry Penn and Sonia Greenberg. There was little photography background in his family- his father was a watchmaker while his mother was a nurse. From 1934 to 1938, Penn still hadn't begun to pursue his future career- he attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, where he studied drawing, painting and graphics. He had plans to become a painter then, and studied under Brodovitch, whom he regarded as his teacher and idol. Brodovitch taught Penn the art of advertising design, and Penn began to take his first amateur photos of department store fronts. Upon completing university, Penn moved to New York and started working for Harper's Bazaar as an office boy, and later moving on to the position of art director for Junior League Magazine. In 1940, he succeeded Brodovitch as art director at Saks Fifth Avenue, but decided to give up that position within a year, spending his savings to go paint and photograph in Mexico.

His time in Mexico was when he decided to not pursue painting anymore. Upon returning to New York, he was hired by Alexander Liberman, the art director of Vogue Magazine, to suggest photographic designs for their covers. The other photographers, however, didn't appreciate his designs, so he began to take the photos for the magazine cover himself, and in 1943, arranged and photographed a still life image that was published on the October 1st issue. This began his career as a photographer. Throughout the years, he would work on portraits, still life, fashion photography and photographic essays, with over 150 covers for Vogue designed and photographed over 50 years. He also worked on a number of fields including travel, television, editorial illustration and advertising.

In 1950, he was sent to Paris by Vogue to photograph their latest collection. He also married Lisa Fonssagrives, a model whom he had worked with in pieces such as "Mermaid Dress" and "Woman With Roses". In the next few decades, he would move on to photograph around the world, with his work shown in over thirty different exhibits up to and even after his death on October 7th, 2009 in Manhattan.

__ Influences __

Irving Penn was one of the most widely respected contemporary photographers, celebrated for his long career as a fashion photographer for Vogue as well as his darkroom experiments and subtle incorporation of strength and beauty in his photos. His style was said to have stayed more or less the same throughout his career. Greatly influenced by his wife and favourite model Lisa Fonssagrives, he received her help in a number of his works. He also collaborated with two of the century's most well known art directors, Alexander Liberman and Alexey Brodovitch, both whom helped shaped his artistic style. He was also very aware of the surroundings and the radical changes in fashion throughout the years, and skillfully kept up with the times through his Vogue covers.

Penn also moved on to influence many other modernist and contemporary photographers, inspiring other fashion photographers with his well-known work at Vogue. He was also named one of the "World's 10 Greatest Photographers" by Popular Photography Magazine in 1958. Even after his death in 2009, his work continued to be exhibited at galleries, a reminder of his genius during his life.

__Style + Genre__

Although he was most well known for his part in fashion photography through his influential career at Vogue Magazine, Penn also created respectable works in Modernist still-life images, ethnographic photos from his journeys around the world as well as photographic essays. His darkroom experiments also brought a new style of smooth, velvet-like developed images into the mainstream of photography.

Penn's style was instantly recognizable and conformed throughout his work in all the different genres he experimented with throughout his career. Known for his preference for simplicity and subtlety over louder images, Penn was one of the first photographers to pose the subject of his photos in front of plain black or white backgrounds. He also strived to make his work last for as long as possible through developing and enlarging his photos using exotic chemicals and platinum instead of silver. This process was very time consuming but permanent, and he meticulously printed and reprinted many of his works through this method. His black and white prints also gave off a clean, uncluttered feeling. Overall, his style was very calm, the subjects of his photos always gently portrayed and never running, leaping or twisted in positions that weren't pleasant to the eye.

__Photos__



This photo has a strong sense of balance- the model, Lisa Fonssagrives, is standing directly in the middle of the image, with an equal amount of background on both sides. Another design principle is the "colour space" (or shade space since this image is in black and white). The model's dress is in pitch, light absorbing black, which creates a solid block of shade. This constrasts with her face, which looks pale and illuminated in comparison. This photo reflects Penn's subtle style, with Fonssagrives poised in the center, wearing long dress that shows off her figure. It is a good example of Penn's work because it also uses a plain, undefined gray background that draws attention to the focus of the image. Lisa Fonssagrives was also Penn's wife and favourite model, and became the focus of many of his works throughout his career. The light used in this photo created different effects due to the media that it was shining on. The light made the model's face look pale and clear, while her dress absorbed the light in a way that made her body seem almost like a silhouette. Paired with the flowers on her arm, earrings and her expression, the different ways light is reacted to in this image creates a femenine elegance.



In this photo, there is a sense of element relationship between the man and the bamboo that he his holding. The expression in his eyes is also like he is looking at the person seeing the image- an effect that Penn was probably intending to create. There are also many diagonals in this image, but not so much that it strays from Penn's simple and subtle style. There is also a large section of pale gray to white on the man's chest, as well as tribal-looking paint on his face. This contrasts with his skin, hat and clothing. Although the image is in monochrome, it could count as colour space. The use of light in this image gives the man a earthly glow to him, reducing the fierceness of what the man might be like and portraying his culture and native ways nonjudgementally. This photo was probably taken on one of Penn's many journeys around the world photographing other civilizations.



This is a photograph of a Hell's Angel on his motorcycle. There are diagonals and triangles in the way the man is sitting as well as in his motorcycle himself; there is also element interaction between the two subjects. There is a certain sense of direction in this photo too; the motorcycle is facing a direction with the man gripping the handles, although the man looks relaxed and not like he is ready to charge off to some place in the distance. The light used in this image matches the expression on the man's face, and, like the last photo, softens any possible intimidating or loud qualities of the subject. The man's expression is neutral even as his name and appearance is supposed to be frightening or rowdy to society. This effect is due to Penn's simple style, as is the monotone background of gray and black.



This image of a hand is very striking- it has a sense of direction with the pointed fingers, one that is almost completely in darkness except for the tip. It also has colour space, with only the thumb, second finger and part of the palm illuminated in a white light that defines each ridge and fold mark on the hand. The rest of the hand is almost pitch black, which makes it look like a shadow or outline. A simple and single point is involved, bringing all attention to the hand and letting the eyes wander over each specific detail, from the position that the hand is in to the hair on the wrist.The hand also seems to belong to a member of another civilization that Penn photographed in a travel essay or something else, but due to the monochrome nature of the photo, that fact is left as a mystery. The use of light in this image also shows Penn's design genius; the stark contrast between the lit up parts of the hand and the darkened parts create a defined border around the hand, showing off its outline and stretched position. It also draws a lot of attention to the details- the folds and creases on it.



This photo has a strong sense of depth and levels of planes from the hallway in the background. The lines on the floor of the hallway seem to lead from the distance to the model and then back, giving the image a sense of movement as well. There are patterns on the wall and floor, creating a more colourful seeming photo despite the fact that it's in black and white. The model is the subject of the photo again, and the outline of her face is very feminine and defined. The rest of her body, however, seems to be covered in a robe that billows around her body as she sits. Her hair is also covered by a cloth, and these two elements give her an air of mystery and allure, another preference of Penn's when photographing women. She sits near a table with a kettle and some other metal objects, expressing element relationship. The use of light in this image is interesting as well; the background shows a bright, sunny setting while the front and foreground of the image is darkened and mysterious, with only shafts of light from the background illuminating some of the folds on her robe. Her face is in shadow, which matches the mysteriousness in her expression.

WOW! What an amazing collection of images and a thorough analysis of his life and work. 55/55

__Bibliography__

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Penn

http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/irving_penn.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/arts/design/08penn.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/P/penn/penn_articles2.html

http://robertacucchiaro.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/irving-penn-the-one-and-only/

http://www.photographyoffice.com/2011/01/classic-fashion-and-celebrity-photography-by-irving-penn/