Cecil
Beaton was an English photographer in 1920s and 1930s. He had a unique style of posing sitters with unusual backgrounds,
and photographed multiple royal weddings. His images captured elegance, glamour and style, his work
heavily influencing the world of portrait photography. Much of David Bailey, Mario
Testino and other contemporary photographers’ work shows evidence of this
influence.
Erwin
Blumenfeld was a fashion photographer from Germany in the 1940s and 50s. He
also worked with celebrity portraiture and fine art photography; often black
and white nudes. Blumenfeld was said to be "one of the most innovative and influential
photographers of the 20th century," (Daily Telegraph 2013). His first double page spread in Vogue, 1944 was
a photograph of his daughter’s legs; however, Blumenfeld soon generated awe in
everyone with his famous front page of Vogue in 1950. He
also photographed fellow photographer Cecil Beaton. Blumenfeld’s unique style
included how important he believed the background of his photos to be. He also
incorporated a risk/danger element, fascinating viewers by bringing something
new and unconventional to the table. Due to the limited technology in the 20th
century, Blumenfeld added colour by painting in details after printing.
Richard Avedon’s
work in 1940s-60s captivated the fashion world, and was unique due to his minimalist, provocative, deep and emotionally revealing
portraits. It was important to Avedon that his models convey emotion and
movement, straying away from the normal fashion photography of the time. Much
of his work featured the latest fashions in real-life settings such as Parisian
cafes and streets, shot elegantly in black-and-white. Avedon’s photos were ones
of grace, beauty, and unique appeal; demonstrated by his fascinating piece ‘Dovima
with Elephants.’
David
Bailey is an English, fashion and portrait photographer who has been working
from 1959 to the current day. Bailey worked largely with Vogue,
shooting 800 editorial pages in one year. He also photographed many artists of
the 60s and 70s such as The Beatles, Mic Jagger, Alice Cooper, and the Rolling
Stones. Bailey’s work has quite a flirtatious theme, involving movement such as
hair being roughed up by wind.
Helmut
Newton was a German-Australian artist in the 1940s-80s. He was a fashion and theatre
photographer, taking provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos. His
work appeared in the British, French and Australian versions of Vogue, and he
also worked with celebrities. His 1980 series ‘Big Nudes’ certainly
maintains a sexual vibe, displaying ‘powerful, confrontational nudes.’
Guy Bourdin
was a French painter and self-taught fashion photographer in 1950s-80s. His contemporary
photography, like many fellow photographers of the time, was provocative and
sensual, but suddenly introduced a surreal, sinister vibe of danger and taboo. He
was a colleague of Helmut Newton at Vogue,
and they worked closely, stating that they could not have achieved what they
did without one another. Models in his work often appeared dead, injured or at
the least, uncomfortable, which was shocking to Bourdin’s audience, causing
curiosity as to the vivid stories that were always behind his photos. Unlike many
famous pieces at the time, Bourdin also began to incorporate vivid colours,
perhaps reflecting the surreal element and strong backstories. Bourdin also
worked on shoe designer Charles Jourdan’s ad campaigns from ‘67-‘81.
In the 1970s-90s,
Herb Ritts was an art and commercial photographer. He worked in fashion, producing
portraits (often nude), and editorial work (in Vogue); and also on ad campaigns (Georgio Armani). Additionally, he
directed music videos and commercials. A lot of his work featured clean lines,
strong forms and high contrast, and this graphic simplicity meant it was easily
communicated to and felt by viewers, however it challenged conventional norms
of gender and race at the time; for example there was a strong homoerotic theme
as he was one of the few photographers who used male models.
Rankin is a
modern day English photographer who began his work in the 1990s. He specialises
in portrait and fashion photography, recently creating the film Seven Photographs that Changed Fashion, in
which he recreated famous photographs originally taken by the photographers
mentioned above.
What I found surprising was that many of these photographers started their pathway to fame by working in the forces; for example taking identity shots for marines, or aerial photographs for the air force. I feel very inspired by all these photographers' work and, although I have not studied or practiced any photography before, I now feel fascinated and enthusiastic about learning it.
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