Arnold Newman (Documentary)

Arnold Newman born in Manattan, New York on March 13 1918.  Arnold Newman is well known for his environmental portraits of artists and politicians, also know for his carefully composed abstract still life images.  He found his vision in the empathy he felt for artists and their work, he photographed many personalities including John.F Kennedy, Harry S Truman, Pablo Picasso, Ronald Reagan and Audrey Hepburn.  Newman is credited with being the first photographer to use so called environmental portrait, in which the photographer places the subject in a carefully controlled setting to capture the essence of the individuals life and work.  Newman used the subjects in familiar surrounding so artists in a recording studio or stage or politician in their office or representative  building.  Newman didn't often use colour, his main style was black and white.  His best know colour image was of former Nazi slave labor boss Alfied Krupp in one of Krupp's factories.  In 1946 when he moved back to New York City he opened Arnold Newman Studios and worked freelance photography for Fortune, Life and, Newsweek. 

This is a picture that Arnold Newman took of Ronal Reagan when he was President of the United States of America.  Right from the off you can tell that this is an Arnold Newman because of the background he is using because he likes to take pictures of people whilst in there profession and this is Ronald Reagan in the White House where he will have spent a lot of his time whilst he was president.  The facial expression Reagan is using look kind of smug like he is one of very few people who have had the privilege of working in that room also he looks proud to be in power of the country.  The lighting in this room is relatively bright and if think that when you think of the White House that you think that inside it should always look bright and clean which in this picture is does because it is considered as a great place and it is highly recognised across the globe so it needs to like presentable.  I think that Newman is stood a bit of a distance away from Reagan because you can see that there is a lot of headroom but that is because he wanted a wide shot so that he can get the majority of the room in shot so you know where he is.  Reagan is dressed very smartly and people expect him to because he is president but the picture would look good as well in something less casual because behind close doors I don't think he will wear a suit all the time because it can be uncomfortable so the image would of looked good if they had casual clothes on to see how the president dresses on his down time.   

Lee Friedlander (Documentary)

Lee Friedlander in Aberdeen, Washington on July 14 1934.  Friedlander studied photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calafornia.  In 1956 he moved to New York CIty where he photographed jazz singers for there record covers.  Working mostly  with Leica 35mm cameras and black and white film, Friedlander main style focued on social landscape.  His photographs used detached images images in urban life, store-reflections, structures framed by fences, posters and signs all combining to capture the look of modern life.  In 1963 he had his first solo exhibition at the International Musuem of Photography at George  Eastman House.  Freidlander now works with medium format cameras like Hasselblad Superwide.  Freidlander suffered with arthritis with made it hard for him to carry on with his photography so with the little he did he photographed his surrounding as much as possible.  His book 'Stems'  reflects his around the time of his knee replacment surgery and says that his limbs remind him of plant stems.  These images display textue which were not a feature of his earlier work.

You can tell straight away that this is a Friedlander images because of the style because he likes to capture images of everyday life and this is what this image is, it looks like a cafe and you can see the two people in the window and they look completely oblivious that they are being photographed, another style you can tell is the reflection of the other shops in the window.  Even though the image is black and white you can tell that it is natural lighting because he is outdoors and you can see the reflections.  The image look like it was taken across the other side of the road and then used a zoom lens to capture the facial expression. The older man looks like the owns the shop because he is dressed professionally and he may be looking outside to see how nice it is or he could be looking to see if any customers are coming, then the kid could be a customer or he could be a relative of the owner and he looks bored.  You see the Coca Cola advert in the window and its shows how long Coca Cola has been around and how widely recognised it was even then. 

Robert Capa (Documentary)

Robert Capa born in Budapest, Hunagary on October 22nd 1913.  Capa was most well known for his photography which documented on several wars.  Capa originally wanted to be a writer, but he found some photography work in Berlin and then he learned to love the art of photography.  In 1933 he moved from Germany to France because of the rise of Nazism and persecution of jewish journalists and photographers and found it hard to get freelance work.  Arounnd this time he changed his name from Endre Friedmann to Robert Capa, Capa was his nickname in school and it was more American sounding and it was similar to American film director Frank Capra.  He found it easier to sell more pictures under his new name.  Capa's first published photograph was of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagenon The Meaning of Russian Revolution in 1932.  In 1947 Capa co founded Magnum Photos in Paris with David Seymour, Henri Cartier Bresson, George Rodger and William Vandivert, Magnum Photos was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers.  The 5 wars he photographed were the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War.  He documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, the Battle of Normandy on Omaha Beach and the liberation of Paris.

Robert Capa most famous image named 'The Falling Soldier' was captured in the Spanish Civil War.  The soldier has just been fatally shot by the enemy and is collapsing backwards  and the gun is falling out of his hand.  In the image you can see a lot of landscape even in the distance, there seems be a lot of clouds in the sky and they seem to be grey so it must have been quite a dull day.  There wouldn't of been any adding lighting because he would of wanted to capture the image in natural lighting because it not like it's a image taken  on a set it's a man doing his job in the Spanish Civil War.  Capa would of been relatively close to the soldier that had just been shot.  The picture probably was intended to be of a soldier being shot and killed, Capa probably just wanted an image of a regular soldier doing his job but just at the time he was taking the picture the soldier had been shot wish was unfortunate but it also shows what actually happens in wars and it wasn't pretty.  There isn't really any facial expression you can only see one side of his face and his eyes and mouth are closed so maybe the soldier had died on impact of the shot.  You don't see many pictures like this you either see a image of a soldier that is doing his job or that is already on the ground but he is captured an image where he has only just literally been hit by the bullet.    

Herb Ritts (Portrait)

Herb Ritts born in Los Angeles, Calfornian on Auguest 13th 1952.  Ritts first started off working in the family furniture buisness, until he moved to the east coast to study at Bard College in New York where he earned his major in economics and art history.  It wasn't until he moved back to Los Angeles that he became interestd in photography where he and his friend Richard Gere who at the time wasn't aswell known as an actors as he is today, decided to take some photographs in front of an old jacked up Buick.  The photographs gained Ritts some coverage and he begin to think more seriously about getting into the photography business.  He photographed Brook Sheilds for the cover of October 12th 1981 cover of Elle, he then also photographed Olivia Newton John for her physical album in 1981.  Five years later he used the same pose for Madonna and her True Blue release in 1986.  Over the years he worked for several magazine and Fashion designers icluding Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, Levi's plus many more.  He took many photos of celebrites over the years including the likes of Cindy Crawford, Michael Jordan, Ronald Reagan, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Stephen Hawking plus many more.


This image of Michael Jordan is Ritts style of photography he loves to use black and white images and black and white images for portrait look better than they do in colour, they stand out more because they are different.  The facial expression he has is a kind of seriousness and because he is holding the basketball in his hands that he is serious about the game of basketball and that the loves the game, it could also be taken that he is being smug because he is known as the best basketball player in the world.  Because it's black and white you can't really tell about the lighting but you can see a little bit of light on the middle of his face because in the middle of his face its lighter than either side and you can see a little bit  of light behind his back through through the arches of his arms because of the way he is holding the ball.  The way the photo is taken Ritts must be quite close to the subject, there is no head space and the image seems to be quite full apart from above his shoulders they could of taken the picture on a basketball court filling the picture in and making look like he is  in his natural surrounding.  

Oliverio Toscani (Portrait/Advertising)

Oliverio Toscani born in 1942 in Milan, Italy. Toscani wanted to take up photography because he wanted to follow in his fathers foot steps Fedele Toscani who used to be a photoreporter for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. After Toscani gained his diploma at Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich he went onto working with several magazines including, Elle, Vogue, L'Uomo and Harpers Bazaar. In 1982 he started working for Benetton where some of his campaign work made controversy across the globe. In the early 1990's he co founded the magazine Colors with the company Benneton. He carried on working for Benneton until 2000. Once again in 2005 Toscani caused controversy with campaign ads with men's clothing brand Ra-Re which shows men engaging in homosexual behaviour and then again in 2007 a campaign on anorexia which has controversial because of the shocking photography of an emaciated women (Isabella Caro).

This was Oliverio Toscani first controversial image and it was of David Kirby on his deathbed dying of AIDS. The image was used in Life magazine as a campaign to prevent AIDS and the Kirby family gave permission for Life magazine to use it. You can tell why it was controversial because it isn't a very nice image, but it sends across a message to everyone to prevent people form spreading the horrible disease around. The lighting in the hospital will just be natural lighting because they wouldn't of set anything up because the family would of wanted some privacy. All the family is obviously grieving the loss of a family member but each member of the family has a different facial expression the father of David Kirby looks distraught in that he is about to lose his son, but then his mother looks like she is trying to ignore what is going on around her so that then she doesn't have to deal with it and then his sister look like she doesn't have a clue what is going and has a sense of shock on her face. The main subject is David Kirby because he is the one that is dying but then there is the other subject of the family grieving. Toscani who took the picture would have had to be standing a bit of distance away to give the family space that they need so he would have had to use zoom to see the expressions of the family.

David Bailey (Portrait)

David Bailey born in Leytonstone, England on 2nd January 1938.  David Bailey is well known for his famous portrait work.  In 1958 Bailey was demobbed and was determined to pursue a career in photography, he bought a Canon rangefinder camera.  Unable to fold a place at London College of Painting because of how much school he missed as a child he became the second assisstant to David Ollins, in Charrlotte Mews.  He earned 3 pound and 10 shillings and acted as studios dogsbody.  In 1959 Bailey became photographic assisstant at the John French Studio and then in May 1960, he was a photographer for John Cole's Studio Five before being contracted as a fashion photographer for Bristish Vogue.  Since 1966 Bailey has also directed several television commercials and documentaries, from 1968 to 1971 he directed and produced TV documentaries such as Beaton, Warhol and Visconti.  In 1985 Bailey photographed the stars that took part in the Live Aid concert.

This photo is of the Kray twins London's most notorious criminals of the 1960's and David Bailey photographed them before they got sentenced to prison for murder in 1969.  In this photo you can see that both of the man are the subject and they are made more of the subject because it is just a plain white background so that the guys stand out more.  The way  they are both looking, its like they are hard man and they have no care in the world for the things that they have done.  It is a close up photo so Bailey would of been standing relatively close to the subjects and standing closer captures more detail.  The photo was obviously taken before they were sent to prison in 1969 but the photo is kind of in the style of a mug shot so it's like David Bailey knew they would go to prison and it is a pre mugshot before they actually got sent down.  This was a famous photo for David Bailey he claims that he made the Kray twins famous, but also the pose in the image has been used by other photographers using other people.  

   

Mario Sorrenti (Fashion)

Mario Sorrenti born 24th October 1971 in Naples, Italy.  Sorrenti moved to New York City in 1981 at the age of just 10.  He is the son of New York based advertiser Francesca Sorrenti, Mario is also the older brother of fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti.  Sorrenti is most known for photo spreads of nude models in pages of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.  He has had exhibitions in London, Monaco, New York and Paris Museums of Modern Art.  He has directed several Calvin Klein adverts over the years.  He has also previously worked with Lancome, Paco Robanne, Benetton and Pirelli Calendar 2012.  He is currently under contract with the agency Art Partner.  So as soon as Art Partner get contacted about a shoot they will send out Sorrenti to the shoot.





In this photo Iggy Pop and straight away you know that you can tell it is a Sorrenti photo because all across the image you can see Art Partner and that is the agency he works for.  The lighting in this picture look natural but you can tell the light is coming from the subjects right hand side.  You can tell that Iggy Pop is the main focus in this image because the background behind him isn't in focus and either is the wine bottle in front of him.  Make him the focus draws the people into think what he has been doing at the table, you can tell that he has been eating but his facial expression makes him look like he is upset or depressed or maybe he is just thinking about something but you can't work it out because he is sat on his own if there was something else in the photo that would could help the audience determine what is up with him, put maybe that is the whole point to keep the audience guessing.  The shot is a mid shot so he must be about 6 feet away but also the angle isn't looking straight on the camera is looking across from his left side and also the camera seems to be looking slightly down on him making him look like he is worthless, so maybe this man is poor and that's the reason he looks depressed.  This isn't Sorrenti usual style he mainly uses the sexy look same to Richardson but all photographers will go out of the comfort zone to improve there skills and make there style have a wider range.