There are lives that seem more like works of fiction. Photographer Adolfo Kaminsky, who died last week at the age of 97, had one of those lives. In fact, a rather large chunk of his life revolved around fiction. Adolfo Kaminsky was also known as … Keep readingAdolfo Kaminsky
He’s best known as a filmmaker, of course. Wings of Desire, The State of Things, and Paris, Texas. Wim Wenders has made more than forty films – mainly feature films and documentaries. He’s won international cinema awards by the truckload. Wenders is also a skilled … Keep readingWim Wenders
In my morning news-reader today was an article headlined Probing Question: Are Smartphones Changing Photography? The lede is: Although cell phone cameras are a recent innovation, they continue nearly 150 years of tradition that photography should be broadly accessible and an extension of our own … Keep readingMishka Henner (part 2)
We all know how to do photography. You take a camera in hand, you find a thing you want to photograph, you point the camera at that thing, you release the shutter. The photographer has a reason for taking that photograph; the photographer decides what … Keep readingMishka Henner (part 1)
There was a generation of Hungarian photographers – all born around the beginning of the 20th century – who left Hungary at a young age and scattered their talent all over western Europe. Among them were André Kertész, Gyula Halász (better known as Brassaï), László … Keep readingEva Besnyö
Facts in isolation are never enough. John Gutmann was born in Breslau, Germany in 1905. That, in itself, means nothing. Add to that simple fact that Gutmann was the only son of a prosperous Jewish family, and it begins to mean something. Consider that 5% … Keep readingJohn Gutmann
We tend to list and classify photographers according to vaguely cultural categories. Irish photographers, gay photographers, African-American photographers, women photographers, Buddhist photographers. The underlying idea is that these categories all have a distinctive sensibility—an ability or capacity to view the world and express that view … Keep readingEvžen Sobek
“Whatever we have done,” Henri Cartier-Bresson once said (referring to himself, Robert Capa, and Brassaï), “Kertész did first.” That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it demonstrates the respect André Kertész elicited from his fellow photographers. Despite such statements, though, Kertész never felt his work was fully … Keep readingAndré Kertész
I wonder, sometimes, if there is something about a childhood spent away from ‘home’ that instills in one a desire to travel. Sebastian Schutyser, for example, was born in the city of Bruges in 1968—but he spent his childhood in Zaïre (what was once called … Keep readingSebastian Schutyser
He may have murdered his father. That statement seems an odd way to start a discussion about one of the most celebrated portrait photographers of his era. Certainly, it’s an issue that rarely gets mentioned in any of the articles written about Philippe Halsman. There’s … Keep readingPhilippe Halsman