Phil Stern

Born in Philadelphia in 1919, Phil Stern quickly found the American dream and his calling at the young age of 12 when he received a promotional Kodak box brownie camera, which changed his life forever.

Immediately hooked on photography, Stern worked as an apprentice in a New York City photo studio lab where he learned the tools of the trade and was soon hired by “Friday” magazine and “The Police Gazette” to cover news features, before being sent to Hollywood where he secured freelance assignments to shoot images for “Life,” “Look,” “Colliers” and other popular magazines.

In 1942, during World War II, Stern enlisted in the U.S. Army and joined the ranks of “Darbyʼs Rangers,” a much- heralded fighting unit. Stern spent two years serving as a combat photographer, documenting the harsh and brutal battles in North Africa and then the invasion of Sicily. After being wounded at the Battle of El Guettar, he went on to be staff photographer for the Army newspaper, “Stars and Stripes.”

Stern returned to Hollywood with a Purple Heart, and quickly re-established himself in the photo world with assignments for “Life” and “Look” magazines, which were becoming more and more focused on Hollywood personalities. Stern became a trusted source and still cameraman on numerous feature films including “West Side Story,” “Judgment at Nuremburg,” “Guys And Dolls,” and more. At the same time, he worked for jazz label legend Norman Granz, photographing album covers for Verve, Pablo and Reprise record labels.

A golden-era industry insider, Sternʼs access to the greatest legends of the time allowed him to create indelible portraits of some of the most celebrated icons of the 20th century including James Dean, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, JFK, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Lester Young, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Ray Charles, among many others. Frank Sinatra was comfortable with Stern and liked his work, and as such gave him access, which in Sternʼs words “is the motherʼs milk of a freelancer.”

I call him the Cartier-Bresson or Robert Frank of Hollywood. He wouldn’t allow the orchestrated P.R. photograph. He made authentically real photographs, and in the context of Hollywood, to make a real picture is odd.

– Los Angles photography gallery owner, David Fahey

In 1961, Stern was tapped by Sinatra to be his photographer at JFKʼs Presidential Inauguration, with the assignment of creating a unique commemorative photo book for the select group of Sinatraʼs hand picked performers. Stern documented this historic event, capturing the intimacy of the people, a street-side view of the Pennsylvania Motorcade, a front row center view of JFKʼs acceptance speech as the newest U.S. President, along with behind-the-scenes, backstage activities of stars and performers in attendance at the Gala celebration, as well as at the intimate “thank you” party given by JFK and Sinatra for the performers.

As one of Hollywoodʼs most celebrated photographers, Stern chronicled the fabric of American entertainment during his more than 60-year career, with iconic images of celebrities, musicians, politicians and historical events. Vanity Fair editor David Friend describes Stern as the “chronicler of cool.” His photo from Sam Goldwynʼs office window of Marilyn Monroe is the only image in existence where you can see evidence of her obvious pregnancy. His whimsical sweater series with James Dean were the result of a nearly fatal ʻmeetingʼ when Sternʼs car narrowly missed Deanʼs motorcycle as Dean ran a red light, after which the two became instant friends and shot a series of entertaining photos together.

In 1993, he released a hardcopy book entitled “Phil Sternʼs Hollywood,” featuring ninety black-and-white photographs showcasing his work from the 1940s through the 1970s. In 2003, he released “Phil Stern: A Lifeʼs Work,” which incorporated his entire body of work, including never-before-seen photographs of the greatest figures and times of the American twentieth century. He was awarded the “Outstanding Achievement in Still Photography for Motion Pictures” Lucie Award in 2003, the Sony World Photography Legacy Award in 2008 and the Beverly Hills Film Festival Living Legends Award, also in 2008. As well, he has received several certificates of appreciation from the city of Los Angeles.

 

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009-photographer-phil-stern Continue reading Phil Stern

The Man in the Crowd: The Uneasy Streets of Garry Winogrand

Most people who walk through a city ignore it – or, more precisely, ignore the other people in it. Garry Winogrand did the absolute opposite: he spent most of his walking life hunting down his fellow citizens, watching, looking, and photographing: thousands upon thousands of photographs. He also made pictures at museum openings, at the zoo, at airports and rodeos, but it was the streets of Manhatten which provided the central metaphor of his work.

Winogrand’s photography defines an American decade, the 1960s, in a way comparable to Robert Frank in the 1950s and Walker Evans in the 1930s. Winogrand himself – large, energetic, voyeuristic, obsessively curious about the world around him – represents, for many, the archetypal street photographer. The formal turbulence of his images with their dynamic tilted viewpoints, their grainy immediacy, their frenetic crowds and their temporarily isolated strangers, matches the political turbulence of the Vietnam years and provides a defining portrait of a society caught unawares.

I never shoot without using the viewfinder—Oh, yes, there’ll be a few times,—I may have to hold the camera up over my head because for just physical reasons, but very rarely does that ever work.

Winogrand ‘s work synthesizes the documentary and photojournalist traditions. Influenced by Robert Frank’s The Americans, he employed a wide angle lens on a handheld camera, and shot from an intimate distance. This enabled him to incorporate more of his subjects, and gave his images an unfamiliar, compositional complexity. He took shots, he said, “to see how things would look as photographs”. The medium of still photography he described as “the illusion of a literal description of how a camera saw a piece of time and space”.

Source:
http://www.artmag.com/museums/a_greab/agblsps/agblspsc.html

I also found this great post, worth checking out.
10 Things Garry Winogrand Can Teach You About Street Photography

 

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Photo Feed – May 7th, 2013

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When Dreams Collide

In the process of preparing the time machine, I had no idea this would become one of the most extraordinary journeys to date. It would propel me into the future where I meet Chase Jarvis, one of the greatest photographers of all time. It would then send me back in time to meet with my old friend, Peter Line, the best snowboarder of this era.
All of a sudden I found myself in the present, making a picture of Ishmael Butler from the Diggable Planets. I had travelled the way you would in a dream, taking me backward into the future. A future where you paint with silver and light.

Become a part of our journey;
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Bettina Rheims

Since the early 1980s, Bettina Rheims has become one of the most internationally respected contemporary photographers. Through her many books and exhibitions of her work she is renowned throughout Europe, the USA, Asia and Australia. Rheims discovered her love of photography after working from the other side of the lens as a model, and later as a journalist and an art dealer.

lg_512f9a2e-630c-4da2-a30c-5d860aa613dbIn 1981 her first exhibition featuring strip-tease artists and acrobats appeared at the Centre Pompidou and at the Galerie Texbraun in Paris. Encouraged by the success of her first show, Rheims produced a series of images of stuffed animals which were also exhibited in Paris and later in New York.
Her powerful portraits of women taken from the 1989 monograph, Female Trouble, were exhibited in Germany and Japan; Rheims then turned the camera on androgynous teenagers. The portraits titled Modern Lovers (1990), were exhibited in France, England and the USA.

Rheims’ collaboration on several books with famed writer Serge Bramly has also brought her further international recognition. Chambre Close (1992) – featuring intimate portraits of women with prose written by Bramly became a best seller and is regularly re-edited.
In 1999 her book I.N.R.I., the life of Jesus Christ is retraced using portraits of young people, including women, in Biblical scenes. The book was another collaboration with Serge Bramly, and was published simultaneously in several countries including the USA, Japan, Germany and France – where it sparked outrage and provoked calls for an immediate ban. Images from I.N.R.I. are still being exhibited in various museums throughout Europe. In 2000 Rheims published X’Mas. Also seen as controversial, the book contains portraits of teenage girls posing nude for the first time.

In 2003 after spending six months in Shanghai, Rheims again worked with Bramly on a book of the same name. The fast-paced and ever-evolving life of the city is captured in portraits of the women from all walks of life who live and work there.

More Trouble – A retrospective of Rheims’ photographs was published in 2004 and focused on the previous ten years of her work, mostly her portraits of famous women.
In addition to the book there were also a major exhibitions of her work in Helsinki, Oslo, Vienna, Düsseldorf and Brussels.
Rheims continues to shoot beautiful photographs and to publish books. Additionally she has worked on editorials for magazines such as Elle, L’Officiel, Citizen K, Tatler, 10 magazine and Marie Claire. She has also shot advertising campaigns for Chanel, Lancôme, Diane Von Furstenberg, Bebe and Well.

To view additional work by Bettina, click below:
www.bettinarheims.com

Source:
http://www.jedroot.com/photographers/bettina-rheims

 

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Edward Steichen

11586029_1_xAs chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair, Edward Steichen profoundly shaped the look of celebrity and fashion photography in the 1920s and ’30s. He immortalized leading writers, artists, actors,dancers and politicians in striking portraits. Fashion photography was revolutionized when he began depicting the creations of all the great designers of the age, including Poiret, Chanel, Lelong, Lanvin, Patou and Schiaparelli.

Edward Steichen became interested in photography at age sixteen. Influenced by the atmosphere of moonlight that came to characterize his early Pictorialist photographs, he also painted. Upon turning twenty-one, he left for Europe by way of New York, meeting Alfred Stieglitz, who purchased three of his photographs. On returning, Steichen set up a studio specializing in portraiture at 291 Fifth Avenue, a space that later became part of “291,” Stieglitz’s celebrated Photo-Secessionist gallery. Steichen became a founding member of the Photo-Secession group in 1903. In 1923 Steichen went to work for the Condé Nast publications Vanity Fair and Vogue , where he photographed celebrities and fashion. From this he received advertising commissions; he once also made photographic designs for silk fabric. Steichen closed his New York studio in 1938 and embarked upon a new, more spontaneous photographic phase. During World War II he joined the Navy to head up a unit of photographers. Steichen was the first curator of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he curated the famous “Family of Man” exhibition in 1953.

“The camera is a witness of objects, places, and events…. The technical process simply serves as a vehicle of transcription and not as the art.”
-Edward Steichen

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Source: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1816

Photo Feed – 03.27.13

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Vincent Price

Vincent Price was among the movies’ greatest villains as well as one of the horror genre’s most beloved and enduring stars.

In the small pantheon of actors closely identified with the horror film, Vincent Price holds a prominent position. Heretofore a reliable character actor of the studio era, in the late 1950s Price became a major star in exploitation horror films directed by William Castle and Roger Corman.

I would call this post inspiration for an upcoming personal shoot.
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Sources:

http://www.vincentprice.org/bios/faces.html

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

http://movies.nytimes.com/person/57806/Vincent-Price/biography

Mario Testino

“My pictures are my eyes,” Mario Testino once said. “I photograph what I see—and what I want to see.”

Through these eyes, the world is a place of vitality; gazing into them, his subjects are drawn to give up something of the essence of themselves. Over the past two decades, Testino’s view has slowly become a dominant way of seeing fashion. Other photographers have responded by “either aping it or rejecting it,” as his old friend, the Anglo-Irish author Patrick Kinmonth, wrote.

bioAccording to Alexandra Shulman of British Vogue, Testino can make you look better than you could hope—”not in your wildest dreams, but at the remotest end of possibility.” Setting himself apart from the leading photographers of the nineties—who brought us heroin chic and the glazed-eyed, detached stare—he captures moments of exuberance and engagement. As he told The Guardian,“Grunge came from a group of English photographers, and they were documenting their own reality. . . . I’m South American—we celebrate life.”

Testino began his photography career after moving to London in 1976. He made a few unsuccessful attempts at college—studying law, economics, and international relations—before going to work for Vickers for a couple of years. He was inspired not so much by a love of photography but by a love of clothes. However, with his first roll of film, taken of two women sitting on a bench in Green Park, he discovered a belief in his own gift.

The fashion industry, on the other hand, wasn’t as quick to recognize his talents. He spent many days sitting in his flat—in a converted X-ray wing of the abandoned Charing Cross Hospital—desperately dialing magazines from his coin-box telephone. “But when you phone fashion editors or art directors,” he told The Mail on Sunday in 1999, “they always say: ‘Call me back in a month, I’m about to go on a trip. . . . I think I learned humility then.”[11] Humility, though, did not stop Testino from chasing editors through the corridors of Vogue House in Hanover Square while they attempted to hide behind clothing rails. (He managed to forge a friendship with one assistant, Lucinda Chambers, who would later become the publication’s fashion director.

Read the Full Article

Source: Bio – mariotestino.com  + http://www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Mario_Testino

It was really hard not too showcase a few hundred images here, but here are some of my favs.

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