James Van Der Zee and Scott Shuman's Contributions to Photography

Taking photographs may seem simple, but being a photographer is more than browsing through the viewfinder and pushing the exposure button. A photographer needs to know how to analyze the scene, speak in words that language cannot, and reach to the souls of people through a picture. During the Great Depression, many photographers captured the scenes of poverty and grief. However, there was only one photographer that truly captured the souls of Americans. According to Roy Stryker, Dorothea Lange "had the most sensitivity and the most rapport with people" (Stryker and Wood 41). Dorothea Lange was a phenomenal photographer that seized the hearts of people during the 1930s and beyond, and greatly affected the times of the Great Depression.

For this essay the works of Robert Draper, author of “Why Photos Matter,” and Fred Ritchen, author of “Photography Changes the Way News is Reported,” will be analyzed. Though both deal with the topic of photography, their take on the matter is very different. While Ritchen is a photographer who writes on “what professional photographers will be doing in the future,” Draper is a writer for the National Geographic writing on how the photographers of the magazine share “a hunger for the unknown.” Both writers, however, write on the topic of photographers having a deeper understanding of their subjects, Ritchen due to research and practice, and Draper because the photographers “sit [with] their subjects, just listening to them.” In both essays the need for a deeper understanding of the

While emotions were extremely high in the sense of angst for a better life, photography provided a new sense of reality to Americans and for others around the World. Photography all around the World is unlike anything else of its kind. People are able to tell stories and elicit emotions that bring the audience to that desired response. Throughout the 1930’s, photography from governmental institutions or advancements alone brought a new beginning to the end of a terrible time that Americans all around the nation

Among all of the great Hollywood portrait photographers, George Hurrell is arguably the most famous and is considered by collectors and historians to be the best in the business. It was his photos that actually inspired the term “glamour photography.” In 1936, Esquire magazine claimed, “A Hurrell portrait is to the ordinary publicity still what a Rolls Royce is to a roller skate.” George Hurrell said, “As long as I can remember I wanted to be an artist. As a boy, I was drawing all the time, in school and out.” As an art student in Chicago he started to work with a camera, as it was common for art students to photograph inspirational locations as well as their finished work. While at school he held a series of jobs, including acting as a colorist for Chicago portrait photographer Eugene Hutchinson who taught him valuable tricks of the trade, including negative retouching, darkroom developing and airbrushing. He moved to Laguna Beach, California where there was a thriving fine arts community. His many connections led him to meeting the famed photographer Edward Steichen, who saw in his work a natural talent for photography. Our childhood desire to create is nurtured into a talent by those who possess the gift. Following Steichen advice and encouraged by his friend and patron, aviatrix Pancho Barnes, Hurrell opened a photography studio in Laguna Beach. George’s first celebrity client came from Pancho’s referral of her best friend, silent film star Ramon Novarro. Ramon felt his Latin

In case there is someone out there looking forward to become a celebrity, then he or she must be able to remain focused in life by emulating James Van Der Zee. This is a man who defied all odds and today is renowned for his great performance in photographic art. His work revolved around the culture of the Africans Americans. This artist was popular because of the way he captured the lifestyles of the middle class blacks using his camera especially during the Harlem renaissance. One of the most appealing photographs is that of the proud black couple in raccoon coats at the street of Harlem[1]. This is called “couple with Cadillac” and it was taken in 1932. Van Der Zee remains outstanding in photography despite the

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

As photography was being used more and more as a method of documentation, they were among the first to use it to push social reform efforts. They closely documented the devastating effects of industrialization and urbanization on the working-class American. Through their work they brought attention to the need for housing and (child) labor laws. They used their medium to bring real proof to the public and legislators, where it needed to be seen. Actually, instead of documentary photography, it may best be called social reform photography, as they both worked tirelessly and used the medium to force attention and to effect social change.

It was interesting how you talked about the changes in opinion of photography. Actually, I've read an article on Julia Margaret Cameron's "fancy-subject", which featured costumed sitters arranged in often dramatic scenes from sources such as the bible, Shakespeare, and mythology. Essentially, the author argued that the use of photography gave the images a certain charm and how what the viewer is looking at is really a "housemaid" dressed as Guinevere or a regular man dressed as John the Baptist, but never truly what they are portraying. Furthermore, the author argued that theater is able transcend the actor's self, but photography can not. Finally, the author pointed out the "truth" in the photographs, such as a drapery used as "water". It's

The photograph is a very powerful medium. The French painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed upon seeing an early photograph “from now on, painting is dead!” (Sayre, 2000). Many critics did not take photography seriously as a legitimate art form until the 20th century. With the

This essay will investigate the work of contemporary photographer Tim Walker, and historical photographer Ansel Adams. This essay will examine the many changes of how photography has evolved through the decades from the photographer’s style, use of equipment, techniques and what photography is used for. These changes will be seen by looking at the contemporary photographer and comparing them to the historical photographer.

While others claim that photography captures the inner soul of a person, or deliberately defines it as painting or writing with light, but in my case, it is just simply a newfound love hobby. I undeniably adore and look up to expert photographers I encounter down the road may it face-to-face or the other way around. In my heart, I silently desire that someday, with hard work, determination, and perseverance, I will become professional and famous as they are. Since my husband bought a Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) as an anniversary gift, my penchant for photography commenced and ignited. Let me detail the essential truths behind my passion over photography.

At a time when women were looked upon as being homemakers, wives, mothers and such the late 1850's presented a change in pace for one woman in specific. Photography was discovered in 1826 and soon after the phenomenon of photography was being experimented with and in turn brought new and different ways of photo taking not only as documenting real time, but also conceptualizing a scene in which an image would be taken. Julia Margaret Cameron will forever be recorded in the history books as one of the first female photographers to make significant contributions to a field that was ruled by the male counterpart of her time.

For me, photography is dead. A picture has become not a photograph but a computer generated image produced from an input by a person. Nowadays people rely on technology to remember for them which creates a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences, photos are being manipulated in order to achieve desirable results, and new age photographers believe they hold the perception that professional photographers have. Ever since technology exploded photography has simply lost it’s soul.

Winogrand symbolized a new generation of photographers on the rise in the mid-1960s known as “street photographers.” While each photo is of simple, everyday life, they each contain an individual message and meaning much deeper than what was seen through the lens. His impact is still being felt in photography today and has been identified as a turning point in American photographic history.

Henry Peach Robinson, born on July 9th, 1830, was a British photographer and prominent author on photography. Known as “the King of Photographic Picture Making,” he began his life’s work as a painter but would become one of the most influential photographers of the late 19th century. He was a prolific advocate for photography as an art form and is well known for his role in “pictorialism,” which, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, is “an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.”