While most of Penn’s work was of people - portraits, fashion, and the like - his still life images are just as well composed and well regarded. The images grew out of experiments with printing that Penn began when Vogue’s reproductions of his photos were not meeting his expectations. In the process, Penn created some of his most famous works and revolutionised the ways in which magazines and publications reproduced images in the pre-digital age. These methods were in use until digital printing became cheap and of high enough quality in the 90’s.
Penn kept up an intense work schedule for his entire life, photographing into his 90’s.
He passed away at 92 in New York City.
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After leaving Vogue in 1953, Penn set up his own studio and began working commercially as well as continuing to create personal work - it was on one of these shoots that he met his wife Lisa Fonssagrives - they were married until her death in 1992.
Unlike a number of his contemporaries, Penn’s work was minimalist and simple. Often shot in his NYC studio, he used set designers drop cloths to create a simple backdrop on which to place his subjects. Favouring a Hasselblad Camera on a tripod, Penn’s work is posed and detail oriented. His commercial and fashion work are celebrated, but his portraits are perhaps his best known work. This iconic image of Peter and Dagmar Freuchen was shot in his studio against one of these backdrops.
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Today on Back to School - we’re taking a look at legendary photographer Irving Penn!
Penn was born in 1917 to a working class New Jersey family. After winning a scholarship and studying graphic design, Penn moved to New York City and began working for Harper’s Bazaar in their art department as a graphic designer. After moving to Vogue, and getting his first taste of photography, he was offered a full time position at the magazine. Penn instead opted to volunteer for the American Army instead, where he was sent overseas to work as an ambulance driver. During his time overseas, Penn began photographing his surroundings - soldiers, war and the destruction of the war effort.
These photos - while a far cry from his later more refined effort, show off his eye for composition and framing even with wildly different subject matter.
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Today on back to school, we’re looking at influential photojournalist and portrait photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Born in Germany in 1898, Alfred and his family moved to Berlin in 1906 where he started becoming fascinated with his parents Kodak Brownie. After WW1, Eisenstaedt became a button salesman, working as a freelance photographer on the side.
In 1929 he was hired by the associated press, and began his career in earnest. In 1933, he was given exclusive coverage of the league of nations meeting where he photographed the first meeting of Hitler and Mussolini - as well as this candid photograph of Joseph Goebbels.
Photographed in a moment of uncharacteristic candidness on his 35mm Leica, this image has become one of the most enduring images of the lead up to WW2 and ran in LIFE and TIME magazine simultaneously upon its release.
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After the outbreak of war in Germany, Eisenstaedt and his family left for New York City where he became LIFE magazines lead staff photographer, working with Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa to cover WW2, and the war effort of the UK, US and all the other allied nations.
Eisenstaedt was known for being extremely prolific in his output, and by the end of his career he had photographed more than 2500 stories for LIFE and TIME - but the most enduring is this photograph from a story marking the end of the war. A solider and a nurse in an embrace in times square.
This picture has become one of the most enduring images of all time, despite the romantic story being debunked.
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Although mostly known for his celebrated journalistic output, Eisenstaedt also created portraits of some of histories most famous people - Alfred Einstein, Winston Churchill, Sophia Loren, and perhaps most famously, Marilyn Monroe.
Eisenstaedt lived alone in his house in Jackson Heights, Queens from 1935 until the end of his life. He continued photographing for his entire life, even working on a series for People magazine on the newly elected Clinton family in their home weeks before his death.
He died at 96 in his home in Queens.
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Watson has had a number of continuous collaborators from models like Kate Moss to notable figures - like Steve Jobs. In fact, Watson was the last person to photograph Jobs before his death in 2011.
20 years before the image to the left, Watson had been commissioned to shoot the CEO portrait of Jobs before their public offering, and returned to shoot a nearly identical copy of the portrait for the cover of Jobs’ upcoming biography. This image is one of only 12 frames taken at the sitting.
Watson still lives and works in New York City and Los Angele.
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