Annie Leibovitz

Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz (born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer.

Annie Leibovitz
Birth name	Anna-Lou Leibovitz
Born	October 2, 1949 (age 61) Waterbury, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	American
Field	Photography
Training	San Francisco Art Institute

Early life and education

Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewishimmigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's parents had emigrated from Romania. Her mother, Marilyn Leibovitz, was a modern dance instructor of Estonian Jewish heritage; her father, Sam Leibovitz, was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. The family moved frequently with her father's duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War.

In high school, she became interested in various artistic endeavours, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting. There she learnt all her skills from her teacher Sasha Michelle, who Annie says she owes a lot of her career to. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while working various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, for several months in 1969.

Soource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz

Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham (April 12, 1883 – June 24, 1976) was an American photographer known for her photography of botanicals, nudes and industry.


Life and career

Cunningham was born in Portland, Oregon. In 1901, at the age of 18, Cunningham bought her first camera, a 4x5 inch view camera, from the American School of Art in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She soon lost interest and sold the camera to a friend. It wasn’t until 1906, while studying at the University of Washington in Seattle, that she was inspired by an encounter with the work of Gertrude Käsebier to take up photography again. With the help of her chemistry professor, Dr. Horace Byers, she began to study the chemistry behind photography; she subsidized her tuition by photographing plants for the botany department.

After graduating in 1907 she went to work with Edward S. Curtis in his Seattle studio. This gave Cunningham the valuable opportunity to learn about the portrait business and the practical side of photography.

In 1909, Cunningham won a scholarship from her sorority (Pi Beta Phi) for foreign study and, on advice from her chemistry professor, applied to study with Professor Robert Luther at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, Germany.

In Dresden she concentrated on her studies and didn’t take many photos. In May 1910 she finished her paper, “About the Direct Development of Platinum Paper for Brown Tones”, describing her process to increase printing speed, improve clarity of highlights tones and produce sepia tones. On her way back to Seattle she met Alvin Langdon Coburn in London, and Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Kasebier in New York.

Imogen Cunningham's 1910 photo,Dream

Once back in Seattle she opened her own studio and won acclaim for portraiture and pictorial work. Most of her studio work of this time consisted of sitters in their own homes, in her living room, or in the woods surrounding Cunningham's cottage. She became a sought after photographer and exhibited at the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 1913.

In 1914 Cunningham's portraits were shown at “An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography” in New York and a portfolio of her work was published in Wilson's Photographic Magazine.

n 1914 Cunningham's portraits were shown at “An International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography” in New York and a portfolio of her work was published in Wilson's Photographic Magazine.

The next year she married Roi Partridge, an etcher and artist. He posed for a series of nude photographs, which were shown by the Seattle Fine Arts Society. Although critically praised, wider society didn’t approve of such images and Cunningham didn’t revisit the pictures for another 55 years.

Between 1915 and 1920 Cunningham continued her work and had three children (Gryffyd, Rondal, and Padraic) with Roi. Then in 1920 they left Seattle for San Francisco where Roi taught at Mills College.

In San Francisco, Cunningham refined her style, taking a greater interest in pattern and detail as seen in her works of bark textures, trees, and zebras. Cunningham became increasingly interested in botanical photography, especially flowers, and between 1923 and 1925 carried out an in-depth study of the magnolia flower. Later in the decade she turned her attention towards industry, creating several series of industrial landscapes throughout Los Angeles and Oakland.

Cunningham's 1922 portrait ofMargrethe Mather and Edward Weston

In 1929, Edward Weston nominated 10 of Cunningham's photos (8 botanical, 1 industrial and 1 nude) for inclusion in the "Film und Foto" exhibition and her renowned Two Callas debuted in that exhibition. inStuttgart. Cunningham once again changed direction to become more interested in the human form, particularly hands (and a further fascination with the hands of artists and musicians). This interest led to her employment by Vanity Fair, photographing stars without make-up or false glamour. In 1932, with this unsentimental, straightforward approach in mind, Cunningham became one of the co-founders of the Group f/64, which aimed to “define photography as an art form by a simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods”.

In 1934 Cunningham was invited to do some work in New York for Vanity Fair. Her husband wanted her to wait until he could travel with her but she refused and they later divorced. She continued her work with Vanity Fairuntil it stopped publication in 1936.

In the 1940s Cunningham turned to documentary street photographywhich she did as a side project while supporting herself with her commercial and studio photography. In 1945, Cunningham was invited byAnsel Adams to accept a position as faculty at the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA). Dorothea Lange and Minor White joined as well.[1]

Cunningham continued to take pictures until shortly before her death at age 93 on June 24, 1976 in San Francisco, California.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imogen_Cunningham

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams
Born	Ansel Easton Adams February 20, 1902 San Francisco, California, United States
Died	April 22, 1984 (aged 82) Monterey, California
Nationality	American
Education	homeschooling, grammar school
Occupation	Photographer andConservationist
Title	Photographer
Spouse	Virginia Rose Best
Children	Michael, Anne
Parents	Charles Hitchcock Adams and Olive Bray Adams
Website
http://www.anseladams.orghttp://www.anseladams.com

Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for hisblack-and-white photographs of the American West, especially inYosemite National Park.
With Fred Archer, Adams developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs and the work of those to whom he taught the system. Adams primarily used large-format cameras despite their size, weight, setup time, and film cost, because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images.
Adams founded the Group f/64 along with fellow photographersWillard Van Dyke and Edward Weston. Adams's photographs are reproduced on calendars, posters, and in books, making his photographs widely distributed.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams

Lou Bernstein

1969 - Self Portrait, Mirror Image

Lou Bernstein was known as “The photographer’s photographer”, among the prominent great photographers of his generation. During the 1950’s through the 1980’s, Bernstein’s personal views, articulations on the aesthetics of photography, established him as a much sought after lecturer, critic, and teacher. He conducted numerous private individual and public group photographic workshops, as well as becoming a college educator. Bernstein taught at The Phoenix School of Design, NY, and at the request of W. Eugene Smith, took over Smith’s classes at Cooper Union, when Smith went to Japan for Life Magazine.

Bernstein received his first camera in 1936. Photography was Lou’s hobby early on. But his passion for photography only intensified. He sought out the shakers and movers of photography in New York. Within a few years, Lou and his photography was featured frequently in newspapers, magazines, books, television, galleries and museum exhibitions, in New York City. We all heard the metaphor “don’t quit your day job”. Lou never did, he did not want to be a professional photo journalist, although he could have. Lou wanted to photograph what he felt was honest, sensitive and important photographs. He also wanted to be where the activity of the photographic world was, that was in New York, and Peerless Camera Stores, NY, the largest professional photographers supply store in the world. This job enabled him to be at a center of photography, where his friends and fellow contemporaries met, without notice, legendary photographers like, Sid Grossman, W. Eugene Smith, Wynn Bullock, Lisette Model, Cornell Capa, Edward Steichen, and Jack Deschin, Sunday Photography Editor, for the New York Times, to name a few. It allowed him weekends and nights off, to teach, lecturer, photograph, develop, print and exhibit his photography, and time to be totally committed to his love of photography.

"He was never too interested in promoting his own work, all he wanted to do, was photograph, teach, lecturer and help guide his students and all people who loved photography as an art, that came to him for assistance, to understand his aesthetics and philosophy. He always gave back to the photographic community, He was there for the more than 600 amateur and professionals during his lifetime, who called upon him for direction and explanation of his views on photography as art." Irwin Bernstein

1992- Cornell Capa & Lou Bernstein, ICP,NY, Opening Reception for Lou's second
ICP, One Man Exhibition, "Five Decades of Photography"


Lou was a charter member of the controversial “Photo League”, and was active in the organization from 1936-1951, until its demise. Lou was an advocate of its principals on photography, and continued to be a close friend to Sid Grossman, and many of itslegendary members.


His many achievements during his career was due to his high profile celebrity and reputation recognized in the early years of career by the, New York Times, Photography Critic, Jack Deschin, who published him frequently. What followed was, Edward Steichen's selection of Lou's work for both, The Family of Man, in 1955, followed by Steichen's acquisition of 10 photographs for the permanent collection of MoMA.




Lou was the originator and author of a highly successful bi-monthly article, titled “Critique”, for Camera 35 Magazine, that was published from 1968-1972.


In April 1972, Lou was a participating critic along with many other recognized dignitaries & educators of photography, representing The Society for Photographic Education, New York Region, and asked to contribute to Critique 72, at The New School for Social Research, in New York.


Bernstein’s photography has been exhibited, and acclaimed at more than sixty museumsworldwide. In his six and a half decade career, he had achieved 187 lifetime events exhibiting his work.
Text and images submitted by The Estate of Lou Bernstein Lou Bernstein Legacy

Hydrant Series #4, 1947

Biographies

Lou Bernstein Legacy

Jazz-Stuyvesant Casino,NY, 1952

Images

Father and Baby, Coney Island: Artnet

Jazz Study: Artnet

Fire Hydrant: Artnet

Man & Wife, 1941

Articles about Lou Bernstein

In Memoriam - Lou Bernstein by S. Zimbel

D'Orazio.. New York photographer learned from his mentor, Lou Bernstein: Salon

Thomas Kinksey, 1965

Source: http://www.freepedia.co.uk/DIRPhotoBernstein.php

Henri Cartier-Bresson

(August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the "street photography" or "real life reportage" style that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.

Experiments with photography

Although Cartier-Bresson gradually began to be restless under Lhote's "rule-laden" approach to art, his rigorous theoretical training would later help him to confront and resolve problems of artistic form and composition in photography. In the 1920s, schools of photographic realism were popping up throughout Europe, but each had a different view on the direction photography should take. The photography revolution had begun: "Crush tradition! Photograph things as they are!"[citation needed] The Surrealist movement (founded in 1924) was a catalyst for this paradigm shift. Cartier-Bresson began socializing with the Surrealists at the Café Cyrano, in the Place Blanche. He met a number of the movement's leading protagonists, and was particularly drawn to the Surrealist movement's linking of the subconscious and the immediate to their work. The historian Peter Galassi explains:

The Surrealists approached photography in the same way that Aragon and Breton...approached the street: with a voracious appetite for the usual and unusual...The Surrealists recognized in plain photographic fact an essential quality that had been excluded from prior theories of photographic realism. They saw that ordinary photographs, especially when uprooted from their practical functions, contain a wealth of unintended, unpredictable meanings.

Cartier-Bresson matured artistically in this stormy cultural and political environment. He was aware of the concepts and theories mentioned, but could not find a way of expressing this imaginatively in his paintings. He was very frustrated with his experiments and subsequently destroyed the majority of his early works.

From 1928 to 1929, Cartier-Bresson attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied English, art and literature, and became bilingual. In 1930, stationed at Le Bourget, near Paris, he completed his mandatory service in the French Army. He remembered, "And I had quite a hard time of it, too, because I was toting Joyce under my arm and a Lebel rifle on my shoulder.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

Photography

Photography is the art, science, and practice of creating pictures by recording radiation on a radiation-sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or electronic image sensors. Photography uses foremost radiation in the UV,visible and near-IR spectrum. For common purposes the term light is used instead of radiation. Light reflected or emitted from objects form a real image on a light sensitive area (film or plate) or a FPA pixel array sensor by means of apin hole or lens in a camera during a timed exposure. The result on film or plate is a latent image, which is developedinto a visual image (negative or diapositive). An image on a paper base is known as a print. The result on an FPA pixel array sensor is an electrical charge at each pixel which is electronically processed and stored in a computer (raster)-image file for subsequent display or processing. Photography has many uses for business, science, manufacturing (f.i.Photolithography), art, and recreational purposes.

Lens and mounting of a large-format camera.

The Contax S of 1949 — the firstpentaprism SLR.

As far as can be ascertained, it was Sir John Herschel in a lecture before the Royal Society of London, on March 14, 1839 who made the word "photography" known to the world. But in an article published on February 25 of the same year in a German newspaper called the Vossische Zeitung,Johann von Maedler, a Berlin astronomer, had used the word photography already. The word photography is based on the Greek φῶς (photos) "light" and γραφή (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light".

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography

Function

The camera is the image-forming device, and photographic film or asilicon electronic image sensor is the sensing medium. The respective recording medium can be the film itself, or a digital electronic or magnetic memory.

Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material (such as film) to the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on film) or "raw file" (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such ascharge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper or film.

The camera (or 'camera obscura') is a dark room or chamber from which, as far as possible, all light is excluded except the light that forms the image. The subject being photographed, however, must be illuminated. Cameras can range from small to very large, a whole room that is kept dark while the object to be photographed is in another room where it is properly illuminated. This was common for reproduction photography of flat copy when large film negatives were used. A general principle known from the birth of photography is that the smaller the camera, the brighter the image. This meant that as soon as photographic materials became sensitive enough (fast enough) to take candid or what were called genre pictures, small detective cameras were used, some of them disguised as a tie pin that was really a lens, as a piece of luggage or even a pocket watch (the Ticka camera).

The discovery of the 'camera obscura' that provides an image of a scene is very old, dating back to ancient China. Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camera obscuras that are formed by dark caves on the edge of a sunlit valley. A hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of paper. So the invention of photography was really concerned with finding a means to fix and retain the image in the camera obscura. This in fact occurred first using the reproduction of images without a camera when Josiah Wedgewood, from the famous family of potters, obtained copies of paintings on leather using silver salts. As he had no way of fixing them, that is to say to stabilize the image by washing out the non exposed silver salts, they turned completely black in the light and had to be kept in a dark room for viewing.

Renaissance painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western Art.

The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame". This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures together to create the illusion of motion.

In all but certain specialized cameras, the process of obtaining a usable exposure must involve the use, manually or automatically, of a few controls to ensure the photograph is clear, sharp and well illuminated. The controls usually include but are not limited to the following: Control and Description

Focus

The adjustment to place the sharpest focus where it is desired on the subject.

Aperture

Adjustment of the lens opening, measured as f-number, which controls the amount of light passing through the lens. Aperture also has an effect on depth of field and diffraction – the higher the f-number, the smaller the opening, the less light, the greater the depth of field, and the more the diffraction blur. The focal length divided by the f-number gives the effective aperture diameter.

Shutter speed

Adjustment of the speed (often expressed either as fractions of seconds or as an angle, with mechanical shutters) of the shutter to control the amount of time during which the imaging medium is exposed to light for each exposure. Shutter speed may be used to control the amount of light striking the image plane; 'faster' shutter speeds (that is, those of shorter duration) decrease both the amount of light and the amount of image blurring from motion of the subject and/or camera.

White balance

On digital cameras, electronic compensation for the color temperature associated with a given set of lighting conditions, ensuring that white light is registered as such on the imaging chip and therefore that the colors in the frame will appear natural. On mechanical, film-based cameras, this function is served by the operator's choice of film stock or with color correction filters. In addition to using white balance to register natural coloration of the image, photographers may employ white balance to aesthetic end, for example white balancing to a blue object in order to obtain a warm color temperature.

Metering

Measurement of exposure so that highlights and shadows are exposed according to the photographer's wishes. Many modern cameras meter and set exposure automatically. Before automatic exposure, correct exposure was accomplished with the use of a separate light metering device or by the photographer's knowledge and experience of gauging correct settings. To translate the amount of light into a usable aperture and shutter speed, the meter needs to adjust for the sensitivity of the film or sensor to light. This is done by setting the "film speed" or ISO sensitivity into the meter.

ISO speed

Traditionally used to "tell the camera" the film speed of the selected film on film cameras, ISO speeds are employed on modern digital cameras as an indication of the system's gain from light to numerical output and to control the automatic exposure system. The higher the ISO number the greater the film sensitivity to light, whereas with a lower ISO number, the film is less sensitive to light. A correct combination of ISO speed, aperture, and shutter speed leads to an image that is neither too dark nor too light, hence it is 'correctly exposed,' indicated by a centered meter.

Autofocuspoint

On some cameras, the selection of a point in the imaging frame upon which the auto-focus system will attempt to focus. Many Single-lens reflex cameras (SLR) feature multiple auto-focus points in the viewfinder.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography