PechaKucha Project – Helen Levitt Summary

Helen Levitt was a pioneer in the genre of street photography. She captured the candid photos of children and adults alike in the streets of New York City during the 1930s and 1940s as well as the 1970s and 1980s. Many of her early works during the 30s and 40s focused on people living in working class communities in New York City. Levitt does an amazing job capturing the feelings and emotions of her subjects. In one photo, New York (Children with Broken Mirror). 1939, the photograph is group of children hovering around a broken mirror. This photograph captures the liveliness of the scene and how the children are curious about the mirror and potentially trying to find a way to fix it. One aspect of the photograph that is interesting is the child on the bike. In the photograph, it seems that his reflection is given off by the mirror, but he is actually looking what the other children are doing from the other side of the mirror. The perspective that Levitt captured in this photograph is inspiring to many photographers, including myself.

Helen Levitt was inspired by photographers, Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson. She viewed their works of art and decided at that moment to take up the profession She started off using 35mm Leica film camera like Cartie-Bresson and shot photos in black and white. As she grew in popularity, her photos began showing up in major photography magazines. She achieved her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943 and continued to work hard from then on. When color film began to come about for use, she was also one of the early pioneers in using that medium for her photographs. Many of the photos during the 1970s and 1980s are prime examples of her using color film to show the daily life of New Yorkers.