Berenice Abbott: the American photographer

Berenic Abbott (1898-1991) was a pioneering American documentary photographer. The most famous of her work is <Changing New York (1936-1938)>, which incorporates the landscape and architecture of a rapidly changing society during the Great Depression.

Once, she said, “a photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality… It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term—selectivity.”

 

 

She has made many contributions to photography as a photographer. She also an assistant for Man Ray, who is a famous American Photographer. Later, when she came to New York, she was fascinated by the rapidly changing city of New York and began to take photos it. When she began photography, small cameras were in widespread use and the golden age of photojournalism. However, instead of using a small camera, she used a large camera to capture various views of New York. She is a photographer representing the modernist era. She took a photo of a person while running a studio and showed a deep interest in science. The famous photograph is a photograph of a cityscape, but she did not take it after eliminating people. She recorded the cultural situation of the present age while incorporating the cityscape at various angles. While working at the height of modernism photography, she filmed a cityscape faithful to recordability. She focused on something unique and beautiful every day rather than a record. Her pictures show contemporary aesthetic elements. Cities are good targets for capturing the mainstream culture of a particular era.

 

Due to the industrial revolution, humankind changed from an agricultural society to industrial society, and the city became the center of history and culture. Also, many are emotionally accustomed to cities. Many photographers are interested in recording artificial cities, not natural landscapes. It reproduces the city based on a new aesthetic paradigm. Her work has included the history of the New York Manhattan area. Her pictures show up for technological and social development. Her photographic work and the documentary records she created complimented the New York landscape. She had the belief that modern inventions such as cameras contribute to recording the 20th century.

 

 

She took not only the scenery of New York, including the high-rise buildings but also the scenery of backstreet. Achievements of the mechanical recording of photographs the realistic photographs were taken based on reality. The angles she chose are very diverse. Various screen configurations dynamically capture the scenery of the city. Instead of shooting special moments or situations, she took everyday scenes. Some of the photos she took, though some are sculptural, are not dramatic or moving. She captured and recorded various landscapes of New York from her point of view. Unlike cities in Europe, New York is full of skyscrapers and dynamics. It approaches as if the photo of the skyscraper symbolizes modernity. Through this image of New York, she showed the culture and life of a particular era.

 

Sources:

http://www.artnet.com/artists/berenice-abbott/

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/oct/29/berenice-abbott-bill-wood

https://www.ft.com/content/bf22f736-c927-11e9-af46-b09e8bfe60c0

 

Another related artist: Eugène Atget

Although you can appreciate pictures and photos in almost the same way, unlike the emotions that you can feel with pictures, there is a strange sympathy only with pictures that you can feel while viewing pictures. The reader is at the same time receiving the scenery and emotions he was trying to express through the house in the figures and photographs, and through one piece of the shooting, also, there is empathy. However, the drawing requires the painter to draw a sketch and color it with his expression. In other words, a figure always requires the time required for the process to be completed. Of course, photography also requires a process in which the artist shoots the situation at that time with a camera, develops it with chemicals, and ignites it. In other words, the figure is to put the situation and emotions that the painter is trying to express into the memory of the eye and put it out on the canvas along with the time and the flow of light. Once you take a picture with a camera, the flow of light and the scene at that time are lost in the past. The phenomenon and printing work required to complete the finished work will be the steps and processes that follow. Therefore, the emotion that a painter tries to express in a picture and the feeling that a photographer tries to put in the picture are different. Also, the emotions and photographic works that the reader feels while appreciating the picture must be different.

Today, I am going to try to appreciate a picture of a child, together with the emotion of a moment, and the emotions of Eugene Atget (1857 ~ 1927, France), which captures the emotions of the human being who sees it. Looking at his photographs, not only is it a realistic scene but at the same time, the writer feels that the reader is also falling into the emotion. You will feel that it is a lyrical work that goes beyond the level of mere records.

 

Eugène Atget (1857-1927), the father of contemporary photography, is a French man. Born in Libourne, he is said to have grown up in the arms of his grandparents because he lost his parents at the age of seven. After finishing his education in 1870, Atget worked for a while as a sailor on a transatlantic ship. After a couple of voyages, he became an actor, but this was not very successful. After this, he finally settled in Paris as a painter and gained a reputation next to photography in the 1890s. In particular, it became widely known as the documentary photographs of Paris in the 19th century.

Atget took a picture of Paris using a large camera with a vertical lens that had wooden wrinkles. The image of Paris was taken through a glass plate of 18x24cm size. In the corners of the frame, vignetting often occurs with the plate lens on the camera moving gon caused by his custom (one prayer one of the features of bellows view cameras). Through this method, Atget was able to gain image control and an accurate perspective. Atget himself cuts this effect quite favorably. From his close associates to architects, publishers, and interior designers, he has provided dreamy pictures of Paris to a wide range of people. Through such activities, he gains social fame. Later, appointed by the Paris City Hall and the Carnavalet Museum through the Carnavalet Museum to be the official photographer to save and document Paris’ famous architecture and landmarks.

 

 

It seems that among the artists at the time, they practiced drawing pictures by seeing the scene of photography. Atget uses this to start making money on photos. After purchasing his first camera in the mid-1890s, he shoots over 10,000 Paris landscapes and people. Atjét made much effort at the time to document the ancient appearance of Paris, which disappeared under the influence of the Industrial Revolution. In his photographs, there are many empty streets and landscape photographs with few people in the downtown area, but when I look at his photographs, I can feel loneliness and emptiness. In order to shoot such an atmosphere, it seems that it was taken in the early morning time when most people hardly walk.

 

 

The qualitative key to Atget’s work will be its clean, static feel when compared to many other similar photographs of Paris. The stopped feeling of Atoji photos is natural. The supersymmetry and the complete repelling are also great. The very subtle asymmetries shown in Atget photos alleviate the inhuman feelings that appear when the image is perfect. This slight imbalance shows how we approached the lives of the land and the world. Taking art photography at the same time as archival photography is the dream of all balanced photography. Atget can be an example of that dream. Atget is a master who understood better than anyone that photography is only a photographic record. I think that is why 20th-century photographs made in-house are loved even in the digital age

 

source:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/eugene-atget

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1727/eugene-atget-french-1857-1927/

http://www.artnet.com/artists/eug%C3%A8ne-atget/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-Atget