Archive for the ‘street life’ Category
Shade and Sun
It’s been a bad year for photographers. Roy DeCarava, too, was lost this fall. His best known work dates from Harlem in the 1950s and it represents potentially controversial material in a quiet and subtle way that is no less powerful. This image is difficult to read on screen, but the boy in the sun [...]
In: childhood, contemporary, photography, street life · Tagged with: Harlem, Roy DeCarava
Eyes Wide Shut
I went to the Robert Frank exhibit at the Met yesterday. It was too crowded to really enjoy it, and the ordering of the images was chaotic, but the photographs are worth looking at for as long as possible. Frank took the 80+ photographs of The Americans over several road trips in 1955. The image [...]
In: beginnings, contemporary, gaze, photography, street life · Tagged with: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Frank, The Americans
Storied Splendor
Admire this well-composed and engaging photograph of a Calcutta store by contemporary American photographer Laura McPhee. The lovely near-symmetry of the paired windows, with the colors almost aligned and the vertical and rectangular shapes perfectly balanced. The orange pieces in the window are also anchored by the coral color in the background, but the image [...]
In: contemporary, photography, street life · Tagged with: Calcutta, Laura McPhee
Child’s Play
The funny thing about photography, still, is that the children you see here will always be playing just like that, when the adults they became have moved on, and the photographer who took the picture has passed away. Helen Levitt died this year at age 95. The photograph is about 70 years old. The kids [...]
In: childhood, contemporary, documentary, memory, photography, street life · Tagged with: Helen Levitt, New York City