Irving Penn

Irving Penn was an American photographer known mostly for his fashion photography, portraits and still lifes. He became a very influential photographer who worked for the likes of Vogue magazine. Penn was one of the first photographers to pose his subjects against simple grey or white backdrops, which allowed to single out the subject making the photograph just about them. He technique is something I will later talk about in comparison to my own work. Something Penn was also prided for was his great attention to detail with his printing skills, including prints made onto aluminium sheets with a platinum emulsion which gave the image a warmth that typical silver prints lacked. His black and white prints are famous for their deep rich contrast that Penn managed to get out of the process.

His work in 'Small Trades' is different to my current photographs and the work I have previously talked about by August Sander and Lewis Hine. This is because Penn has taken his subjects out of their working environment and placed them inside the same moving studio that he took to the different countries he photographed. My composition of including the whole body of the subject is similar to Penn's work. Penn has made sure that his subjects reference the area/ profession they work in by keeping them in the relevant clothes and props that they use when working, this allows the viewer to instantly recognise what profession they're in. Furthermore his subjects aren't posing (smiling) like they might naturally do in front of a camera, this act of none posing leaves the viewer feeling like they are looking at a more natural portrait, which I have also done within my work and will carry on throughout my project. What makes his portraits so captivating is how natural his subjects look within, they also look very proud in the photographs which makes it easy to view. If the subjects looked uneasy and awkward, the viewer would feel both these feelings when looking at it. His lighting in these photographs is quite contrasting with strong highlights and shadows, I think this makes the portraits look more moody than they need to be as this should be quite a light hearted to shoot so I think it should be less contrasting.

I think Penn's idea is interesting in which he has used the same composition and background for each of his subjects, this creates a unified formality within his work in which they all relate to each other. It also means that it is up to Penn to make sure he represents the subjects profession just using clothes and props, whereas within my practice you can see where the viewer works from the background of the image. His compositions work well though because of the simplicity, which will be something I will have to deal with within my own work. As I will be shooting my portraits in the surroundings that the subjects work in, it could mean the composition looks very cluttered and over complicated depending on what shop they work in. This means when I do my own shoots I'll have to pick the area I photograph the subject in carefully, to represent where they work but for it not to make the photographs background to messy which would then take away from the main focus which is the portrait itself.