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Today we will continue to talk about Fashion Photography.
After the intense war in Europe, New York took the title of “capital of fashion photography” from Paris and has carried this title until today, as many photographers, such as artists and scientists, immigrated to the United States due to the war. Today, most of the world-famous fashion shoots take place in New York.
After the Second World War: Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon, who was born in 1923, is one of the most important representatives of fashion photography, which was restructured after the Second World War. Avedon has succeeded in being one of the leading names in world photography since 1945 with his style that can always renew itself. Influenced by Munkacsi’s style in the early years of his career, we can say that Avedon built his own style on this interaction.
Just like Munkacsi, Avedon took moving, natural, living photographs, and after the war, Avedon’s lively, cheerful photographs were a great success as people tried to get rid of their pessimism. Avedon, who managed to attract the attention of Harper’s Bazaar’s artistic director at that time, Alexei Brodovitch, with his distinctive style in the early years of his career, was persuaded by Brodovitch to take various fashion photos for Harper’s Bazaar, and shortly after that, he was the creator of “New Vision”. He is known as the most successful young photographer ever.
Junior Bazaar, which is a magazine from the Harper’s Bazaar school and continued its publication life for 3 years until 1948, wanted to act with an innovative approach to photography since its target audience was young people, so it was inevitable that the magazine’s biggest source of photography would be Richard Avedon.
In Avedon photographs, there are especially women who have fun, smile and enjoy life. This element of mobility, which he uses in his photographs, with his focused and no-focused relationship, motion blur and cuts, actually breaks the basic photography rules set by photographers like Hoynigen-Huene. Avedon’s photographs are perhaps so successful because they are not technically perfect. His photographs are so natural and lively that they are like real slices of life, not fiction.
As Avedon is a constantly reinventing photographer, he has tried many new styles. For example; he took a series of photographs in the style of photo-novels, which are a continuation of each other, and in these photographs, just like his other photographs, he used the sense of reality that he did not give up. Like most of the post-war photographers, Avedon took his photographs outdoors, but after a while, Avedon renewed himself and started to take his photographs in the studio. He changed the concept of studio photography in the 30s by photographing moving models by using flash light in front of a plain white background in the studio, and initiated another innovation by bringing the realism Munkacsi captured outdoors to the studio. The innovations that Avedon brought to the world of photography, and the sensitivity he showed in model selection, made his photographs almost historical documents. The change in the ideal female body in the 60s, the acceptance of thin women as more desirable, or the change in society’s view of sexuality can be easily seen in Avedon’s photographs.
After the Second World War: Irving Penn
Another popular photographer of the 1950s is Irving Penn. Born in 1917 in New Jersey, Penn became a student of Alexei Brodovitch, who was greatly influenced in the early years of his career, at the Philadelphia Museum School, which he graduated from in 1938. Penn, whose drawings were previously published in Harper’s Bazaar, became one of the most well-known photographers after the Second World War as his career in photography expanded. Feminine elegance and charm are at the forefront in his photographs.
Penn, who has been shooting fashion for Vogue magazine for years, was one of the first photographers to photograph his models in front of a simple gray or white background, and because he managed to use this simplicity in his photographs much more effectively than other photographers, he managed to stand out. It can be seen that Penn, whose main profession is a painter, often takes a known painting as a reference in his photographs. Vogue has used a black and white cover for the first time in fifteen years, thanks to Penn, who has turned to taking black and white photographs again thanks to his fondness for simplicity and aesthetics. Penn’s photographs fulfill the requirements of fashion photography, while at the same time not compromising on aesthetics.
Penn expanded the studio environment with a simple background and plain lights, as in the 19th century photographs, and built a background with right angles in order to create plain and pointed corners. Photographing his models in this cramped and unconventional space, Penn added an unprecedented element of drama to his portraits by drawing the viewer’s attention to the model and her expression. Penn also used a light source coming from the window in his photographs, in which he used a studio flash as the main lighting element. Traveling to places like New Guinea to photograph locals, Penn created a portable studio for himself. Penn married model Lisa Fonssagrives, with whom he had worked many times, in 1950, and set up his own studio in 1953. The most distinctive features of Penn’s work are clarity, composition, careful placement of objects and models, and the characteristic use of form and light. Alongside his fashion photography, Penn has also taken still-life photographs in which he uses rich details and unconventional arrangements. Penn’s subjects are diverse, while his prints are always clean and clear. Often, his photographs are so ahead of their time that their value could only be appreciated years after they were created. For example; the series of nude models he shot between 1949 and 1950, whose physical appearance changed from thin to fat, was not exhibited until 1980.
In these early years after the Second World War, fashion photography was restructured.
The 60s were a kind of turning point for fashion photography.
See you in the next blog post.
Take care,
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