America, Seen Through Photographs Darkly
- in photography's early decades, photos were expected to be idealized images.
- Walt Whitman tried to tell the difference between what is ugly and what is beautiful
- In 1915, Edward Steichen photographed something that wasn't the typical idea of something beautiful, he photographed a milk bottle on a tenement fire escape.
- People who get themselves photographed back then were known as a celebrity, later on that has changed and immigrants and workers started to get photographed such as the photographs by Lewis Hine.
- Walker Evans brought out beauty in normal everyday objects/people, he wanted his photographs to be literate,authoritative, and transcendent.
- "Family Man" exhibit in 1955 organized by Steichen were 533 photos from 273 photographers from 68 countries to prove that humanity is one and showed the human beings flaws in a way that made them attractive. People in the photos were different races,ages and classes.
- Diane Arbus in 1972, her show had photographs of monsters and borderline cases, which most of them were ugly. They wore unflattering clothes and in dismal locations but they were gazing with confidence at the viewer.
- Arbus has also taken photographs of carnies as well as patients in a mental facility. She says " you see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw"
- Arbus gets to know the people she photographs to make them more comfortable, she usually has them staring straight/dead pan at the camera. She would take photos that came off as painful, but her photos also demonstrated that "life's horror can be faced without squeamishness"
- art changes morals
- Photographers are always trying to find different views of objects, subjects, and the unknown to photograph for entertainment.
- Arbus was against what was safe, instead she photographed what was private,ugly,and fascinating
This is a Diane Arbus photograph titled "Child with Toy Hand Grenade" in Central Park, N.Y.C. in 1962. The kid is a very odd and awkward looking with a straight/dead pan look that is most seen in Arbus's photos. This is not known as a typical everyday photograph, you would not normally see a kid like this walking with toy grenade. Most people would have viewed this as a shocking sight to see. The kid is not attractive or the typical model.
This photograph is done by one of my favorite photographers,Bruce Davidson the series is titled "The Dwarf" and was shot in 1958. In the photograph the people in the background look disgusted or were making fun of the way the dwarf looks but the main focus in the photo is about how much pain the dwarf must feel by the way he looks. He isn't something known as beautiful and is sometimes thought of as an outcast of society. Davidson has shot a photograph that shows the pain that these "ugly" people experience in a way that is beautiful.
This is a photograph done by Lewis Hines taken in 1908 and is one of my favorites done by him. It shows a poor young girl that is being forced to work in a factory at a young age. It exposes the cruelty of the child labor industry. It shows the pain of the young girl and sadness of what she has been put through. The image even though is beautiful the message behind it is not. It is not typical viewpoint to be photographed. This photos shows the different classes that are out there and shows the truth in society.
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