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† Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps

KangHee Kim

KangHee Kim

b: c. 1991

I happened upon KangHee in an email from BJP, featuring her new book, Golden Hour . This coincided with Part 4 of the EyV course, concentrating on lighting and with the golden hour being emphasised. There is also a good feature at itsnicethat.com that refers to,

a style which is distinctly hers – one which sees sunsets, blue skies and palm trees superimposed to peek through the windows, or over the shoulders of passers-by, in the most mundane of scenes itsnicethat.com

The photographs are a delight, with so many great images to choose from. I will arbitrarily limit myself to six.

It is interesting, refreshing and relatively unusual to find such natural-seeming and graceful use of Photoshop (to use a generic term for image combination and manipulation) rather than the more common heavy-handed juxtaposition.

Some of the pieces evoke Abelardo Morell's work where he transforms rooms into camera obscura.

sources no Wikipedia end

links - artist's web site, itsnicethat.com

added - 10Feb19

André Kertész

Self portrait, 1926

b: 1894 Budapest / d: 1985 New York

He is described in 50 Photographers you should know (P50) as, "a master of the grand form and plane, the laws of volume and space". The biography below is from the International Center of Photography,

André Kertész was born in Budapest in 1894 and studied at the Academy of Commerce until he bought his first camera in 1912. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, and in 1925 had one of his photographs published on the cover of Erdekes Ujsay. That same year, he moved to Paris, where he did freelance work for many European publications, including Vu, Le Matin, Frankfurter Illustrierte, Die Photographie, La Nazione Firenze, and The Times of London. He bought his first 35-millimeter camera, a Leica, in 1928, and his innovative work with it on the streets of Paris was extremely influential. In 1936, he came to the United States, and began freelancing for Collier's, Harper's Bazaar, and House & Garden, among other mass-circulation magazines. Eventually, and until 1962, he worked under contract to Condé Nast. Between 1963 and his death, his independently produced photographs became more widely accessible, and Kertész became one of the most respected photographers in America. His work was the subject of many publications and exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and at the Museum of Modern Art, and a major retrospective, Of Paris and New York, at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among his many honors and awards were a Guggenheim Fellowship and admission to the French Legion of Honor.
Kertész's work had widespread and diverse effects on many photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and Brassaï, who counted him as a mentor during the late 1920s and early 1930s. His personal work in the 1960s and 1970s inspired countless other contemporary photographers. Kertész combined a photojournalistic interest in movement and gesture with a formalist concern for abstract shapes; hence his work has historical significance in all areas of postwar photography. Lisa Hostetler, International Center of Photography

sources - Wikipedia

links - International Center of Photography

added 21Nov18

Idris Khan, see Nichers

Idris Khan
self portrait

b: 1978 Birmingham

I first encountered Khan in the excellent Why it does not have to be in focus (Higgins, 2013). Khan superimposes multiple images into composites and the book features his treatment of the Bechers Framework Houses, which became Every… Bernd and Hilda Becher Gable Sided Houses, 2004. (He is rather the victim of his own naming convention as Every…does not cope well with plurals.)

The book states that Khan,

… treats every photograph individually, and delicately balances each stratum — accentuating certain areas and adjusting chiaroscuro † and, in particular, opacity — so each one has a presence, yet forms are encouraged to emerge from the vibrating mass as if at the hand of a master draughtsman. Higgins, 2013 pp. 94-95

I'd say that might be a stretch.

†chiaroscuro - the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting, Google dictionary

This is definitely a clever, niche idea, it was worth doing, and Kahn deserves the credit for thinking it up. But it is (surely) not clever enough or interesting enough to sustain a whole career … and yet, his other works include Every … page from Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida, 2004 and Wikipedia lists, "every page of the Qur'an, every Beethoven sonata, every William Turner postcard from Tate Britain".

Idris Khan

sources Wikipedia

links

added - 7Jan19

Kim Kirkpatrick

Kim Kirkpatrick

b: 1952 Annandale, Va, USA

Information on and examples of the work of Kim Kirkpatrick have been difficult to find. His web site (cited in the course text, p.51) has closed down and the Wikipedia entry is sparse. Some of his web site is backed up on Wayback Machine but no images were found [26th August 2018].

The course material states that he, "explores the aesthetic possibilities of shallow depth of field to re-imagine abandoned industrial sites in the American landscape".
An online article from 2001 in gazette.net describes his use of an 8x10 field camera and states, " Kirkpatrick shoots landscapes. Instead of garden-variety sentimental sunsets or misty mountains, though, Kirkpatrick ventures into the region's construction and industrial zones to take photos, always ignoring the "No Trespassing" signs. 'I take pictures where nature and man meet, where one is taking over the other,' he explains."
It continues, "Kirkpatrick says, please don't call his photos political in nature. He prefers to talk about the photographic process. And his representative, gallery owner Sally Troyer, stands by that assessment: 'I don't see it as political. It is glowing red dirt.'"
Sally Troyer's gallery closed in 2004 (Washington Post).

† an Online Photographer post from 2006 has confirmed fig. 2 as being by Kirkpatrick: he was awarded #8 in their Ten Best Living Photographers List.

sources - gazette.net, luminous-landscape.com, Washington Post, Wikipedia

links - Wayback Machine, Wikipedia

Jacob Kjeldgaard (Marinus)

Kjeldgaard in Paris, 1957

b: 1884 Copenhagen / d: 1964 Paris

Another find from Roger Hicks' weekly column on the last page of AmPhot.

Kjeldgaard, known as Marinus, is renowned for his photomontages published in Marianne, a French paper, in the 1930s and 40s, ridiculing Hitler and other Nazis, dictators and senior politicians in general. Acccording to Wikipedia, his work only became known after a 2007 exhibition at Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum in Aalborg, and then at Museum, Cologne which also included his colleague Johm Heartfield (previously Helmut Herzfeld, 1891-1968). A book was published to accompany the latter, Hitler Blind, Stalin Lame: it is well worth the effort of finding a copy.

sources - Wikipedia

links - official website

William Klein

William Klein

b: 1928 New York / d: 2022 Paris, see blog

One of Peter Stepan's 50 Photographers You Should Know.

described by Wikipedia as,

an American-born French photographer and filmmaker noted for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. Wikipedia

I know the gun image, but have never known who took it. I am not particularly impressed by the rest of Klein's work found online and thus only two are shown.

sources - Wikipedia, Stepan (2008)

links

added - 21Dec18

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Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr

b: Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Knorr is mentioned in the course material (EyV p. 15) in the context of examples for the Square Mile assignment. She is also in C&N (C&N p.56) regarding the inclusion of text with images.

The artist's web site states,

Karen Knorr was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and was raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the 1960s. She finished her education in Paris and London. Karen has taught, exhibited and lectured internationally, including at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The University of Westminster, Goldsmiths, Harvard and The Art Institute of Chicago. She studied at the University of Westminster in the mid-1970s, exhibiting photography that addressed debates in cultural studies and film theory concerning the ‘politics of representation’ practices which emerged during the late 1970s qnd early 1980s. She is currently Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey.
Karen Knorr produced Belgravia (1979-1981) a series of black and white photographs with ironic and humorous texts that highlighted aspirations, lifestyle and the British class system under the neo liberalist Thatcher era in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Her most well known work called Gentlemen (1981-1983) was photographed in Saint James’s clubs in London and investigated the patriarchal conservative values of Britain during the Falklands war. Karen ’s work developed a critical and playful dialogue with documentary photography using different visual and textual strategies to explore her chosen subject matter that ranges from the family and lifestyle to the animal and its representation in the museum context. karenknorr.com

Subsequent work includes Connoisseurs (1986), Academies (1994-2001), Being for Another (video, 1995), Fables (2004-2008), Monagatari (2012).

sources Wikipedia

links - artist's web site, Contemporary Art Society

Germaine Krull

Self-Portrait with Cigarette, 1925

b: 1897 Posen-Wilda (then in Germany; now in Poland) / d: 1985 Wetzlar, Germany

Krull cropped up in EyV Exercise 5.2 when considering Ilse Bing's Self Portrait with Leica.

Krull lived an extraordinary life, by any standards, nicely summarised on her MoMA page. She was forced to leave Munich and was later arrested in Russia for left wing political activism; as a Neue Frau, she was part of the German social and sexual revolution of the 1920s; in later life she became a recluse, living amongst Tibetan monks. She died in Germany.

Artistically, she was a groundbreaking influence in the development of avant-garde darkroom techniques, photobooks and reportage, the last using the folding, small format Icarette, a earlier step in the trend that led to the the 35mm Leica.

sources - Wikipedia

links - MoMA

added - 18Jul19

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick, self portrait, 1949

b: 1928 Manhatten / d: 1999 Childwickbury Manor, Hertfordshire, England

Wikipedia describes Kubrick as, "American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is frequently cited as one of the greatest and most influential directors in cinematic history. His films, which are mostly adaptations of novels or short stories, cover a wide range of genres, and are noted for their realism, dark humor, unique cinematography, extensive set designs, and evocative use of music". Regarding his early photographoc career, it states,

While still in high school, Kubrick was chosen as an official school photographer. In the mid-1940s, since he was not able to gain admission to day session classes at colleges, he briefly attended evening classes at the City College of New York. Eventually, he sold a photographic series to Look magazine, having taken a photo to Helen O'Brian, head of the photographic department, who purchased it for £25. It was printed on June 26, 1945. Kubrick supplemented his income by playing chess "for quarters" in Washington Square Park and various Manhattan chess clubs.
Photo of Chicago taken by Kubrick for Look magazine, 1949 In 1946, he became an apprentice photographer for Look and later a full-time staff photographer. G. Warren Schloat, Jr., another new photographer for the magazine at the time, recalled that he thought Kubrick lacked the personality to make it as a director in Hollywood, remarking, "Stanley was a quiet fellow. He didn't say much. He was thin, skinny, and kind of poor—like we all were".[26] Kubrick quickly became known, however, for his story-telling in photographs. His first, published on April 16, 1946, was entitled "A Short Story from a Movie Balcony" and staged a fracas between a man and a woman, during which the man is slapped in the face, caught genuinely by surprise. In another assignment, 18 pictures were taken of various people waiting in a dental office. It has been said retrospectively that this project demonstrated an early interest of Kubrick in capturing individuals and their feelings in mundane environments. In 1948, he was sent to Portugal to document a travel piece, and covered the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, Florida. Kubrick, a boxing enthusiast, eventually began photographing boxing matches for the magazine. His earliest, "Prizefighter", was published on January 18, 1949, and captured a boxing match and the events leading up to it, featuring Walter Cartier. On April 2, 1949, he published a photo essay, named "Chicago-City of Extremes" in Look, which displayed his talent early on for creating atmosphere with imagery, including a photograph taken above a congested Chicago street at night. The following year, on July 18, 1950, the magazine published his photo essay, "Working Debutante - Betsy von Furstenberg", which featured a Pablo Picasso portrait of Angel F. de Soto in the background. Kubrick was also assigned to photograph numerous jazz musicians, from Frank Sinatra and Erroll Garner to George Lewis, Eddie Condon, Phil Napoleon, Papa Celestin, Alphonse Picou, Muggsy Spanier, Sharkey Bonano, and others.[ citation

The Independent reviewed Taschen's Stanley Kubrick Photographs, Through a Different Lens in May 2018,

Before becoming a critically acclaimed director responsible for Dr Strangelove and The Shining, Stanley Kubrick spent five years as a photographer for Look magazine, a now defunct US publication that captured everyday life.
Kubrick’s photography captures daily life in his native New York, ranging from a visit to the circus and the more outlandish Beaux Arts Ball in Philadelphia, with its bizarre and surreal shapes reminiscent of those seen in his filmmaking, to touchingly humanist portraits such as the “Shoeshine Boy” talking to a friend on the street and a picture of showgirl “Rosemary Williams”, who stands in glamorous contrast to her nondescript, messy apartment.
Kubrick completed more than 300 assignments for Look, most of which can be seen in Stanley Kubrick Photographs, Through a Different Lens, a new book featuring unseen images from the director’s five-year stint, written by photography critic Luc Sante, with contributions from Sean Corcoran and Donald Albrecht. The book coincides with an exhibition on Kubrick’s photography at the Museum of the City of New York.
“Turning his camera on his native city, Kubrick memorialised the celebrities and shoeshine boys in images that expressed the pathos of ordinary life – and pointed toward his future as one of the 20th century’s great artists,” says Albrecht. independent.co.uk

sources Wikipedia, Independent

links

Mona Kuhn

Mona Kuhn, self portrait, 2017
© Mona Kuhn

b: 1969 São Paulo, Brazil

Mona Kuhn, who was born in Brazil and now lives, works and studies in the USA, describes herself on her web site as

best known for her large-scale photographs of the human form. Her approach is unusual in that she develops close relationships with her subjects, resulting in images of remarkable intimacy, and creating the effect of people naked but comfortable in their own skin. In addition, Kuhn's playful combination of visual strategies, such as translucency explores our connectedness with the environment. A sublime sense of comfort and intelligence permeates her works, showing the human body in its most natural state while simultaneously re-envisioning the nude as a contemporary canon of art. monakuhn.com

Her published works include Photographs (2004), Evidence (2007), Native (2010), Bordeaux Series (2011), Private (2014) and She Disappeared into Complete Silence (due late 2018).

Fig. 1 from Evidence evokes one of Uta Barth's from … in passing. With the imminent (as at August 2018) publication of Bushes and Succulents several images have become available. The artist says of the work,

"Bushes and Succulents” is my artistic response to the ongoing currents in contemporary feminism…. Reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s floral paintings, your eyes wander around the graceful lines, not knowing exactly what you are looking at. When I look at the large print, I no longer know if I am floating underwater looking at corals or female parts. You enter a realm of visual pleasure and wonder…. The images titled “Bushes” are a celebration of the female essence, the au-naturel crown, confident, raw, elegant yet confrontational and unapologetic. A celebration of the female body and its essence….The solarization process reveals human imperfections, not only in the metallic brilliance of the skin, but also brings to the surface our struggles, our strengths, our power….These plants seemed to be able to endure so much. They had a power of endurance through good and bad times. That echoed, I thought, the way women have survived through the ages. And, I couldn’t help but think to myself – the “Succulents" look like vulvas....I’m playing with the viewer because, in reality, I’m not exposing anything elizabethavedon.blogspot.com

sources - The Guardian, Wikipedia

links - artist's web site

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange c.1935

b: 1895 Hoboken, New Jersey / d: 1965 San Francisco

One of Peter Stepan's 50 Photographers You Should Know.

The Tate's biography quotes from Wikipedia,

an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography. Tate

Lange's best known image is Migrant Mother, fig. 1.

sources - Wikipedia, Stepan (2008)

links - Tate

added - 22Dec18

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Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Lartigue, 1977 © John Swannell

b: 1894 Courbevoie, France / d: 1986 Nice

Comments from the Hoppen Gallery

[Lartigue] took his first photograph in 1900 at the age of six. Born into privilege, Lartigue's father was a banker, and the family belonged to the upper French bourgeoisie. Lartigue transfixed the delightful life of the pre-war upper classes with his fleeting visions and a passionate devotion to the pursuit of joy.
All the excitement and allure of the last days of the belle époque are epitomised in Lartigue’s photographs, and he is known for his playful presentation of friends, family and French society at leisure. Lartigue's photographs of sun-drenched holidays on the French Riviera between the Wars crystallise the image of a glamorous era. A dashing figure himself, Lartigue turned his camera on the supremely elegant women who surrounded him: Bibi (his first wife), Florette, and the mysterious Renée Perle.
Lartigue’s photographic work remained undiscovered until 1962 when a chance meeting with John Szarkowski led to a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1963. The importance of the work was immediately recognized, and numerous exhibitions and publications followed. Free of any influence, Lartigue was hailed by his friend Richard Avedon as "the most deceptively simple and penetrating photographer”. Hoppen Gallery

Lartigue is responsible for many memorable images, including: his cousin Bichonnade "flying" down steps; cousin Dédé diving; his brother Zissou afloat; the Lartigue Effect, panning with a vertical shutter.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Hoppen Gallery, lartigue.org

added 5Dec18

Richard Learoyd

Richard Learoyd, 2016
by Tristan Bravinder

b: 1966 Nelson, Lancashire

Learoyd features in Higgins' Why it does not have to be in focus (Higgins, 2013, pp. 102-3).

Learoyd's technical approach is extraordinary — using two rooms, one his camera obscura, the other containing his subject, lit by intense flash, he creates direct positives.

Perhaps his best known image is of a dead hare draped on breeze blocks (fig. 2) the same series includes a severed, bloody horse's head that has not been included on the grounds of personal taste. He also takes many portraits.

The Guardian in an interview with Sean O'Hagan reports,

The fact that there are no negatives means that every photograph is an edition of one. (His gallery prices reflect this – it’s around £80,000 for a single print.) The failure rate is high. “Every picture I make is hard won,” he says. “There are no happy accidents.” The Guardian, 23 Oct 2015

sources - Wikipedia

links - artist's web site, The Guardian, the iris

added - 15Apr19

O. Winston Link, see Nichers

O. Winston Link, George Thom
and accessories, 1956

b: 1914 / d: 2001

Winston Link is distinguished in determinedly pursing an almost unique photographic niche and producing a number of memorable images while doing so. Other snappers in this category are Abelardo Morell, who turns rooms into camera obscura, and … others will be added as they are found. [01Jan19] we can add the Bechers and to a certain extent, Ed Ruscha.

The image right / above shows him with his assistant, George Thom and some of the lighting kit.

Wikipedia's description is,

best known for his black-and-white photography and sound recordings of the last days of steam locomotive railroading on the Norfolk & Western in the United States in the late 1950s. A commercial photographer, Link helped establish rail photography as a hobby. He also pioneered night photography, producing several well known examples including Hotshot Eastbound, a photograph of a steam train passing a drive-in movie theater, and Hawksbill Creek Swimming Hole showing a train crossing a bridge above children bathing. Wikipedia

sources Wikipedia

links - O. Winston Link Museum

added - 01Jan19

Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg

born: 1967 Germany

Luxemburg is cited in Part 4 of the course material in the context of working with artificial light. She photographs (amongst other things) London at night using a 5x4 film camera. Her Wikipedia entry is cursory, but there is an interesting interview on Museum Crush.

Luxemburg's published projects include:
London – A Modern Project, 1995
Liebeslied/My Suicides, 2000
Phantom, 2003 (shot in Dakar, commissioned by The Tate)
London Dust, 2012.

It is interesting to see a large-format camea put to good use with subjects that merit the effort, in contrast with Tina Barney's work.

sources - Wikipedia

links - Museum Crush

added - 7Jan19

George Platt Lynes

Self portrait, 1952

b: 1907 New Jersey / d: 1955 New York

Lynes is well known as a commercial and fine art photographer, but a 2018-19 exhibition (Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art) features his relatively unknown male nudes and portraits of gay icons.

Lynes died of cancer in his 40s and was, at first, thought to have destroyed most of his archive before he died. In fact, he had left his work to the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University

sources - Wikipedia

links - artsy.net, IBJ

added - 13Feb19

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sources Wikipedia

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