Wednesday the world lost one of the centuries most prolific and influential photographers. Irving Penn’s signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide. His contribution to the worlds of art and fashion are priceless. He has certainly inspired my photography over the years. His portraits are simple and clean, yet reveal a deep emotion and history. His still lifes of food and mundane objects show sculptured balances of shape, color and texture. Mr. Penn has left a thumbprint in my fascination and love for photography. His work will be remembered for centuries. To read more about Mr. Penn, you can read his obituary from the New York Times. “Photographing a cake can be art”
Thank you for posting this, Logan.
When I was 18 and held only a passing and undisciplined interest in photography, I visited the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. The exhibition at the time was of a single photographer whose name meant nothing to me but who was billed as a legend in the world of fashion imagery. “Meh”, I thought to myself – not really my thing. But I was there so I decided to kill some time.
The first print that I encountered was a chest-up framing of man with his eyes closed and his outsized hands in a very peculiar arrangement about his face. There was a fascinating contradiction to it: if it had been posed, it was a very strange and awkward choice – not unflattering per se, but certainly not ‘fashionable’; yet if it had been captured candidly, it was the most natural moment imaginable – a man caught in the unself-conscious act of relieving tension. It was at the point that I noticed that if it was an unposed image, the subject held his left hand to his chin in a very unusual and angular way. A gesture so mannered as to be fay – an almost Capote-esque mannerism. It was at that moment that I realized that the subject WAS in fact Truman Capote. This was the first time I had encountered the notion of a portrait from the inside-out – an image that captured something true about the character of a subject apart from their appearance. Moreover, it revealed the subject in a such a disarmingly unfamiliar way, that this actually took prominence over my recognition of a face that was very familiar to me. The rest of the exhibition was equally revelatory for me and the experience sticks like a thorn in my mind as one of the most important moments in my path toward becoming a photographer. The image in question is the first in the second row. I think of it often.
Regardless of the subject matter – and his lens focused widely outside of the world of fashion – Penn’s interest is in finding the CHARACTER of his subjects rather than in their mere appearance. Its always intrigued me that the original meaning of the word ‘glamour’ is ‘illusion’. Its struck me on more than one occasion that Penn’s images are successful because he achieved images that peeked beneath the veil, even as the veil itself was the ostensible subject. It would seem to most observers that Penn and I work in entirely different contexts, and that’s true to a point. But at our most successful, we are in search of the same spark of character in our subjects – that moment when a client loses their guard for just a moment is our opportunity to capture them the way that their friends and family see and know them. Irving Penn was the first to introduce me to that idea. Others have contributed greatly, but Penn will always be very special to me.
I encourage any that are not familiar with his work to honor him with a quick tour though his many and varied works:
http://tinyurl.com/yf4lx6y
Stunning memorial Mitch. We lost a good one. Thank you for this.
He had such a broad range. A true photographers photographer. Nice post Mitch.
his work is very poignant, clean, honest, iconic, and as close to perfection as one can get with photography.
though he may have passed, his work will most definitely live on.
You nailed it, Duston – iconic. Nothing left to take away.
Wow, he will be missed!
Thanks for sharing this revelation in the midst of loss. Your response to Penn’s work remind me of a Paul Strand quote I have hanging in my office: “It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.”
That’s a fantastic quote, Rachel!
Strand is another favorite of mine.
Hello China, our own president’s a more elevated compared to your current chief executive!