Style Paragraphs-Lara Meisner

Fred Herzog (Photographs)

Fred Herzog was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1930. He moved to Vancouver in 1953. As an adult, he worked as a medical photographer. Besides working his day job at the University of British Columbia, he would spend his evenings and weekends making images in the streets of Vancouver. This is where his documentary style came into effect. He photographed daily life of regular pedestrians and documented what he observed. Herzog used many different types of cameras such as Nikons, Leicas, Kodak Retina 1, Canon WP 1, and 35mm. He preferred to use Kodachrome film and a mid-range lens. He photographed mostly in color because he thought it captured the life of the city better than black and white. He also wanted his images to contain historical value. He is considered to be a pioneer of color photography. His images look like they belong together in a series, which is one of the things I like most about them. They all tell different stories that can be interpreted in many ways, however they all contain a similar theme of daily life. There isn’t anything that I don’t like about his photographs. I really like how they’re not posed whatsoever and how even though they aren’t posed, they still evoke emotion.

Clemens Kalischer

Clemens Kalischer was born in Lindau, Germany in 1921. He moved to France in 1933 and then to the United States in 1942. He worked as an art photographer and photojournalist. Before he began his career, he studied photography at Cooper Union and the New School for Social Research. He photographs in a documentary style that displays emotion and/or action. His images are in black and white and he used a borrowed Rolleiflex camera. He photographed World War II refugees. Since he was one himself, it wasn’t difficult for him to capture their emotions and experiences. After being recognized by Robert Frank and Beaumont Newhall (the first curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art), he was invited to present his work at the Museum of Modern Art with only six years of experience in photography. His images aren’t pre-planned or pre-produced, which is what I really like about them. They show emotion and depict the lives of real people as opposed to forcing people to show their emotions or forcing their actions. I also like that he used black and white rather than color because it makes the viewer feel like they are an outsider looking into each moment Kalischer captured.

Milton Gendel (A Surreal Life)

Milton Gendel was born in New York in 1918. He was as a pre-med undergraduate at Columbia University, where he studied chemistry and biology. It wasn’t until graduate school that he switched gears and turned towards the art world. He thought of himself more as a writer than a photographer; he was an art critic. He claims he merely took “snapshots” in order to illustrate what he was writing. He’s known to have a calling for people and situations. His images are done in a documentary style as well as a more posed style. Some of his portraits seem more posed than others, however, they all capture the essence of the person being photographed. I like this about his work because sometimes when photographers have their models pose for the camera, they become robotic and removed from the moment. His images don’t contain that posed look; they contain underlying mysteries and hidden meanings. I also like that his photographs are in black and white because it gives them an older look. This, similar to Clemens Kalischer’s work, allows the viewer to feel like an outsider interpreting the image, which leads to curiosity and wonder about the story being told in the photograph.