HENRI CARTIER BRESSON
Born 1908
Died 2004
Henri Cartier Bresson could almost be called one of the first street photographers. His reportage style of work and his ability to capture an image that tells a story proves this.
One such photograph taken in 1969, 'Boulevard Diderot Paris' shows not only the moment two lovers lips meet for a kiss but also the way the dog looks at the girl as he realises he has a rival for the mans affections, this is a very poignant image,.
It should be noted that he started off as a surrealist photographer, turning to photo journalism in 1937.
He was impressed in the war but managed to escape and was there to photograph the liberation of Paris in 1944.
In 1947 he co founded the magnum photo agency with Robert Cappa. Whilst a co founder of the agency which still exists today he wrote several books including one called 'The Decisive Moment'. This is something he would often talk about. This would be when every thing was set up in camera and also in the shot as he wanted then he would press the shutter, preferring to get it right at the time of shooting rather than later in the dark room.
He continued to be an active photo journalist until the late 1970's when he gave it up and devoted his time to painting and drawing.
RANKIN
Born 1966
Much has been written about Rankin and his way of using his photographs to 'educate' and display humour. Mostly a fashion and portrait photographer he has been involved in many publicity campaigns for charitable organisations such as Womans Aid, where he provided photographs for two campaigns. He has also been involved with reality television programmes such as 'Britain's missing top model' where he produced the cover photo for Marie Claire magazine. I have now watched several programmes with Rankin in them and have come to the conclusion that a lot of the tags associated with him are not true. He is a master of his craft and pushes himself and the people that work with or for him to the limits but the results he gets makes you understand why. If I was ever given the chance to have a day with a modern day photographer he would be the top of my list.
HORST P HORST
Born 1906 died 1999
http://www.horstphorst.com/index.php
He originally went to Paris to study architecture but after a chance meeting with vogue photographer George Hoyningen-Huene he was persuaded to give up his studies and take up photography, however his love of architecture and design was often evident in his sets. It was not un heard of for him to spend two days trying to perfect a lighting set up that was never quite perfect. Close friends with Coco Channel and Marlene Dietrich his photographs for Vogue magazine featured strong woman rather than the cossetted ones favoured in the past.. His fashion work was very detailed with the clothes being part of the photograph rather than the main focus. He was loved by all his models who he always made look beautiful and flawless, he knew exactly what he wanted in a photograph and could give direction to the model in a calm relaxing way and believed in making models feel like real people. He had several revivals over the years and with the emergence of photographers such as David Bailey he was re deployed from fashion photography to photographing the rich and famous at home. In 1991 he came out of retirement to be one of the photographers on the 75th Anniversary of British Vogue he was 85 at this point. He was forced to give up photography due to his failing eye sight and he died in 1999. His work is still popular today infact there is a photograph of a lady in a white dress with a blue background applying her lipstick which could quite easily have been taken in modern times.The V&A museum has an exhibition of his work in 2014 I am very interesting in trying to re create some of his work.
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