Alfred Stieglitz

 Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. He developed modern photography in America in the early years of the twentieth century, publishing the periodical Camera Work and forming the exhibition society, the Photo-Secession. Apart from photography he was well famous for running art galleries in New York City.

Paul Strand

 Paul Strand, born October 16, 1890-March 31, 1976. Strand was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. Although he was never a member of the Communist party Strand was politically of the left, many of his collaborators were either Party members or were prominent socialist writers and activists. Many of his friends were also Communists or were suspected of being so. Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than twenty organizations that were branded as ‘subversive’ and ‘un-American’ by the US Attorney General. His sympathies were with the ordinary working man and woman and much of his photography was concerned with the dignity and importance of labour and the "working class". He saw himself as a documentary photographer who's role was to record and reveal the truth about social injustice and the position of the common man. He insisted that his books should be printed in Leipzig, East Germany, even if this meant that they were initially prohibited from the American market on account of their Communist provenance. De-classified intelligence files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and now lodged at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, reveal that Strand’s movements around Europe were closely monitored by the security services.

Gordon Parks

 Parks began to explore subjects beyond portraits and fashion photographs in Chicago. He became interested in the low-income black neighborhoods of Chicago's South Side. In 1941, Parks won a photography fellowship with the Farm Security Administration for his images of the inner city.
 Parks created some of his most enduring photographs during this fellowship, including "American Gothic, Washington, D.C.," picturing a member of the FSA cleaning crew in front of an American flag.
 He also became a freelance photographer for Vogue. Parks worked for Vogue for a number of years, developing a distinctive style that emphasized the look of models and garments in motion, rather than in static poses. And also working as a documentary photographer during the civil rights movement.

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was a photographer whose portraits of displaced farmers during the Great Depression greatly influenced later documentary photography.During the Great Depression, Dorothea Lange photographed the unemployed men who wandered the streets. Her photographs of migrant workers were often presented with captions featuring the words of the workers themselves. Lange’s first exhibition, held in 1934, established her reputation as a skilled documentary photographer. In 1940, she received the Guggenheim Fellowship.

William Klein Blog

As an artist using photography, he set out to re-invent the photographic document. His photos, often blurred or out of focus, his high-contrast prints (his negatives were often severely over-exposed), his use of high-grain film and wide angles shocked the established order of the photography world and he earned a reputation as an anti-photographer's photographer. Inspired by moholy-nagy and kepes, he began to experiment with juxtaposing abstract painting and photography. Alexander liberman, painter and director of 'vogue' america met klein at one of klein's parisian sculpture shows and was fascinated, both by his sculpture (kinetic light panels on photosensitive glass)and by the photographs klein had recently begun to take. he invited klein to come to new york to discuss a job.

Mary Ellen Mark Short Story

LET’S KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE

Why is it every time I turn on the news,

It’s always singing the blues? 

Kids are being killed, kidnapped, molested, raped or abandoned…

What’s wrong with this picture? Kids are our future? 

It’s sad that there are children in this world that are dying from diseases or starvation. 

But that doesn’t make it right to abuse children due to frustration. 

Something has to be done! Our children can’t even go to the park to have fun, 

Because someone wants to shoot off a gun. 

I always ask myself, “Why are kids falling from the sky”? 

I never get a reply. 

They say these things are meant to be, 

But those things are hard for me to believe. 

How can anyone hurt a kid anyway? 

Can you answer that question? I’m still puzzled to this day. 

What gets me is that this type of behavior towards children has been going on for many years, 

And every time I hear a child go down, all I can do is shed tears. 

Let’s make this world a better place 

To keep our children safe, 

And see a beautiful smile on their face. 

Not to see them lying inside a case. 

Reflection on Diane Arbus

 My look on the video is understanding a different point of view from someone so original as a photographer like, Diane. Her photos portray differences and an unimaginable vision that was only prior to her. That's what made her creations so unique. Because it took time to actually figure out the meaning of the photo. Most of them having to do with darkness and hidden objects that are the origin of the photo.