« Photography is simply the current state of visual history of humanity»
Those words from Irving Penn end the striking exhibition, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of his birth.
This exhibition, which takes place at the Grand Palais in Paris, pays tribute to both the impressive photographer and the man he was. I personally knew his work as being the fashion photographer who had collaborated with Vogue for more than sixty years. But the grey walls and the airy rooms of this exhibition showed me all the elegance and wisdom that would define him. Irving Penn would really care about his models; he would even say about them : « I don’t think I was overawed by the subjects. I thought we were in the same boat ».
Throughout the exhibition, …show more content…
He asks him to make a series of portraits of personalities. Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, Audrey Hepburn, Gianni Versace and many others posed in front of his camera. The magazine’s editorial vision at that time was to capture these icons in chic places, but Irving Penn hated high society frivolities, prefering simplicity. This is why he would rather photograph them using neutral settings. For him, natural light is essential: it brightens fashion designers’s creations, as well as models.
Irving Penn knew how to capture the expression of the person posing in front of his lens. He wanted to recreate the same irreducible force you could find in paintings. His goal was to catch his subjects’ expression. That’s why he would encourage his models during photo shoots, so that he could reveal their true selves. « The studio became, for each of us, a kind of neutral zone. It wasn’t their home (...) it wasn’t mine (...) but in this in-between, we had a possibility of meeting that was a revelation for me and often, I can say, a moving experience for the models themselves, who, without a word, only by their attitude and dedication, were able to tell enough to fill the gap between our different universes. »
This tribute will allow fashion and photography enthusiasts, as well as the curious ones to discover the path of an outstanding photographer, but also to admire endlessly elegant
Those words from Irving Penn end the striking exhibition, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of his birth.
This exhibition, which takes place at the Grand Palais in Paris, pays tribute to both the impressive photographer and the man he was. I personally knew his work as being the fashion photographer who had collaborated with Vogue for more than sixty years. But the grey walls and the airy rooms of this exhibition showed me all the elegance and wisdom that would define him. Irving Penn would really care about his models; he would even say about them : « I don’t think I was overawed by the subjects. I thought we were in the same boat ».
Throughout the exhibition, …show more content…
He asks him to make a series of portraits of personalities. Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, Audrey Hepburn, Gianni Versace and many others posed in front of his camera. The magazine’s editorial vision at that time was to capture these icons in chic places, but Irving Penn hated high society frivolities, prefering simplicity. This is why he would rather photograph them using neutral settings. For him, natural light is essential: it brightens fashion designers’s creations, as well as models.
Irving Penn knew how to capture the expression of the person posing in front of his lens. He wanted to recreate the same irreducible force you could find in paintings. His goal was to catch his subjects’ expression. That’s why he would encourage his models during photo shoots, so that he could reveal their true selves. « The studio became, for each of us, a kind of neutral zone. It wasn’t their home (...) it wasn’t mine (...) but in this in-between, we had a possibility of meeting that was a revelation for me and often, I can say, a moving experience for the models themselves, who, without a word, only by their attitude and dedication, were able to tell enough to fill the gap between our different universes. »
This tribute will allow fashion and photography enthusiasts, as well as the curious ones to discover the path of an outstanding photographer, but also to admire endlessly elegant