Famous Photographer - Edward Steinchen

Michelle Lee

Mr. Sandoval

Photography 1 Period 2

23 September 2011

Famous Photographer – Edward Steichen

            Edward Steichen was an American photographer. He was also a painter and a museum curator for careers. Edward was born in Luxembourg on March 27, 1879. He went to Pio Nono College near Milwaukee in 1888 with his outstanding talent for drawing skills so after leaving his school he became an apprentice at a Milwaukee lithographing company. He bought his first camera in 1859. He seemed to learn photography on his own; since he had a special talent on art, it was easier for him adopt and learn any type of art. Although, he met many people throughout his life who inspired him and gave him more opportunities to experience and learn to dedicate his life to this industry. The start for his photography career was after three years he bought his first camera. His photographs, "ultra expressionistic", called by critics, were accepted at the Second Philadelphia Salon of Pictorial Photography. After this debut, he continued to be a photographer all through his life, working on new projects continuing to experiment with new photographic techniques. At his 90th birthday celebration, he said, "When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot ...about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. And that is no mean function. Man is the most complicated thing on earth and also as naive as a tender plant." Edward’s most famous style of photography was portrait with soft-focus and heavily retouches, but he also experienced different styles as well. He tried aerial photography of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I which he used the camera directly, emphasizing sharpness and texture. For a living, he had a lot of different jobs he worked on – either for a long time or only for a short time. After the World War I, he opened a commercial studio in New York, specializing in advertising photography. He made fashion illustrations and portraits of outstanding personalities for two famous magazines, Vanity Fair and Vogue. He, then, became a director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Of the many exhibitions he had, the largest and most famous was "The Family of Man." This exhibition of 503 photographs toured throughout America and overseas. I personally really love his photographs. The reason why I decided to pick this photographer to do a research was because his portraits were pretty interesting. I thought they were elegant because of the black and white effect made it stand out then the colored photographs.

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Works Cited

"Eduard Steichen | Biography | Hollis Taggart Galleries." Hollis Taggart Galleries | Specialist in Fine American Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Web. 23 Sept. 2011. <http://www.hollistaggart.com/artists/biography/eduard_steichen/>.

"Edward Steichen Biography | BookRags.com." BookRags.com | Study Guides, Lesson Plans, Book Summaries and More. Web. 23 Sept. 2011. <http://www.bookrags.com/biography/edward-steichen/>.