FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS: MELVIN SOKOLSKY

Melvin Sokolsky was born and raised in New York City where he started his distinguished career as a still life photographer. He  started to use his father's box camera at about the age of ten, at age of twenty-one he was invited to join the staff of Harper's Bazaar. Within the next few years he worked as a major contributor to four prestigious magazines: Esquire, the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, and Show. His photographs of internationally famous personalities have appeared in many of the major museums and magazines worldwide.
Sokolsky lacked of academic technical education, thus he was lead only by his creativity, which pushed him to experiment in a totally personal way. Though he is best known for his editorial fashion photographs for publications such as Harper's Bazaar for which he produced, in 1963, the "Bubble" series of photographs depicting fashion models "floating" in giant clear plastic bubbles suspended in midair above the River Seine in Paris.

Melvin Sokolsky è nato e cresciuto a New York City dove ha iniziato la sua carriera come fotografo di still life. Ha iniziato ad utilizzare la macchina fotografica di suo padre all'età di circa dieci anni, a ventuno anni è stato invitato a entrare nello staff di Harper Bazaar. Negli anni successivi, ha lavorato per quattro prestigiose riviste: Esquire, il New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, e Show. Le sue fotografie di personaggi famosi a livello internazionale sono apparsi in molti dei principali musei e riviste di tutto il mondo. Sokolsky non ha avuto una formazione tecnica accademica,  è andato avanti solo grazie alla sua creatività, che lo ha spinto a sperimentare in modo del tutto personale. E' conosciuto soprattutto per i suoi editoriali di fotografie di moda per pubblicazioni come Harper Bazaar per il quale ha prodotto, nel 1963, la serie "Bubble": fotografie che ritraggono modelle "galleggianti" in giganti bolle di plastica trasparente sospesa a mezz'aria sopra la Senna a Parigi.

"Bubble" - Herper's Bazaar 1963

"Bubble" - Herper's Bazaar 1963

Herper's Bazaar 1965

Marisa Berenson

Twiggy 1967

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS:IRVING PENN

Irving Penn was born on 1917 in New Jersey, he was a brother of a film director Arthur Penn. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art where he studied drawing, painting, graphics, and industrial arts. While still a student, he worked at Harper's Bazaar which published several of Penn's drawings. During the 40's he worked as art director at Saks Fifth Avenue, then he spend a year painting and taking photographs in Mexico, and when he returned to New York he start to worked for Vogue. His first cover appeared in October 1943, and he shot over 150 covers in about fifty years. Penn was displayed in the most famous galleries all over the world. In the 1950s, Penn founded his own studio in New York and began making advertising photographs. Penn died in 2009 at his home in Manhattan.
Irving Penn was among the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and he effectively used this simplicity,he presents the figure to be portrayed in stark contrast with the background. Some of his images are recognizable: often they were portraits done by placing your subject in front of two backdrops arranged at an angle.His black and white prints are notable for their deep contrast.

 Irving Penn è nato il 1917 nel New Jersey, fratello del regista Arthur Penn. Ha frequentato la Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art dove studia disegno, pittura, grafica e industrial art. Quando era ancora studente, Irving lavorò presso Harper Bazaar e la rivista pubblicò molti dei suoi disegni. Durante gli anni '40 ha lavorato come art director presso Saks Fifth Avenue, poi trascorre un anno in Messico facendo fotografie, e tornato  a New York, inizia a lavorare per Vogue. La sua prima copertina appare nel mese di ottobre del 1943, ha fotografato oltre 150 copertine in circa 50 anni. Penn ha esposto nelle più famose gallerie di tutto il mondo. Nel 1950,  ha fondato il proprio studio a New York e ha cominciato a fare fotografie pubblicitarie. E' morto nel 2009 nella sua casa di Manhattan.
Irving Penn è stato tra i primi fotografi a rappresentare i soggetti su di un semplice sfondo grigio o bianco e ha usato in modo efficace questa semplicità, presenta la figura ritratta in netto contrasto con lo sfondo. Alcune sue immagini sono riconoscibili: spesso furono ritratti eseguiti posizionando il soggetto di fronte a due fondali disposti ad  angolo. le sue stampe in bianco e nero sono notevoli per il loro contrasto profondo.

Vogue, May 1947

Audrey Hepburn

Veruschka - Vogue UK 1965

Marisa Berenson - Vogue 1969

Paulina Porizkova - 1986

Christy Turlington 1987

Ferrè for Dior - Vogue 1993

Helena Christensen - Vogue Us 1993

Kate Moss

Nadia Auremann - Vogue 1994

David Bowie

Lily Cole - Vogue 2005

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER:BARON ADOLF DE MEYER

Baron Adolf De Meyer was born in Paris, he was the first official fashion photographer for the American magazine Vogue and Vanity Fair in 1913, a post he abruptly abandoned in 1923 to work for rival Harper's Bazaar, he was meticulous, eccentric, a dandy, an arbiter of taste and trends who immortalized the first three decades of twentieth-century society and shaped the genre of fashion photography. De Meyer married Olga Caracciolo, an Italian noblewoman, and Olga would be the subject of many of her husband's photographs. The de Meyers' marriage was one of marriage of convenience rather than romantic love, since the groom was homosexual and the bride was bisexual or lesbian. Meyer wrote "Marriage based too much on love and unrestrained passion has rarely a chance to be lasting, whilst perfect understanding and companionship, on the contrary, generally make the most durable union."
 On the outbreak of World War I, the de Meyers moved to New York City, where he became a photographer for Vogue from 1913–21, and for Vanity Fair. In 1922 de Meyer accepted an offer to become the Harper's Bazaar chief photographer in Paris, spending the next 16 years there. De Mayer began doing flattering photographs of Belle Époque aristocrats, actors, financiers, and industrialists. His portraits of the sparkling beauties of the fin de siècle Smart Set were his calling card to a position and profession in Edwardian society. He introduced the use of dramatic lighting, of a male model, and of two or more models in the same picture. His influences included the Impressionists, and the Symbolist artists Klimt and Watts, as well as Whistler. A great manipulator of light and shadow, he also veiled his lens in gauze, extensively used backlighting, inserted light sources in unexpected places, and retouched directly on the negative.
 In the 1920s, the de Meyers returned to Europe. As they aged, it is reported, they became increasingly dependent on cocaine and opium. The baron’s career deteriorated as younger photographers, armed with the new 35mm camera, began stepping out of the confines of the studio and scoffing at the soft-focus lens. After Olga died, de Meyer destroyed much of his work and adopted his young lover as his son. He dies in Beverly Hills penniless and forgotten in Hollywood.

Jeanne Eagels

Elizabeth Arden-Advertisement-1926

1921 Baron de Meyer, Ballerina Desiree Lubovska Desiree Lubovska standing by a window, wearing a dark dress in Georgette crepe, with fringed waist, by Jean Patou

Elizabeth Arden-Advertisement-1926

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney -AmericanVogue1917

Nijinsky in L'après-midi d'un faune - 1912

Vogue 1921

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHERS:TONI FRISSELL

Vogue described Toni Frissell as a “famous photographer, dauntless sportswoman (skiing, fishing, shooting, skin diving), world traveler, unflagging hostess . . . demon gardener, flower-arranger, flounder-spearer, clammer, and mussel gatherer."
Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in New York, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite McNeil Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen. Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, she later took photographs for Harper's Bazaar. In the 1950s, she took informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, including Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and she did location photography on a freelance basis for LIFE, Look, Vogue, and Sports Illustrated until her retirement in 1967.Toni Frissell died of Alzheimer's disease on 1988, in Long Island.
Frissell's major contribution to fashion photography was her development of the realistic fashion photograph in the 1930s and 1940s. She had a tendency to use uncommon perspectives, which she achieved by placing her camera on a dramatic diagonal axis, and/or using a low point of view and a wide-angle lens against a neutral background, thus creating the illusion of elongated human form.
Frissell had a strict and simple philosophy: “I love anything that falls free of your body—peasant smocks, fishermen’s smocks, coolie coats. I don’t like to see a woman’s backside, no matter how flat it is.”

1939

1957

1948

1930

Dovima 1947

1930

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER:HENRY CLARKE

Henry Clarke was born in Los Angeles in 1918, the renowned fashion photographer, discovered his calling in 1945 whilst working as an accessorist at Condé Nast in New York. During an encounter with the great Cecil Beaton during a photography session at Vogue's studio, Clarke was entranced by the photographic image. Clarke moved to Paris in 1949. The next year he began a fruitful collaboration with the French, English and American editions of Vogue that would last more than a quarter-century. With the help of Diana Vreeland Clarke captured the elegance of the modern woman.

 Henry Clarke è nato a Los Angeles nel 1918, trasferitosi a New York diventa assistente di Cecil Beaton. Dal '49 comincia a lavorare a Parigi con un contratto in esclusiva per Vogue. Dagli anni '50 fino alla fine degli anni '80 lavora per tutte le riviste più prestigiose. Attraverso le sue foto ci illustra un ritorno all'eleganza dal dopoguerra fino agli anni '60, in questi anni incoraggiato da Diana Vreeland, ci mostra invece l'emergere della donna moderna.

1950

Vogue 1952

1952

1953

Madame Gres 1954

1954

Dior 1956

Vogue 1966