Style Essay

Irving Penn was born in 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey. He was born to immigrant parents. He studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts from 1934-38. He also studied at Alexey Brodovitch in his Design Laboratory. Brodovitch taught his the principles of art through magazines, architecture, and photography. Through his hard work Irving Penn became one of the best photographers of the twentieth century. Penn was a private man who kept to himself. Although he lived a more private life, he was always dedicated to his work. he was celebrated by Vogue as one of the top photographer for more that sixty years. After working for Harper's Bazaar and several art director jobs, Penn traveled to Mexico in order to pursue painting. Along the way, he took several photographs. Before returning to the states, Penn ultimately destroyed all his paintings. Afterwards, the new Vogue editor hired Penn to do layouts and suggest photos for the cover. He was then contacted by Alexander Liberman who encouraged him to take photos that he envisioned. After the second world war ended, Liberman sent Penn around the world to take photos of fashion and portraits. The experience was very educating for Penn. He discovered that he liked to take photos in a more controlled environment, like a studio. He undertook projects that helped him discover his style of photography. Vogue then sent Penn to Paris to photograph fashion. His model, skilled dancer Lisa Fonssagrives, became his wife soon after they met at that shoot. Penn then began to travel for Vogue more taking him to Japan, Crete, Spain, Nepal, Cameroon, Dahomey, New Guinea, Morocco. He used the environments to his advantage, and started to take photographs of people in the natural daylight. He eventually constructed a tent that could be dismantled and set up quickly, and he took this tent everywhere he went. Eventually, Vogue decided that his photographs were too "severe" so he instead turned to advertising. He worked on still-life photography and used different types of lights to achieve his photographs. He also made a way to make his photos look better on magazine covers. He worked on photo printing for a long time. Although he had photography, Penn used drawing and painting as a creative outlet. In 2009, at the age of 92, Penn died in New York. I like a lot of Penn's photographs. I like how a lot of his portaits are taken in natural daylight. I also like that his portraits can show so much about someone's personality. I also like his still-lifes because they are strangely creative and can show a lot in a photo. He also does a lot of interesting photos that can be controversial but also really creative. His use of studio lights and everyday objects bring out his photography skills. I choose this photographer because I would like to try recreate his photos because they are fun. I choose to recreate a still-life and two portraits that I liked.