Photography: Contact Sheets

Contact sheets are like the deleted scenes on a DVD, the outtakes of an LP, or the sketches for a painting. It’s interesting to see how the artist got to the end result. When a photo is iconic it’s hard to believe that other shots were taken at all, as if that photo was the only one taken in that shoot. The Bowie, Alladin Sane cover for example, all very similar shots but there really only is that one shot – isn’t there. The Lennon, New York shot by Bob Gruen as well. The Arbus photo Child in Central Park With Toy Handgrenade, on the other hand looks like complete bit of chance. Every frame of the contact sheet depicts a silly, slightly manic looking boy having fun, all except the famous one. The boy looks absolutely terrifying and most likely insane. Some of these are simply ‘snap-shots’ capturing  an event or time – the photos being more of a series than a single picture. JFK with his young daughter, Truman Capote meeting with convicted killer Perry Smith or Jack Nicholson hamming it up.

Jack Nicholson

Bowie - Alladin Sane

Child in Central Park With Toy Handgrenade - Diane Arbus

The Famous shot

The Beatles

JFK w/ daughter Caroline

Jimi Hendrix

Truman Capote and Perry Smith (Clutter Family murderer - In Cold Blood)

Marilyn

John Lennon

Che Guevera

Alfred Hitchcock

Robt. DeNiro - Taxi Driver

The Stones 1964

Michael Caine - Sean Connery

Aretha Franklin

Photography: Irving Penn

Truman Capote - 1965

Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009)

Irving Penn’s images have defined several generations of fashion and portrait photography. Penn, who was born in 1917 in New Jersey, worked in New York as a graphic artist in the 1930s, and spent a year painting in Mexico before starting work at Vogue magazine in the early 1940s. He open his own studio in 1953 . All his work is extremely clean, technically perfect, simple and focused. Much of his fashion and celebrity work was shot agaisnt stark, plain studio backgrounds which was unheard of for the time and is now considered as the introduction to the modern age of photography. Penn spent the 60’s and 70’s photographing ‘primitive cultures’ traveling with a canvas tent as a studio. Penn returned to New York and worked well into his 80’s, dpassing away at the age of 92 in his Manhattan home.

Duke Ellington - 1971

Miles Davis

The Angel - 1946

Dorian Leigh & Maurice "The Angel" Tillet - 1945

Pablo Picasso - 1957

Photography: Diane Arbus

“Boy with a Toy Grenade in Central Park” (1962)

Diane Arbus  March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971)

Diane Arbus’ work can be a bit disturbing. “Boy with a Toy Grenade in Central Park”  has always completely freaked me out – is the kid insane, retarded, evil? Seeing the contact sheet is a bit of a let down in that it reveals the secret, no evil, no insanity – just a goofy skinny kid making faces and playing in the park-  it still packs a hell of a punch though.

Diane usually photographed people on the outside of society, prostitutes, dwarves, circus freaks, giants, etc. She worried that she might be pigeon-holed “as a photographer of freaks”. The title seems apt but she was so much more then that. Her piece “Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey”, 1967 is one of the most recognisable photographs in the world and recently sold at auction for well over $500,000. Diane commited suicide in 1971 at the age of 48.

Everyone Loves: Bettie Page

Bettie Page (April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008)  Cute, Beautiful, Sexy, Hot. Known as America’s first ‘Pin-up Queen’ Bettie ruled the 1950’s and unknown to her, years later influenced the look of every cute rockabilly and goth girl with her jet black hair and bangs. She quit the business in ’59 and worked for Billy Graham ministries for a time (what a crime). In her later years, almost penniless, she was granted the royalties she’d never received and finished her life in relative comfort.