AARON SISKIND
Aaron Siskind was born on December 4, 1903 in New York. His first loves were music and poetry, but he later took a shine to photography after his wedding in 1929, when he received his very first camera as a honeymoon present. He then later began his career in photography as a documentarian in the New York Photo League in 1932. From 1936 to 1940, he oversaw the League's feature Group as they all created documentary photo essays of political importance.
He traveled broadly and making multiple trips to Mexico and Italy, especially Rome, which was funded by his 1966 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.
Due to Siskind teaching in New York City's public schools for 25 years before he became a recognised photographer and then a gifted pioneer of photographic education later on. His vision and methods have and will continue to inspire and instruct future generations of artists and teachers. This is why he holds a preeminent place in the history of American Photography.
Some examples of his work:
The genre of his work would be mixed media. He uses multiple methods to showcase his work and these examples above are all documenting his style of work, focusing on the textures and abstract images such as the road markings, brick walls and then the graffiti on the wall with the fire escapes. He mainly takes his shots from head onto show the detail constructed in each image. The art movement is of surrealism because his work shows what the world looks like when you look at it from a detailed perspective.
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The formal elements of his work would be the use of lines and texture. He uses the use of light to capture the natural shadows in the images. This then works even better because his images are in black and white. We get to see every little detail of his work through the colour and also through the use of close up.
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In Aaron's work, he focuses on leading lines, variety, and sometimes both symmetry and asymmetry. He focuses his work on objects such as the fire escape and then mostly urban subjects such as the displacement of posters and walls. There is also a small part of repetition in the sense of the texture however they are all different in their own way.
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Most of Aaron's work is of urban subjects. His work is more direct, meaning that it is from real life and isn't set up. He is documenting everyday life and what the little things around us actually look like but we somehow miss it in everyday life.
I think that Aaron's work has a story behind it but I'm not sure what. Whether his life was torn apart or tampered with as a child or whether he just captures the work he does because he likes the look of it.
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Aaron has inspired me to do my own shoot all about displacement of the environment. This is to show that even though the environment has been messed with, you make it work which reminds me of life. People can come into your life and mess with it but you pick yourself up and deal with it and I feel that that is what some of Aaron's work represent. I will mainly focus on texture because in Aaron's work you can see all of the detail and texture in his work.