A group of women in santa costumes ride through the streets of New York in a red convertible, 1969. (Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
A cracked pane of glass, March 1963. (Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Buildings on Third Avenue, New York reflected in a shop window, 1952. (Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
1953: On 5th Avenue, New York, pedestrians and buildings reflected almost perfectly in a window. (Photo by Ernst Haas/Ernst Haas/Getty Images)
Lights from a neon sign and a stained glass window, reflected in a swimming pool, California, USA, July 1977. (Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Ernst Haas (March 2, 1921 – September 12, 1986) was a photojournalist and a pioneering color photographer. During his 40-year career, the Austrian-born artist bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography as a medium for expression and creativity. In addition to his prolific coverage of events around the globe after World War II, Haas was an early innovator in color photography. His images were widely disseminated by magazines like Life and Vogue and, in 1962, were the subject of the first single-artist exhibition of color photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He served as president of the cooperative Magnum Photos, and his book The Creation (1971) was one of the most successful photography books ever, selling 350,000 copies.
Haas was uninterested in learning photography as a child,though his father—an avid amateur—tried to share his interest. Upon his father’s death in 1940, however, Haas first entered the darkroom, learning to print old family negatives. His interest grew, and he soon began to take his own photographs.
Continue reading ERNEST HAAS, photographer “I am not interested in shooting new things – I am interested to see things new.” →
USA. Brooklyn, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. The Statue of Liberty from a rooftop on Seventeenth Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. Lefty showing his tattoo.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. New York. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. ©BRUCE DAVIDSON/MAGNUM
USA. Coney Island, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. Coney Island, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. Coney Island, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. Bengie and friends at Bay Twenty-two, Coney Island. Clockwise from left: Bengie, Junior, Bryan, Lefty.
USA. Coney Island, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. Benji in bathhouse.
USA. Coney Island, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. On the boardwalk at West Thirty-third Street, Coney Island. Left to right: Junior, Bengie, Lefty.
USA. Coney Island, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. Outside Mike’s tattoo shop in Coney Island.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. Brooklyn, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. Backseat of a car.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. On a bus.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. Teenager couple smoking at a kitchen table.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. Brooklyn, NY. 1957. Couple necking on pole at basement party while girl looks on, from Brooklyn Gang.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. Brooklyn, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. New York City. 1959. Brooklyn Gang.
USA. Brooklyn, NY. 1959. Brooklyn Gang. On a Brooklyn subway.
In 1959, photographer Bruce Davidson read about the teenage gangs of New York City. Connecting with a social worker to make initial contact with a gang in Brooklyn called The Jokers, Davidson became a daily observer and photographer of this alienated youth culture. The Fifties are often considered passive and pale by our standards of urban reality, but Davidson’s photographs prove otherwise. These photographs of Brooklyn gangs, Davidson’s first photographic project, were undertaken when he was not much older than the boys depicted in the work.
Davidson, a Magnum photographer, has recently published a monograph entitled Brooklyn Gang, containing 70 images from this documentary series and some interviews as well. These images had never been published together as a whole until the recent publication of this book.
INDIA. Imambara, Lucknow – 1990
© Photograph by Raghu Rai. All Rights Reserved.
Raghu Rai was born in the small village of Jhhang, now part of Pakistan. He took up photography in 1965, and the following year joined “The Statesman” newspaper as its chief photographer. Impressed by an exhibit of his work in Paris in 1971, Henri Cartier-Bresson nominated Rai to join Magnum Photos in 1977. Continue reading RAGHU RAI, Magnum photojournalist →
kneeling to the god of eclecticism and allergic to the commonplace
The Incubator 