Watching You. Denver, Colorado, 2013
Henri Cartier-Bresson gets all the press…and maybe Robert Frank…and maybe Garry Winogrand and maybe William Eggleston, too. But in the annals of street photography, there is one photographer who should get more than her due: Helen Levitt (1913-2009). Could it be because she was a woman in what was always seen as a man’s game up until then?
Even if you have heard of her, here are some things that might surprise you:
–She lived to be a healthy 95, never married, and loved cats and poker.
–She was also an active filmmaker–in fact, she was arguably a filmmaker who dabbled (albeit quite seriously!) in still photography.
–She once shared an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of the 1948 film, The Quiet One.
–She was originally best known for her street photography of New York children and their chalk drawings.
–She later became known for her work with color in street photography. She was using color quite early–by the 1940s. (Purists sometimes say “proper” street photography has to be in black and white.)
–She used a right-angle viewfinder (a “winkelsucher” auf Deutsch) on her Leica so as to capture images more easily without being noticed.
–She actually met Cartier-Bresson and was inspired by him to use the camera for artistic purposes out on the New York streets (she started as a commercial portrait photographer). Her favorite haunts were Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side.
—Walker Evans once said (apparently), that the only photographers of this genre that had something original to say were Cartier-Bresson, Levitt, and himself (naturally).
–She actually went back to shooting black and white at the end of her career (and developing the rolls in her bathroom).
You can peruse a few of Helen Levitt’s images (about half in color, half in B&W) HERE.
So, is it time to hit the streets with our Leica, or what!? Er…or maybe with our much cheaper, yet unobtrusive, little point-and-shoot?
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