Category Archives: Photography

September 27

Drawing with Light: The Photographs of Olive Cotton

On the 27th of September 2003, modernist photographer Olive Cotton died in Koorawatha, New South Wales, Australia. Her work shows an interchange between the pictorialist style and ‘modernism’ (New Photography), which superseded the former in Australia in the 1930s. Cotton was introduced to the arts, science and a love of nature at an early age. Her mother, Florence, […]

September 20

Gertrud Arndt: Photo Pioneer of Female ‘Self-Disguise’

On the 20th of September 1903, German Bauhaus photographer Gertrud Arndt was born in Hantschk Ratibor, Upper Silesia. Arndt studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau (under Klee, Gropius and Itten), where she subsequently also taught. Her primary discipline was weaving, her textile designs showcasing the rigid geometric pattern-making typical of the Bauhaus aesthetic. “She must […]

September 19

Impressionism in Photography: George Davidson

On the 19th of September 1854, English photographer, and a proponent of pictorial or impressionistic photography, George Davidson was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England. He is noted as one of the most important figures in the development of Pictorial photography at the end of the nineteenth century. Born into a comparatively modest family – his […]

September 03

American Concentration Camps in Masumi Hayashi’s Photoramas

On the 3rd of September 1945, Japanese-American photographer Masumi Hayashi was born in Rivers, Arizona, in the Gila River War Relocation Camp, an internment camp built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) for the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Shortly after the end of the war, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she began her education, […]

August 31

Helen Levitt’s Snapshots of New York Street Life

On the 31st of August 1913, American photographer Helen Levitt was born in Brooklyn, New York. Alongside Berenice Abbott and Ruth Orkin, Levitt tried to document the changing life of New York. But whilst Berenice Abbott sought to capture the architecture of New York before the skyscrapers changed the skyline forever, and Ruth Orkin was […]

August 22

Cartier-Bresson’s Street Photography: The Perfect Take

On the 22nd of August 1908, painter and pioneering photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, France. By self-admission, his first true love of photography was inspired by a 1930 photograph of Hungarian photojournalist Martin Munkacsi showing three naked young African boys, caught in near-silhouette, running into the surf of Lake Tanganyika. The picture captured the very essence […]

August 19

The Jewish Ghetto and Photonostalgia: Roman Vishniac’s Vanished World

On the 19th of August 1897, one of the world’s most remarkable microbiologists and naturalist photographers, Roman Vishniac was born in Pavlovsk, the Russian Empire. Within the art world, however, he is best remembered for his photojournalistic coverage of the Eastern European Jewish ghettos prior to World War II. In the late 1930s, Vishniac was commissioned […]

August 07

Lucien Hervé: The Master of Contrast

On the 7th of August 1910, photographer Lucien Hervé (née László Elkán) was born in Hódmezõvásárhely, Hungary. He is remembered for his distinctive black-and-white photographs of strong visual contrast. Born to a middle class Jewish family, Hervé had never really planned to become a photographer. In fact, as a teenager he developed an extensive interest in […]

July 27

Australian Icons: Max Dupain’s ‘Sunbaker’

On the 27th of July 1992, Australia’s most celebrated twentieth-century photographer Max Dupain died in Sydney, Australia. From 1924 – the year a Box Brownie camera was given to him by his uncle – right up to his very last days, he had taken hundreds of thousands of pictures capturing the daily life of Sydney. […]

July 25

Thomas Eakins: Photography and Science

On the 25th of July 1844, American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator Thomas Eakins was born in Philadelphia, U.S. Sometimes called America’s greatest painter, Eakins conducted many scientific investigations in anatomy, mathematics, perspective, and photography, which were vital to his art. He used photography as both a science and an art. In […]