The first time I was introduced to Sabine Weiss's work I was at my favorite museum in Paris the Jeu de Paume. I had gone to see an exhibit of one of my favorite photographers Josef Sudek when I saw that they had recently finished a show of Sabine Weiss. I leafed through a book of the exhibit and quickly purchased it. Sabine is a remarkable photographer and shot with an intimacy that would be impossible today.
I would ask that you take her pictures and compare them with Vivian Maier and you will see the difference between work that can stand alone as art and work that must be tempered with age. What I mean to say is that Weiss's work is a study in composition, intimacy with her subject and mastery of light. Most of Maier's work is compositionally interesting but lacks the intimacy of a photographer interacting with her subjects. Sabine got dirty in life, Vivian floated above it.
Sabine Weiss is a Swiss/French photographer who got into Photography very early in life with the encouragement of her family. She married an American artist named Hugh Weiss and shot all types of photography from street & journalism to fashion and still life. She was published in all sorts of magazines including Vouge. She did not stage her shots and took advantage of the moment by capturing the "instant".
This shot, titled Man Running was shot in Paris in 1953. I found little in the way of background of the image but there are some very strong characteristics that make this image jump out. To begin with we see some amazing contrast, with the blown out sun setting in the upper third of the picture.
I would ask that you take her pictures and compare them with Vivian Maier and you will see the difference between work that can stand alone as art and work that must be tempered with age. What I mean to say is that Weiss's work is a study in composition, intimacy with her subject and mastery of light. Most of Maier's work is compositionally interesting but lacks the intimacy of a photographer interacting with her subjects. Sabine got dirty in life, Vivian floated above it.
Sabine Weiss is a Swiss/French photographer who got into Photography very early in life with the encouragement of her family. She married an American artist named Hugh Weiss and shot all types of photography from street & journalism to fashion and still life. She was published in all sorts of magazines including Vouge. She did not stage her shots and took advantage of the moment by capturing the "instant".
This shot, titled Man Running was shot in Paris in 1953. I found little in the way of background of the image but there are some very strong characteristics that make this image jump out. To begin with we see some amazing contrast, with the blown out sun setting in the upper third of the picture.
The man, the obvious subject (we will dig into that in a moment) is running towards the setting sun. He is a silhouette with a bright halo effect. His arms are flung out in a wild gesture, showing us someone running for joy or reaching exhaustion. The setting sun and his whipping coat show us this is not a playful run. It is as if he is late and running to catch up.
The man is small but does not appear to be so. When you first look at the image, it is an image of a man running. But when you really study the image do you realize the the man in the image is 1/36 of the total image area! He is almost insignificant in size yet he dominates the entire image. What dominates the image is the cobble stone streets, filled with an amazing tonal range, from blown out white to the deepest of blacks. This must have been hard work in the darkroom to do this. The trees in the upper left and right of the image stand still, in stark contrast to the running man's movement, his freedom and his anxiety. The aperture is closed off, allowing us to have an amazing depth of field. We can clearly see the cobble stones just in front of the photographer all the way through to the trees in the background. But in spite of this depth of field, the sun's rays prevent us from seeing what this man is running to. We have a clear, crisp image yet the ending is not even hinted at. |
The curb seen on the right side of the image, gives us perspective and depth. In fact the bottom half of the image is almost exclusively dedicated to giving us this depth. In spite of the depth, the deep focal range and the unhindered view, we do not see another living sole. All we have is the single man running to or away from something.
The secondary subject, the one that is at first not so obvious is his shadow. This is the single element that takes up so much of the image's real estate. His shadow is clearly coming from him, but when we really focus on it we see something different. We do not see the shadow of a man running, in fact if you only looked at the shadow it appears to be of a man standing. The shadow itself starts at the very bottom of the image and as you follow it up, you see the shadow's head, neck and shoulders and an arm giving us a secondary gesture so different that the running mans. The shadow seems calm, stoic as if chasing something that it knows it will catch and does not require any exertion to reach it. The shadow ends in a sharp point, just where the running man's foot is.
A simple image of a man running turns into something so much more complex. Perhaps the shadow of time is methodically chasing the running man who is using all his energy to keep away from it. He is running towards the light, we do not know exactly where but we do sense his desperation to get there. We see the still trees contrasting with his movement and unafraid of the shadow. We see everything the man sees, yet cannot understand his motive or have any inkling how it all turns out.
The image is filled with tension, with energy and with drama without giving us an explanation as to why. It almost feels as if it is too much for the frame to control, as if the anxiety of the man running will spill out of the image and onto our laps. We cannot help but root for the man that is running, wishing that he could win his race, but somehow knowing it is a lost cause.
I do not believe that any of this was in Sabine's mind when she took the image. She saw a man running and pulled up her camera to capture it. Her brilliant mastery in composition allowed her to set up her shot quickly, ensuring to capture the sun, the man and his shadow. And in that instant she captured something she could not have seen, could not have noticed seeing the world in color, she captured a battle of man against time.
For those of us who are trying to learn the art of photography, what can we learn from such an image? The power of composition, the necessity of the mastery of light and the immediate understanding of how the camera will react to these settings. It also shows us that the darkroom work is just as necessary in the creation of a masterpiece as the camera and the photographer.
The secondary subject, the one that is at first not so obvious is his shadow. This is the single element that takes up so much of the image's real estate. His shadow is clearly coming from him, but when we really focus on it we see something different. We do not see the shadow of a man running, in fact if you only looked at the shadow it appears to be of a man standing. The shadow itself starts at the very bottom of the image and as you follow it up, you see the shadow's head, neck and shoulders and an arm giving us a secondary gesture so different that the running mans. The shadow seems calm, stoic as if chasing something that it knows it will catch and does not require any exertion to reach it. The shadow ends in a sharp point, just where the running man's foot is.
A simple image of a man running turns into something so much more complex. Perhaps the shadow of time is methodically chasing the running man who is using all his energy to keep away from it. He is running towards the light, we do not know exactly where but we do sense his desperation to get there. We see the still trees contrasting with his movement and unafraid of the shadow. We see everything the man sees, yet cannot understand his motive or have any inkling how it all turns out.
The image is filled with tension, with energy and with drama without giving us an explanation as to why. It almost feels as if it is too much for the frame to control, as if the anxiety of the man running will spill out of the image and onto our laps. We cannot help but root for the man that is running, wishing that he could win his race, but somehow knowing it is a lost cause.
I do not believe that any of this was in Sabine's mind when she took the image. She saw a man running and pulled up her camera to capture it. Her brilliant mastery in composition allowed her to set up her shot quickly, ensuring to capture the sun, the man and his shadow. And in that instant she captured something she could not have seen, could not have noticed seeing the world in color, she captured a battle of man against time.
For those of us who are trying to learn the art of photography, what can we learn from such an image? The power of composition, the necessity of the mastery of light and the immediate understanding of how the camera will react to these settings. It also shows us that the darkroom work is just as necessary in the creation of a masterpiece as the camera and the photographer.