Helen Levitt: Brooklyn , 1913
Helen Levitt was an American photographer best known for her street photography in and around the city of New York. Helen was a self taught photographer. She worked extensively in both black & white, and colour.
It was her colour images that I was drawn to whilst researching street photography further following my first attempt at this style of photography.
What I like about these images is the high level of colour saturation, as well as the fact that the images convey a strong contextual message of the eccentricity of life in New York - they contain a variety of activity without heavy engagement of the individuals within the frame.
This image used the telephone box to frame the focus - there is some peripheral activity outside the telephone box that your eyes will flit over, by including this in the frame you get a greater sense of the spacial aspect of the box.
This image works because of the socks. The brightness of the socks, and the pattern stand out against the slightly washed out tones of the rest of the image. Without this focal point the image would have lacked something
The splashes of colour in this image draw your attention to the key focal points. Again the fact that the rest of the image appears washed out and grey in comparison makes this image work
On reflection the images that I chose to upload on my blog reflect elements of the technique favoured by Helen Levitt in her colour photography. The images that I chose to upload from the numerous ones captured were because of the lack of engagement with the people in my frame, and the way in which colour played a part in the composition of the image.
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