biography

Yevonde: An Introduction to the Woman Who Pioneered Color Photography

The National Portrait Gallery, London, reopens in June following a three-year closure for the “largest redevelopment” in its 127-year history. Its opening exhibition, Yevonde: Life and Colour, will be the most comprehensive to date on British photographer, Yevonde Middleton (1893-1975).

Dora Maar: A Great Photographer Hidden Behind the Master of Painting

In the inevitable tide of recognition of so many women artists of the past 20th century who passed simply as muses, lovers, wives or companions, when their work was truly as strong, beautiful and original as that of their partner, Dora Maar, for many reasons, occupies a special place.

Dorothea Lange: The Photographer of Depression-Era Rural America

Dorothea Lange was an American documentary photographer who is best known for Migrant Mother, an iconic photo of the Great Depression. Her work helped Americans see the devastating effects of the depression on rural America, and Lange is now celebrated as a pioneer in the field of documentary photography.

William Henry Fox Talbot: Inventor of the Negative-Positive Photo Process

William Henry Fox Talbot was on his honeymoon at Lake Como in northern Italy in 1833. He was trying to sketch the beautiful lake and the surrounding scenery but was becoming increasingly frustrated with his lack of drawing skills. He used a camera lucida and a camera obscura, two devices that use lenses to project an image onto a piece of paper to aid in drawing, but he didn’t find either one very satisfactory.

Philippe Halsman: American Portrait Photographer to the Stars

Philippe Halsman was born in Riga, Latvia, on May 2, 1906. He discovered an old view camera in the family attic when he was fifteen, bought some glass plates, and started making photographs. Like many other photographers, when he first saw that image appearing in the darkroom tray, it was a life-changing moment, and he knew what he was going to be doing with his life.

William Henry Jackson: Pioneer Photographer of the American West

The story of the American West is filled with many characters and large personalities. How the West was won or lost, depending on which side you were on, can be told through the lives of many people. Not all were cowboys, outlaws, gamblers, or lawmen like are often portrayed in the movies and novels; some were photographers. One of the photographers whose story looms large is William Henry Jackson.

Vivian Maier's biography book

New Book Reveals the Untold Story of Vivian Maier’s Life

Vivian Maier is well known for her work, but not a lot is known about the personal life of the world-famous street photographer. In "Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny," author Ann Marks delves into the personal life of the mysterious and enigmatic Maier.

Bill Biggart: The Hero Photographer Who Died Capturing 9/11

September 11, 2001, was a sunny Tuesday morning. Bill Biggart and his wife Wendy Doremus were walking their dogs in downtown Manhattan. At about 8:45 a.m., the couple noticed clouds of grey smoke forming against the clear blue New York City skyline. A passing taxi driver informed the couple that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

How Ansel Adams Revolutionized Landscape Photography

Billions of photos are being snapped and shared on the Internet every day. There are more cameras than people in the world nowadays. Photography is something we take for granted; something we can easily do whenever we want. But it wasn’t always like this.

W. Eugene Smith: Father of the Photo Essay

Last week, I talked about the photo essay “Country Doctor” by W. Eugene Smith, and today I would like to focus more on his life and photography in general.

This Graphic Novel is About the Crime Photographer Weegee

Weegee, the pseudonym of Arthur (Usher) Fellig, was a press photographer in New York City who's best known for his gritty photos of urban life, death, accidents, and crime in the 1930s and 1940s. His life and work is now being shared in the form of a graphic novel titled Weegee: Serial Photographer.

Gerda Taro: The Woman Who Invented Robert Capa

Gerta Pohorylle was born in 1910 in the German state of Stuttgart to a middle-class Jewish Galician family. She attended a Swiss boarding school, where she learned English and French and grew up receiving a secular education. In spite of her bourgeois origins, she became part of socialist and labor movements while still very young.

Photographer Giles Penfound on Storytelling with the Art of Photography

Giles Penfound is a photographer with an engrossing past and a story to tell. Penfound began his journey as a professional photographer over 25 years ago and spent most of his time documenting military operations from within the British Army. Documentary photographer Neale James approached Penfound to produce a short film about his life and work, and the result is the inspirational 30-minute video above. (Note: the video contains some strong language.)

Dos and Don’ts: Writing a Photographer Bio

While there are ample resources available on portfolios, websites, leave behinds and promotional materials, there’s one important subject that I’ve found little helpful information on: the photographer’s bio.

Almost always found on a professional photographer’s site, the bio can make or break you. In a world where creatives often only have a couple of minutes to view your site, the bio can play a significant role. A biography is a glimpse into your personality and gives the reader a sense of what you might be like to work with. Creatives will often seek out the bio to help them make quick judgements. Therefore, just having great pictures isn’t enough. Many people will quickly abandon a website to jump to the next, so you have to make sure your entire site is not only engaging, but successfully portrays your personality. With bios being one way to express who YOU are, I’m always surprised at just how many dreadful ones I find. So, after reading one too many boring, exaggerated, absurd, grammatically incorrect and simply over the top biographies, I decided to come up with a few Dos and Don’ts.