Social Documents

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Social Documents

• Diane Arbus
• Gordon Parks
• Richard Misrach

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Social Documents

• Photography that is used to
• chronicle society around us
• Use of several techniques to
• portray how they see society

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Diane Arbus "I work from awkwardness. By that I
mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand
in front of something, instead of arranging it,
I arrange myself. "

• March 14, 1923 July 26, 1971
• American Jewish woman photographer
• Married Allan Arbus at age 18
• Received photography lessons from husband when he
  trained to be a photographer for the US Army
• Was a well-known stylist in the fashion world

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Diane Arbus

• Began photography lessons at The New School in
  New York
• Known for her portraits of people on the fringes
  of society
• Beginning in 1960, she worked extensively as a
  photojournalist
• Soon after, she started using the Rolleiflex
  medium format twin-lens reflex
• Took her own life in 1971

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Diane Arbus
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Boy with Toy Grenade in Central Park
(1962)
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Identical Twins
(1967)
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Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in The
Bronx, NY
(1970)
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Hermaphrodite with Dog (1968)
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Gordon Parks I had a mother who would not allow
me to complain about not accomplishing
something because I was black. Her attitude
was, If a white boy can do it, then you can do
it, tooand do it better, or dont come home.

• November 30, 1912 - March 7, 2006
• He saw a magazine with photos of migrant workers
  and was inspired
• He was discovered by Boxer Joe Lois Wife
• First successful African American mainstream
  photographer

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Gordon Parks

• Started out taking portraits for society women
• Worked as a freelance portrait and fashion
  photographer
• Captured the civil rights movement
• He also became a director author

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Gordon Parks
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Spanish Fashion (1950)
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American Gothic (1942)
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Gordon Parks cover of Life Magazine,
03/08/1968
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Richard Misrach perhaps it was the cocktail
the combination of the gritty, turbulent,
political, historical moment mixed with the
elegant, romantic fine print tradition of
landscape photography that established the
poles that would inform my work.

• Born 1949
• American photographer
• Started a career in the 70s as a black white
  photographer doing portraiture in California
• In the late 70s he discovered the desert at
  night and started a career in color and moved to
  capture the desert and scars on the earth left by
  human destruction

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Richard Misrach

• His photography is sometimes referred to as
  cultural landscape photography or landscape
  documentary
• He takes on epic investigations, capturing
  particular areas for years at a time
• Has written books Chronologies, Golden Gate and
  Bravo 20 The Bombing of the American West

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Richard Misrach
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White Man Contemplating Pyramids, Egypt
(1989-91)
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Stranded Rowboat, Salton Sea, (1983)
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Worlds Fastest Mobile Home (96 MPH)
(1992)
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Dead Animals 1 (1987)
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Golden Gate book cover published 2001
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The End