Lazy Days

I've decided that today is going to be a lazy, reasonably unproductive day. Having not woken up until 10am (in my defence I didn't go to bed until nearly 2 this morning), I decided I lack motivation for anything past reading and typing.

However, blogging is a fairly lazy thing that I can happily do. And so I bring to you a photographer who I am uber slow in discovering a love for: Irving Penn. Now, I know this guy has been around since, like, forever! And yes, I've seen his work before, and I read many articles dedicated to his work through his life after he died in October last year; however I've never really taken note of just how much his photography spoke to me.
Yesterday, when I was actually having a motivated day (well, to begin with), I was cutting up some of the fashion magazines I store in a big big big box in a corner of my room - just like fashion articles from the paper, copies of cheaper fashion monthlies, etc. My Vogues and Harper's Bazaar have their own special home and don't get cut up. I digress though; I was cutting up some of these fashion magazines including a Stella magazine (a free extract in the Sunday Telegraph) from 29th November. In there was an in depth articles looking at some of Irving Penn's work, and at the time I read it and looked at the pictures and thought nothing of it really. When I was cutting up the magazine though, I actually took time to look at these beautiful black and white photographs, and fell in love. The strength portrayed in these ordinary people; the stories that you can make your own because you can't hear their voices. It's so simply, and yet so extraordinary.
I think my favourite one is this one; a seamstress.
In this article of the LA times, it tells you a bit more of the picture and of the great man himself. I, however, adore this picture because there is such strength in her stance, that it makes me want to know so much more about her. She, in herself, is nothing out of the ordinary, but there's so many hidden depths and possibilities. Is she a mother, working hard to support her family? Has she done this her whole life? Is this her passion? All these unanswerable questions because it is simply a photograph; but none the less, you can make her who you want her to be. You can make her story what you want it to be.

That is what I adore about Irving Penn's work - it is only what you want to be. It can be just a photograph of a person, or it can be a hidden in depth story, with the person being just the beginning.

When I googled Irving Penn yesterday to find some more pictures to look at, I found some of his more modern work as well; some coloured pictures and some more close-ups on single body parts. I also found some still life's. They were all beautiful, but none the less, I think my heart for him will always lie in his black and white photographs of people with stories to tell.