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Alex Prager's use of overly saturated color in her photographs might not seem like anything special nowadays, but barely 40 years ago, serious photographers only used black-and-white film. Color photographers were regarded as unworthy of attention in the art world. Things changed when the Father of Color Photography, William Eggleston pushed the boundaries of color film and print.


William Eggleston showed off his artistic side early in life. He learned to play the piano and drew as a hobby. His fondness for the visual arts would stay with him throughout his teenage years, which translated well when he was given a camera in his University years. Eggleston began taking photographs only as a pastime but as with many great artists, he only focused on the medium as a career while going through another photographer's images.

That inspiring photographer was Henri Cartier-Bresson, and as Eggleston looked through the black-and-white pictures of the pioneering street photographer, he decided to follow suit and become a professional photographer himself. While color photography was already available at that time, Eggleston first photographs were also in black-and-white as this was considered the norm; color photography was only used for amateur family pictures or commercial print ads while "serious" photographers only took pictures in black-and-white.


Eggleston soon grew tired with the black-and-white standard and decided to go with color photography. He began to garner attention not only because of his color pictures, but also because of their content. Eggleston chose to photograph the ordinary and mundane, capturing people, objects and places that wouldn't have been considered worthy of attention of other photographers. Critics described his photographs as banal and vulgar, and indeed, many of his photographs were quite provocative.

Still, Eggleston enjoyed a relatively successful career as a photographer despite of (or because of) these criticisms. His preference for color photography was slowly gaining acceptance, but it was only around 1973 that his color images truly took off. It was then that Eggleston turned his attention to the dye-transfer process. This printing process was mostly only being used for print ads on glossy magazine pages. When applied to his art photographs, another level of color was achieved.


Eggleston was very impressed with the dye-process results. Describing the print of his "Red Ceiling", (the cover photo above and one of his most famous images), he says, "'The Red Ceiling' is so powerful that, in fact, I've never seen it reproduced on the page to my satisfaction. When you look at a dye-transfer print it's like it's red blood that is wet on the wall."

In the art collector's world, Eggleston's name still remains relevant. In a Christie's auction held last year, 36 original prints by the photographer fetched over $5.9 million. While it may seem like an outrageous price, outside of the art world Eggleston is still revered for breaking the rules of serious photography and going with his instinct to prove that color is a vital of photography, paving the way for photographers such as Steve McCurry, Mika Ninagawa, Alex Prager, Hiroshi Sugimoto and many others.


The William Eggleston Artistic Trust has more information about the Father of Color Photography. For hardbound editions of his works, there are the William Eggleston's Guide, Chromes and Los Alamos Revisited among many others. For a different take on color, have a look at Steve McCurry, Mika Ninagawa, Alex Prager and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

The Internet has been a wonderful tool for introducing thousands of photographers to the pioneers and artists of the industry. Unfortunately, there are still many worthy photographers whose works deserve more attention than they're currently getting. One Kickstarter film project, entitled 95 Lives by Tanya Sleiman, is hoping to show the world more about one such street photographer: Helen Levitt.

Helen Levitt has already been featured on this blog for her witty and charming street photographs of New York City beginning in the 1930s. Unfortunately her pictures don't seem to get enough credit when compared to the more famous names like Henri Cartier-Bresson. Now, a new documentary is hoping to change that with a few film makers reaching out through Kickstarter to help fund the project.

The film by Tanya Sleiman is called 95 Lives, and aims to reveal more about the enigmatic photographer (who lived to the age of 95) through reenactments of some of her more famous photographs. From the Kickstarter project description. "Before street photographers took Manhattan by storm, there was Helen Levitt. An artistic pioneer and the ultimate photographer’s photographer, Levitt lived as a total enigma, determined to dodge the public eye in favor of what she loved most: poker, baseball, and, above all, capturing the city at play. 95 Lives searches for the many, colorful lives of this female pioneer and the formidable contributions she made to 20th century art and to the city that shaped her incredible body of work: New York.

95 Lives goes back in time to explore Levitt’s near-century life and the rich, textured worlds through which she so seamlessly navigated: the energy of 1920's Brooklyn, the avant-garde art scene of 1930's Manhattan, the poker mavericks, the Lindy Hoppers, and the non-actors who beautifully performed in Levitt’s street dramas."


There are more details on the Helen Levitt documentary film, 95 Lives, on the Kickstarter page. The film by Tanya Sleiman is trying to raise funds until December 16. This previous post on the New York street photographer should be a good start for those not familiar with her works.

Scott Schuman may be the most popular fashion street photographer today, but back in the day another more conspicuous artist was busy documenting the street fashion of Brooklyn. The old school street photography images that Jamel Shabazz took some 30 years ago resonate with the same kind of passion and energy found in today's digital images.


Jamel Shabazz was first inspired to take photographs after viewing the photographs of a local gang member. Shabazz's father, also a photographer, shared his images during his time with the Navy as well. The possibility of creating an image out nothing as well as being able to capture far-away cultures and peoples excited the young Shabazz.

The soon-to-be street photographer picked up his camera at the age of 15 and took his first images which were of his childhood friends in Brooklyn. These first portraits eventually turned into more serious documentations of the people around him. Shabazz read up on the books of Malcolm X and decided that his images should be more than just pretty pictures of the people he met; he believed that his pictures should be a statement of the world that he lived in. Soon, he was going out and taking photographs of the vibrant and sometimes not-so-pretty streets of New York City.


Shabazz is most famous for his collection, Back in the Days, a visual documentary of 1980s Brooklyn fashion. His amazingly colorful and soulful images show the birth of the Hip-Hop movement: B-boys with shell-toe Adidas sneakers, fuzzy Kangol caps and thick black Cazal eyeglasses. Shabazz also incorporated the surrounding elements into his images, from vandalized subway trains to large stereo boomboxes.

Unlike many street photographers before and after him, Shabazz made it a point to get to know his subjects. Before taking their portraits, he would introduce himself and tell them about his photographs. He would say, "Excuse me, brother. My name is Jamel Shabazz and I’m a photographer. When I see you, I see greatness. I see the future.”


Shabazz's photographs are filled with warmth and emotion not only because of the radical fashion of that decade, but more importantly because of the people that really make the photos what they are. While his book "Back in the Days" might be advertised as a compendium of 1980s Brooklyn fashion, it is really a visual immersion of the beauty of the people during that time.

In his own words, Shabazz describes his style: “Once I began photographing my peers, then I realized the magic it was to make people feel good. It gave me an opportunity to tell people they were beautiful and special. And I saw how smiles resonated from those words, those compliments. Those interactions really encouraged me to move forward.” In all his images, Shabazz aimed to try to make people feel good about themselves. Thirty years on, it's clear that he succeeded in that goal.


This is Jamel Shabazz's website. More old school street photography in his book Back in the Days. An updated version Back in the Days Remix: 10th Anniversary Edition was released a few months ago. Don't forget his other book A Time Before Crack.

Scot Schuman of The Sartorialist blog continues to inspire photographers and fashion enthusiasts all over the world with his simple yet powerful images of ordinary people with extraordinary fashion sense walking the streets of New York, Milan, London, and other metropolitan cities. Now the photographer cum "Light Catcher" will be releasing his new book, "Closer" on August 29 and is sure to entertain and inspire countless others for the very same reasons.


Over the years, Schuman's Sartorialist blog has grown from being a simple site with pretty pictures of pretty people to a dedicate website showcasing the best sartorialists of each city he visits. In particular, Schuman has found a way to harmoniously unite the subject with the city background, all of which are painted with just the right kind of natural light.

Be it hard light...


Or soft light...


Or filtered light...


Go over to Scott Schuman's The Sartorialist blog for more "light catching" moments. Check out the previous Reel Foto feature here, and his video mini-documentary over here. You can pre-order his new book, "Closer" either as a Limited Edition, or as a Paperback Edition, which comes in Male Cover or Female Cover variants. His first book, The Sartorialist is still in publication. Schuman is also holding a contest to give away a free copy of his new book over on his website.

In the style of Salvador Dali walking his anteater, here's a quick post showing American actress Phyllis Gordon walking her pet cheetah around London in 1939.

Your argument is invalid.

After Dorothea Lange's depressing images of the Depression and World War II, one would think that most of the United States would move on to a more prosperous and joyful mindset of rebuilding and expansion. Photographer Robert Frank had the same thought, but slowly he realized that the opposite was true, and the harsh realities that he imagined were materialized in his seminal photobook "The Americans".


Robert Frank may have created one of the most influential books in the history of American photography, but the man was actually born in Switzerland. Around his mid-twenties Frank emigrated to the US and, with his background in photography, he was able to work as a fashion photographer for magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

By the 1950s, hi restlessness found travelling to Europe and Latin America for awhile before coming back to the US to work on his photography again. In 1954, he secured a grant with the Guggenheim Foundation and together with his family, he took a cross country road trip of the US, taking photographs as he went.


What Frank captured on his camera, however, was not the Golden Age that America that had been advertised since the end of the War. Instead, he turned his attention to racism, loneliness, decay, ugliness... everything that was the opposite of what politicians had promised America.

This was what Frank believed after his disillusionment of America's overemphasis on money-making and apparent loss of values. In Frank's image, the real America was not pretty, and even his friend the poet Jack Kerouac said that Frank "...sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film...."


When Frank had sifted through over 700 rolls of film, he ended up with only 83 images that he included in the book that he first released in 1957 France entitled, "The Americans". When he released the book in America two years later, Frank received a lot of negative criticisms, and it's not hard to see why. One photography magazine at that time lashed out against the photographs' "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness''

More than 50 years since the initial publication, Frank's book is now widely celebrated for almost the exact reasons that it was hated. Like Lange's Depression era photos, Frank's pictures aren't beautiful, but they were supposed to be beautiful in the eyes of Americans half a century ago. Unlike Lange's pictures were the depressing context was self-evident, Frank's images were taken during a time when most Americans thought (or were made to believe) that it was the best time of their lives.

In Frank's photographs, the mask is peeled away and the ugliness and ordinariness of America is on full display. Fifty years hence, it seems that some things never change.


There aren't a lot of website dedicated to Robert Frank and the way he imagined the Americans, so just do a Google search instead. The 1958 publication has been updated in the the form of Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans, Expanded Edition. You might also want to take a look at London/Wales and Robert Frank's Portfolio.

From the serious scenes of the World Press Photo, it's time to look through the other side of photojournalism. Google Street View has grown in bounds and leaps over the last few years, which also means its derivative uses have also multiplied exponentially. One of the more unusual uses is the selection of quirky day-to-day images that have found their way on countless Street View blogs online. For now, enjoy the silliness that is Google Street View as presented by 9-Eyes.


Google Street View was first introduced to the US public in 2007 as part of the larger Google Maps service. The service allows users to see panoramic views of the Earth from a highway, road or street in numerous cities and towns around the world. In theory, it allows online tourists a glimpse of a place they've never had the pleasure of visiting. In practice however, it captures moments that unwitting subjects would rather not have recorded for posterity.


9-Eyes is a blog that collects amusing images from Google Street View. The site is curated by Jon Rafman who began collected Street View images of his own around four years ago. He says that he was attracted to the "spontaneous quality unspoiled by the sensitivities or agendas of a human photographer." Street View indeed is a neutral observer, so finding amusing or alarming pictures is all the more rewarding (or disturbing).


Google has come under fire because of privacy concerns brought about by Google Street View. Althought the service blurs out the faces of its subjects, it still records scenes that have brough embarrasment for some (and entertainment for countless others).

Whether or not you're for the continued unbiased recording of Google Street View, one thing is certain; people will continue to perform mundane activities that somehow, through the lens of the Google Street View cameras, become amusing and bewildering enough to elicit questions for many years to come.


Check out more silly Google Street View pictures over at 9-Eyes. You might also want to check out Michael Wolf's A Series of Unfortunate Events which utilizes images from Google Street View to question the boundaries of photojournalism.

Not much going on today, so here's a picture of surreal painter Salvador Dalí walking his anteater in Paris, 1969. Your argument is now invalid. The photographer is unknown, but there's more information on the image over here. Check out the high flying stunts of Dalí over here.

Fifty years since Philippe Halsman's Jumpology, one might ask "What is the present state of the photographic jump shot?" Across the Atlantic from where Halsman made his jump photograph, the Levitating Girl shows that the next stage isn't just jumping, but floating in mid-air. Natsumi Hayashi, the girl who leapt through Tokyo, shows the rest of the world how jump shots are supposed to be done.


You may have already seen a few photos floating around the interwebs of this now famous Japanese girl enchantingly floating in mid-air. Natsumi Hayashi works as an assistant to artist and photographer Hisaji Hara, so it's not hard to see the creatively constructed scenes of herself mysteriously frozen in space and time.

Hayashi began her attempts at capturing her jumping attempts on camera towards the end of 2010, shooting a different scene every week or so. After a dozen or so attempts, she managed to create her own style which really started to soar in the beginning of this year.


Hayashi's fantastic photographs don't come about by chance; in order to get the right shot, she either has the assistance of a friend to photograph her, or more often than not, she uses a tripod, a DSLR camera with a 10-second timer, and a lot of patience and skill.


Even with the right equipment and skill however, the photographer still has to depend on a fair amount of luck in order to get the right shot. After she's found the right spot to pose for her photograph, Hayashi starts to jump. And jump. And jump again. Sometimes it might take up to 300 jumps in order to get one of these perfectly posed images.

It's not just getting the right pose that's important; the people around her also have to work with her, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes with a hint that they somehow understand what's going on. She recounts one occasion where here incessant jumping alarmed some people nearby. So she stopped jumping and told them, 'I am taking jumping photos to make a slide show for my wedding party.' Then they blushed and told me, 'Oh sorry!' 'Congratulations!' 'Good luck jumping!'"


The magic of her jump shots is that they don't appear to be jump photographs at all; Hayashi looks like she's either flying in place or levitating effortlessly towards her destination, hence her nickname, "Tokyo's Levitating Girl". In some scenes, she appears to be leaping with great speed through the streets, or up towards a flight of stairs.

Hayashi also takes great care in changing the scenery every once in a while. Thus, today might find her leaping through the doors of the busy Tokyo Metro trains, tomorrow might see her flying through the quiet woods just outside the city. Her "Today's Levitation" series as it's called is as much a self-portrait of the photographer as much as it is of Tokyo itself.


To top it all off, Hayashi shows almost no emotion in her photographs, floating nonchalant about her surroundings and detached from the people around her. Yet, there's a certain joviality in her photographs, even if she doesn't show it. Just as the previous post showed that even the tiniest hop can elicit a smile out of the grumpiest face, Hayashi's own joy pervades out of her levitating photographs.


Natsumi Hayashi, the magnificent levitating girl who leapt through Tokyo, has a blog here. You'll find more of her jumping skills put to enthralling use there, although it doesn't appear to have been updated in awhile. For a look at how people used to make jump shots some 50 years ago, look over here.