Photographer Profile ~ Julius Shulman

Julius Shulman (October 10, 1910 – July 15, 2009) is considered to be the most important architectural photographer in history, best known for his iconic photographs of the Case Study Houses. Notably his CSH #22, The Stahl House designed by Pierre Koenig, was published many times as one of Shulman's best works. He was a pioneer of modern architecture photography, and helped mid century modern architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, and Pierre Koenig to get to wider audience.

For 70 years, Shulman steadily created one of the most comprehensive visual chronologies of modern architecture and the development of the Los Angeles region. The photographs in this post are selected from his portfolio of more than 70,000 images.

The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building's surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.

Today, a great many of the buildings documented by Shulman have disappeared or been crudely converted, but the thirst for his pioneering images is stronger than ever. [via wiki and other sources]

Julius Shulman's iconic image: Designed by Pierre Koenig in 1959 for Buck Stahl as part of the Case Study Houses sponsored by Arts & Architecture Magazine, the Stahl house achieved its fame, in part, due to Shulman’s iconic image. The glass house appears to levitate over the Los Angeles skyline. Shot at f32 on his 4x5 camera, he used two flash heads for the interior and kept the shutter open for 5 minutes to expose for the city lights.

Shulman setting up for the now iconic shot (with a very long sync cord)

 Shulman uses branches and plants to help frame the shot.

 Julius Shulman and architect Richard Neutra at the Tremaine House

Tremaine House
German born photographer Jürgen Nogai and Julius Shulman began a rewarding collaboration in 2000 which lasted almost a decade until Shulman's death in 2009. This is one of my favourite images and homes photographed by the duo. 

Winner of several awards including Best Documentary at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Lone Star Festival,‘Visual Acoustics – The Modernism of Julius Schulman’ is an elegant, considered and unreservedly lavish expose of the most prolific architectural photographer of our time.

This interview, conducted at the age of 98, and one of his last, shows the tremendous enthusiasm for photography and enduring spirit he had right up to the end of his amazing life.

Photographer Profile ~ Sarah Moon

It is difficult to summarise Sarah Moon’s fantastical photography - almost thirty years of image making has made Sarah Moon a legend in her own lifetime. Well known for her very personalised commercial work since the early 1970s, Sarah has continued to investigate a world of her own invention without repetition and also without compromise.

Sarah Moon is a French photographer born in 1941 into a Jewish family forced to leave occupied France. She studied drawing and started out as a model. “My first husband was an artist. I modelled to make money, and not very often.” She was a fashion model from 1960 to 1966. Look hard, though, and you’ll find her in Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin pictures. Both photographers remained friends and mentors of Sarah Moon

She cites Bourdin’s influence — his obliqueness and narrative content, most probably, rather than his sexual urgencies and intense colours. Her tonal palette is restricted and gated, though lush and original. “I don't really like colour,” she has said. “To make it work for me, I have to mess with it. I believe that the essence of photography is black and white. Colour is but a deviance.”

She moved behind the camera in 1970 when she was already 29. The late start hints at her fear of failure. That delay, though, seems to have provided time and space for her exotic style to develop in private, untrammelled by photo editors' negativity. It was almost fully formed from the start.

In 1972, she became the first woman to photograph the Pirelli calendar. She shot in Paris, at the Villa des Tilleuls, in a rich, blurry colour reminiscent of Degas’ paintings of ballerinas.

Moon photographed for French Elle, Italian Vogue and shot campaigns for Chanel, Rykiel, Miyake, Thierry Mugler, Lacroix and Dior. But after 15 years working in fashion, responding to the commands of numerous brands and magazines, Sarah Moon's career takes a turn when the artist decides to devote more time to photograph more personal, introspective and purely artistic images. [via Wiki and other sources]

I was lucky enough to see a Sarah Moon exhibition here in Toronto when I was in college. I was blown away by the shear beauty and elegance of her work. Enjoy...

 

 "I don't really like color. To make it work for me, I have to mess with it. I believe that the essence of photography is black and white. Color is but a deviance. Except when one works with very untrue colours, such as Polaroid, or as in certain photos by Paolo Roversi, where color is flattened, so that painting is no longer the reference.~ Sarah Moon"

“Fashion photography is after all a difficult métier,” she says ’cause there are too many aspects to focus on: the styling, the make-up and the model. This is the reason why the women on her pictures are often out of focus and transformed into a compositional element to emphasize that there isn’t a particular definition of femininity. It’s not just about recording an image, it’s about making a statement." Sarah Moon

 "The best we can do is to be ready - and that's the hardest. All the efforts we invest, the intensity, the waiting, the hoping are not enough. Sometimes we work like mad, for hours, in vain, and then all of a sudden, in three minutes, at the right place, the right moment, from the right angle, a stroke of luck expresses what we wanted to say". ~ Sarah Moon

 "When I feel moved by the beauty of a young woman, what overwhelms me is the impermanence, the feeling that it must be captured in that particular instant. I see beauty appearing and disappearing, and I feel disheartened, because I am never sure that I live up to the privilege, that I do what has to be done to convey what I saw. Our anguish, our feeling of guilt stems from the knowledge that it depends on us, on our way of seeing what's in front of our eyes." ~ Sarah Moon

Five images from the 1972 Pirelli calendar by Sarah Moon:

Self portrait of Sarah Moon

Sarah Moon's stream of consciousness narrative is poetic and insightfull. A glimpse into the heart, mind and soul of a true artist. Enjoy...