Elena Klonsky

Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is one of the most accomplished and original figures in the history of photography. His work in the 1930s aided defining the creative potential of modern photography. His ability to capture life "on the run",MoMa)
or candidly, was known as "the decisive moment", also the title of his first major book. He and others founded the Magnum photo agency, which enabled photojournalists to work with magazines such as Life while retaining control over their work. Cartier-Bresson produced large series of reportage of unrest in China, the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, India, and Indonesia. His photos often depicted people, and was considered one of the greatest portraitists of the twentieths century. (Source:


This is an example of the candid portraiture that Cartier-Bresson was known for.

Alfred Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and educated as an engineer in Germany. Stieglitz returned to New york in 1890 to prove that photography was a medium as capable of artistic expression as painting or sculpture. He was known for his conviction about the aesthetic potential of the medium and published multiple essays on this topic.  After World War I, Stieglitz catalysed the transition to modern art and his photos were no longer as heavily manipulated. His series of portraits Georgia O'Keeffe was well received and is very well known, and encapsulates several modernist ideas about the sense of self, a changing personality, and the relativity of truth in a modern world.
(Source: Met Museum )

William Eugene Smith was an American photographer known for developing the photo essay form and his immersion into the setting he captured. He was renowned for his ethical and professional standards. He came into photography after the suicide of his father. His photos usually depict war.
This image stood out to me because of the expression in the mans face and the perspective of the photographer.


Can a photo change the world?

- I think that a photograph could change the world. So many photos  are iconic, like the portrait of Fidel Castro, the tank man at Tiananmen Square, and Dorothea Lange's migrant mother. The power of an image is that its tangible and when an image circulates it has the ability to humanize subjects and force people to accept realities of genocide, suffering, and injustice around the world.

- This image is a (more) properly exposed backlit image. It looks to me like they metered on the front of the wall, because  it is a midtone grey. The mood is very cold and moody, which you can see by the way the smoke is highlighted and so is the snow, and the urban feel with darker lighting. If the photo had been metered more as a silhouette the image would have had a less intimate feel, be less personal and the subject may have been more enigmatic.

• Born in 1904
• First woman to have photograph in Life Magazine
• First cover in life magazine
• Only Western journalist to enter USSR during industrialization
• Documentary/Journalism
• Did not die falling off a camel