Death of a truly great photographer
I remember borrowing one of his books from the local library when I was 17 years old. His images have always moved me. He is one of the artists which inspired me to use photography as a tool to challenge worldview. Check it.
Gordon Parks, 93; fought evil with camera
By Mason Resnick
Former Life magazine photographer Gordon Parks, whose work captured the plight of black Americans at the dawn of the civil rights movement, died yesterday. He was 93 years old. In addition to his award-winning photography, Parks directed several films, wrote poetry, and composed music.
Parks was born in Kansas in 1912 and grew up in Minnesota, and earned his living as a self-taught fashion photographer. In 1942 he joined the Farm Security Administration, and photographed the nation's poor under the tutelage of the legendary Roy Stryker. While working for Life, a job which lasted from 1948 to 1968, Parks photographed everything from fashion to politics to sports, but he was best known for his photo essays documenting the effects of poverty in the United States and abroad.
In his efforts to expose intolerance with his camera, Parks made one of his most memorable images, shown here, of Ella Watson, whose mother had died and father was killed by a lynch mob. The caption to the photograph, which can be found on the Library Of Congress web site, showed that Watson earned $1,080 annually. But the caption doesn't go into the ironic detail that one of the offices Watson cleaned was occupied by a woman, presumably white, who served in a higher capacity. But both women had started work at the same time, with the same accomplishments and education.
Parks wrote in his autobiography, A Choice of Weapons: "I have always felt as though I needed a weapon against evil." For Gordon Parks, that weapon was his camera.
Gordon Parks, 93; fought evil with camera
By Mason Resnick
Former Life magazine photographer Gordon Parks, whose work captured the plight of black Americans at the dawn of the civil rights movement, died yesterday. He was 93 years old. In addition to his award-winning photography, Parks directed several films, wrote poetry, and composed music.
Parks was born in Kansas in 1912 and grew up in Minnesota, and earned his living as a self-taught fashion photographer. In 1942 he joined the Farm Security Administration, and photographed the nation's poor under the tutelage of the legendary Roy Stryker. While working for Life, a job which lasted from 1948 to 1968, Parks photographed everything from fashion to politics to sports, but he was best known for his photo essays documenting the effects of poverty in the United States and abroad.
In his efforts to expose intolerance with his camera, Parks made one of his most memorable images, shown here, of Ella Watson, whose mother had died and father was killed by a lynch mob. The caption to the photograph, which can be found on the Library Of Congress web site, showed that Watson earned $1,080 annually. But the caption doesn't go into the ironic detail that one of the offices Watson cleaned was occupied by a woman, presumably white, who served in a higher capacity. But both women had started work at the same time, with the same accomplishments and education.
Parks wrote in his autobiography, A Choice of Weapons: "I have always felt as though I needed a weapon against evil." For Gordon Parks, that weapon was his camera.
posted by Juniper at 8:40 AM
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