3 Photographers, 3 Black-and-White Portraits

Black-and-white images are arresting and timeless. Both contemporary and older b&w images have a timeless quality, and they immortalize faces, expressions, and personalities. I've selected a few portraits that particularly spoke to me, each by a gifted photographer.

Photo by Chim (David Seymour)

David Seymour began taking portraits of children orphaned during World War II, as in the above example of a little girl scribbling on a chalkboard. Her haunting, mature look gives us a window into her soul. Seymour, known by his pseudonym Chim, went on to take celebrity portraits.
 

Photo by Weegee (Arthur Fellig), 1960, "Marilyn Monroe"
Arthur Fellig, known professionally as Weegee, was a scrappy street photographer who captured many crime scenes, general street scenes, and celebrity portraits. The above photo of Marilyn Monroe was shot using an elastic lens which distorted her features, a technique he used on different occasions with his celebrity portraits. His technique emphasized Marilyn's playful personality, and turned her classic beauty into the zaniness of a funhouse mirror reflection. 
 

Photo by Robert Capa, 1936, Barcelona boy, Spanish Civil War

Robert Capa was a photojournalist who documented numerous wars, and sadly lost his life in 1954 in Indochina while on assignment, stepping on a landmine when he got out of his Jeep to get a better shot of the advance of French troops. He had made this earlier comment: "This war is like an actress who is getting old. It is less and less photogenic and more and more dangerous." Capa's 1936 portrait of a boy during the Spanish Civil War captures the innocence of childhood, forever changed by the harsh realities of wartime.
 

We're the New York Institute of Photography, a distance education school teaching photography since 1910 - over 100 years of knowledge and experience. Listen to the following podcast to learn more about who we are and what we do.

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