11.8.09

Lillian Bassman





Photographer to Harpers Bazaar around the 1940's and 50's, producing some of the most poignant black and white photography in fashion. With stark tonal contrasts within her images and plenty of hand manipulation, they almost look like fashion illustrations. Here are two images from a series that I liked the most (although different to her most famous images).
The elgance in these images has been heightened with her developing methods. I cant be sure as I have not been able to research her methods, but it look like in these images she may possibly have used solarisation. In her other more memorable images (as above) she may have overexposed the paper to the light and also painted the developer on, aswell as alot of extra dodging and burning. Her images could be considered more art than photography. Either way she designed a whole new aesthetic for fashion photography during and after the war.