Ernst Haas
Ernst Haas
Ernst Haaswas a photojournalist and a pioneering color photographer. During his 40-year career, the Austrian-born artist bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography as a medium for expression and creativity. In addition to his prolific coverage of events around the globe after World War II, Haas was an early innovator in color photography. His images were widely disseminated by magazines like Life and Vogue and, in 1962, were the subject of the first single-artist exhibition of color...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth2 March 1921
CountryAustria
Living in a time of the increasing struggle of the mechanization of man, photography has become another example of this paradoxical problem of how to humanize, how to overcome a machine on which we are thoroughly dependent... the camera...
Through photography, both artist and scientist can find a common denominator in their search for the synthesis of modern vision in time, space and structure.
There are two kinds of photographers: those who compose pictures and those who take them. The former work in studios. For the latter, the studio is the world... For them, the ordinary doesn't exist: every thing in life is a source of nourishment.
My theory of composition? Simple: do not release the shutter until everything in the viewfinder feels just right.
The best zoom lens is your legs.
Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the 'ah-ha'.
You see what you think, you see what you feel, you are what you see If with the camera you can make others see it - that is photography.
Bored with obvious reality, I find my fascination in transforming it into a subjective point of view. Without touching my subject I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes more made than taken. Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself - less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive - less prose, more poetry.
A picture is the expression of an impression
Photography is a transformation, not a reproduction.
A few words about the question of whether photography is art or not: I never understood the question.
The best pictures differentiate themselves by nuances...a tiny relationship - either a harmony or a disharmony - that creates a picture.
Without touching my subject I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes more made than taken. Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself - less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive - less prose, more poetry.
All I wanted was to connect my moods with those of Paris. Beauty paints and when it painted most, I shot.