Irving Penn
Irving Penn
Irving Penn was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits, and still lifes. Penn's career included work at Vogue magazine, and independent advertising work for clients including Issey Miyake and Clinique. His work has been exhibited internationally and continues to inform the art of photography...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth16 June 1917
CityPlainfield, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
Photographing a cake can be art.
I myself have always stood in the awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.
A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.
Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe.
I can get obsessed by anything if i look at it long enough. That's the curse of being a photographer.
What I really try to do is photograph people at rest, in a state of serenity.
I am a professional photographer because it is the best way I know to earn the money I require to take care of my wife and children.
I share with many people the feeling that there is a sweetness and constancy to light that falls into a studio from the north sky that sets it beyond any other illumination. It is a light of such penetrating clarity that even a simple object lying by chance in such a light takes on an inner glow, almost a voluptuousness.
Liberman said to me, 'I must cut back on the work you do for Vogue. The editors don't like it. They say the photographs burn on the page . After some years, I began to understand that what they wanted of me was simply a nice, sweet, clean-looking image of a lovely young woman.