To all those budding photography students across the land you should take special note of the recent loss of a giant in the world of photography. Irving Penn first known as a fashion photographer and later evolved into a commercial art photographer has died at the age of 92. Before computers came along that would change how we saw photographs, photographers like Penn only had their creative eye and their intuition to transform beauty on a two dimensional level.

His works became iconic no matter if he shot portraits of celebrities to fashion models. From everyday tradesmen like a milkman to the tribesmen of Africa, to the culture of beauty products. For over forty years he was the man that shot the simple, clean graphic visuals to the Clinique cosmetic line. And in the world of commercial advertising that would seem like an historic record for any photographer to retain such a client. The same can be said of his collaboration with Vogue Magazine. Obviously, Vogue showed fashion through Penn eyes through decades.

Penn understood the world of commerce and art. He photographed a series of discarded cigarette butts that were once exhibited in the New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He leaves this world a perfectionist unbridled by modern technology.

Tags: fashion photographer, Irving Penn

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Art, Fashion, People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.