Lee Friedlander

On Hughs advise I've been having a close look at Lee Friedlander, an American photographer who's work stems from the 60's to now, so a very similar time period to the Riboud stuff. I'm mostly interested in his street work from the 60's & 70's as this reflects closely the style I'm working in.
Looking at his photos there is a real essence of him in the images, be it his shadow or reflection or just the way you can sort of feel his presence from behind the camera, I've read that he always worked alone so this presence could be some sort of loneliness coming through.

© Lee Friedlander New York 1963

© Lee Friedlander Lafayette, Louisiana 1968

Formally a big majority of his photographs incorporate strong vertical lines, this is clearly to divide up the scene, like the two above they are used to separate the people from one another. The revolving door image seems like a divide of class, the working man on one side and the well to do woman on the other, could this also be a bit sexist?

In the second image Friedlander seems to be playing with the subjects, the telegraph pole which acts to divide the picture is part of him, his shadow is on it and it is preventing the army/police looking types from taking the parade any further into the photograph, with a click he freezes them like this forever.

I'm beginning to understand from this that the photographer has tremendous influence over the subjects in the image, compositional choices make a real difference to how we perceive what is going on and the opinions we draw from it.

Sander and Friedlander

After today's lecture and seminar revolving around the work of August Sander, I've been giving some thought on how to structure this project. I like the way Sander divided his project between different sectors of society, The Farmer, The Woman, The City, etc.
I think I could do something similar with different areas of the city, Lenton, Radford, City Centre... One thing that concerns me though is that it could end up being seen as judgemental with regard to the differences between deprived and affluent areas, like Sander purposely used different compositions to elevate the important figures, I aim to avoid this, perhaps though it is inevitable that some aspect of it will show through.

Thanks for the comment Hugh, wasn't it Capa that said "If your photos arn't good enough, your not close enough", either way sounds like good advise I'll give it a go. Also Lee Friedlanders work looks perfect for what I'm trying to do, I'll have a closer look at him tomorrow.