Pioneers Of Street Photography - III

To celebrate the 1st anniversary of #TheStreetFactor, we present to you
the third part of a series of journals dedicated to the great masters:
The Pioneers of Street Photography.





Elliott Erwitt
(b. 26 July 1928 Paris, France)
is an advertising and documentary photographer known
for his black and white candid shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday
settings - a master of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment". *



New York City 1950
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Erwitt is perhaps best known for photos that feature playful juxtapositions in which he captures and shares
with us the kind of visual jokes that happen all the time but which we often miss if we don't stop to notice
and enjoy them.




New York City 1950
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Besides these, however, he also had the eye and the timing to capture sunny, expressive moments in the
ordinary everyday lives of people in a way that everyone can relate to.




New York City 1948
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Like Cartier-Bresson, each image is well composed, well exposed, perfectly crafted,
and captures a unique,story-telling, split second in time.




Times Square - NYC 1950
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Erwitt's images visually "speak" to any audience, they are, nevertheless each have their own definite
background sense of time and place.




Israel, 1962
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Erwitt’s photos have the ability to take the viewer around the world with him
to experience special times and places through his eyes.




Pasadena, California, 1963
_{www.houkgallery.com}


While the people in his photos are of all types and from many national
backgrounds, the photos themselves emphasize what we have in common rather than our differences.




Las Vegas, Nevada, 1954
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Animals seem to express the best human qualities.




New York, 1974
_{www.houkgallery.com}


A stint in the US Army allowed him the opportunity to meet some of the world’s most famous photographers
including Steichen, Capa and Stryker.




Central Park - NYC 1953
_{www.houkgallery.com}


He joined Magnum Photo agency and he traveled the world as a photographer.




Prado Museum, Madrid, 1995
_{www.houkgallery.com}


Universally lauded for his ability to see comedy in the mundane,
Erwitt's humor is sly without being malicious.




Managua, Nicaragua, 1957
_{www.houkgallery.com}



"After following the crowd for a while, I'd then go 180 degrees in the exact opposite direction.
It always worked for me, but then again, I'm very lucky."
~ Elliott Erwitt




 

<sub>Check out these great Street Photography groups:

  



 







Excerpts and Photographs shamelessly lifted and edited from:
- www.houkgallery.com -
- Google -
- *Wikipedia -
- An untitled, downloadable PDF document I found online.</sub>



For additional reading (if you can read French), or just to look at more of Erwitt's works,
please check out, Patrice - PatriceChesse's journal:
Elliott Erwitt - L'instant crucial
which was submitted to TheStreetFactor long before this article.
He beat me to it, lol!