Thomas Hoepker and the picture that changer 9/11

Thomas Hoepker

Fiive years, a long time, a long time to think about publishing a world changing image.

The famous image of 9/11 taken by Thomas Hoepker set a new mind frame for the happenings on 9/11.

One of the biggest and most misunderstood images was captured in Brooklyn just after both towers had collapsed.

As a group of young adults sit and watch, whilst what, at first interpretations look to be enjoying themselves, this controversial picture was not stated as art, because Hoepker believes that he is not an “art maker, but an image maker”. With Hoepker having such a big past working in one of the world’s best photography companies ‘Magnum’ he found It hard to publish the 9/11 image. I think that the image has two stories, the first, easy story. The story that no one cares, personally this is what I thought the first time I saw it, with a group of 5 people sitting on a bank across the river watching the two towers just burn strikes you deep, making you think about the human population as a whole. Do we actually care? The common question everyone faces when confronted with that one picture.

On the other hand, you can take a deeper look at the image, past all the bright and ‘pretty’ colours, the terror and fear that is subliminally hidden in the picture.

After working the majority of his life in Magnum, Thomas Hoepker had some of the best images in their archive. Becoming the president of the company in 1989 he was ahead of the game. Everyone to look at his pictures would be amazed at how he could pull of such an amazing set of images. Personally I like Hoepker’s work; it’s vibrant, and dark. Contrast barely scrapes the surface of Hoepkers work.

Being born in 1936, Hoepker had his fair choice in capturing the history from the past several centuries. Giving him such a vast set of experience, he knows what he’s looking for in an image, regardless of where or what the situation is.

On the other hand, the image Hoepker captured in 2001 on the 11^th of September was not what he was looking for. Rushing to the scene as quick as he could, he couldn’t cross the Queensborogh Bridge because of such a mass of cars that had stopped to have a quick glance at what had just happened to their beautiful world trade towers. Hoepker also stated that he “knew that all the other Magnum photographers would be in that area” he decided it would be best not to get to close, and capture an image that no one else would have the perspective of. Walking down the Brooklyn banks, instantly grabbing his camera, and snapping that one image, you could say it was the decisive moment, he just happened to capture the group of people looking like they were enjoying themselves, or you could see it as them not caring at all.

After releasing the image for the world to see, a huge uproar occurred. After a huge search for the people in the picture, the one couple was found and questioned about why they seem to not be caring, but in their interview they exclaimed that they “were so shocked at what just happened” and because it was so far away, they couldn’t do anything about it, hence them sitting there just watching, and perhaps enjoying the beautiful weather.

Personally after a long time of looking at the image, I now see the despair in the image, and the helplessness of the nation as they watch two of their most prized buildings crumble to the ground.  

Five years on after the image was published, Thomas Hoepker is now known as the man who captured the shocking image of 9/11, starting a new era of questions in the modern world of decisions and  statements.

Portraiture

Protriture application through the ages.

Portraiture has always been a big part of photography, and it even goes back further than camera's to paintings. Portraits have always been an expression of a person, images of people showing who they are, naturally- or exposing people.
Diane Arbus is a good example of a portrait artist. She is most famously known for taking portraits for the richer families of the country in her era. The most famous shoot includes the Matthaei family.
Diane was always known to expose people, she would take her opportunity to capture the natural forms of people regardless of their appearnece.
When talking about Diane, there is aways one big individual trait, empathy.
In photography, empathy is often very rare, as the subject of portraits is a very harsh subject. It's to show reality, and empthasising with the people you are taking images of creates a darker, deeper meaning that isn't often shown through images.
Due to  Diane's individuality, her photo's were unique and remarkable.
Diane was known to photograph people who would not seem normal, e.g. midgets, transvestites etc.
on the other hand, she would photograph people with a slight difference to other people in the world, a unique difference, once again reffereing to her feeling empathy for them.
Diane killed herself in july 1971, this was a massive metephor for what was going on at the time. With all the terror around, it represented that, if a person who captures all these memories and people in terms of finding their beauty within an ugly body, she can't cope with all the evil and death destroying every person she belived to be a pure beauty. 

This image of the Matthaei daughter show's the type of images Diane produced, this was one of her favourite photographs because it shows an innocent child in white, but looking deep into her eyes, there is something else there, something underneath the friendly mannorisms and innocence.

Tony Vaccaro was also a huge successful photographer.
Tony's traits included catching people off gaurd. This was his way of grasping who people are. In their utmost natural forms. He believed that people knew who people were in an image, and this gave him motive to strive and find that true soul inside a body of any human.
Tony's most famous portrait is of Pablo Picasso, this was because Pablo tried to hide from having a portrait image taken for several years, Pablo decided that he'll let Besson take a couple images for him, but Bresson admitted that the portraits did not show who he truely was. Tony was asked to do a photo shoot for Picasso, With picasso posing for the camera, Tony was not happy, so he used the excuse of his camera breaking, at this point Picasso had relaxed, and at this precise point, Tony grabbed the moment and took the picture.
All of Tony's work is his way of showing who people are when it comes to portraits.

To conclude, looking through a history of portraiture, the insanely huge diversity of change that has occured through time is absolutely astonishing. From painted portraits of kings and queens where the image can be painted to miss out blemishes or spots, in the most extreme cases, the person's body would be changed and altered to make them look prehaps thinner, or more well built, this would give out a false representation to who ever the subject was.
To the more recent forms of portaiture of Larry Clarke, who took images of his lifestyle, friends, drug consumption and the way the scene of the world was at his era.
With clarke being an insider to his 'Clan' he captured the images, with no intenetion of making it as a professional photographer, if anything you could judge Clarke's work as a massive decisive moment, capturing the images that not many people would have seen involving the punk age.

Over-all the subject of portraits have changed hugely over the years of art, Personally I believe that an image should be in it's purest form, hence old paintings of kings and queen's, I have no interest in.
Using a modern camera can take an image that only takes a millionth of a second to capture, making sure that the image is in it's truest form, such as Larry Clarke's work.

War photojournalism/PT.2

Robbert Capa;

Robert Capa born October 22nd 1913 is classed as one of the worlds best war photojournalist.
He was always right in the action, risking his life in order to capture images that people at home, away from war will not ever see. His photography was not a plea for fame and heroism, but his motive was to capture images of people in war that features the pure brutality of the scenario.
Capa used the Leica camera to capture reality of the surroundings.
Robbert was well known for risking his life, standing in the centre of gunfire and explosions in order to grasp images of the real story. Capa's fame came from images of the Vietnam War, which led to his death in May, 1954. Not only was Capa great at taking pictures, but for what he did, he was well known to be one of the best photojournalists of all time.
Capa believed that it's good to get close, but it's even better to get closer. Showing his nature towards the war and his strong beliefs to portray the true circumstances that are occuring day in and day out.

Tony Vaccaro;

Tony was a well known war photographer, With the camera "always around the neck" he photographed everything and anything he could in the situation he was facing. Tony is also known as Michael A. Vaccaro, But unlike Capa, Tony was issued with an Army Issue camera called the 'SPeed Graphic' Which was a camera that involved a huge amount of work in order to capture an image, ruining the aspiration to capture the decisive moments of war. Vaccaro, unlike Capa was an actualy soilder, due to him having a standard issue camera. Later on in his career, he got hold of a Argus C3 Camera which is a cheaper equivelent to the Leica camera.

Photjournalism PT.1

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri was known to be the Godfather of Photojournalism, His work "transformed the face of photography" in 1925 using the Leica mk.I camera, with this, he created the greatest photo of the entire 20th century. Henri was an expiremental photojournalist, classed as the best of that era, and possible history. Henri was a rich man, which propelled him to buy the latest camera, allowing a picture to be taken in a fraction of a second. Henri was always know to be "Jumping into the unknown"
"stalker/hunter"  

Decisive moment
-What happens in the perfect moment is what the decisive moment is, It's capturing that split second that is not to early or too late, just right at that one specific point in time or a realisation of a specific moment that gives an event an expression. Decisive moments "hold some truth" to the event of which the photograph was taken, just by getting it at the "right time" can show people what is really going on in the world. There is no lies in the case of the decisive moment, take Bresson's image for instance, it shows the man hopping the puddle, he's not just about to hop, or has just landed, he is in mid air.

Lieca Camera
Leica I was one of the first Leica camera's to be made, there were several prototypes before-hand such as the 'Ur-Leica'. The first model to be released by Leica in 1925, the camera that Bresson used to revolutionise photography, the Leica I. With this camera, it brought a whole new light into photography, being able to capture an image within seconds, unlike previous camera's such as a Speed Graphix, which would involve having to change filters etc. Another positive about the Leica is that it does not take a long time to expose.