Lee Friedlander

   Lee Friedlander was born in Washington on July 14, 1934. He began photographing in 1948.  "He made many images funny and poignant images among the chaos of city life, dense natural landscape, and many other objects." He is known for also liking to take pictures in the street using shadows to his advantage. He took lots of pictures of people, signs, cars, and of himself standing in front of store windows. He did this because when he did he was able to catch the light at a perfect time creating these perfect shadows in pictures. 


Lee takes this very simple image and provides an instant question for me? My question was what was the point of this photo? After sitting for a couple minutes, I generated the idea of this picture that he is leaving his house and moving on to the future. When you watch movies, you will see a lot of scenes where people are looking out of a window, and you see their past slowly fading away in the mirror this is the kind of vibe I get from this photo. It looks like he is leaving everything behind and moving on to the better for whatever reason that may be. The other possible meaning I got out of this photo is that Lee is trying to get the idea from us that it is okay to leave things behind. Sometimes you have to let yourself slide out of a bad situation to make your next one better. Sometimes it is a lot better to leave the past behind and focus on what is next. It's like what our coach tells us every practice It is super important to forget about the previous play no matter how good or bad it was because the next play is most important. 


Here is another picture that I like by Lee. I like the idea of using the little squares in the window to frame himself in the picture. It's a unique way of adding more ideas to the picture and once again generating that idea of what is going on in the picture. It is also a reflection picture so I am going to assume this picture was taken on the street in some kind of shop. I think the point of this picture was to reflect himself by framing himself and also get the background to be wherever he is standing. When he does this, it creates another idea for me it's why he adds the sign in the background into the picture? I really don't know why it is in there, but I am going to assume he saw it and added it to the picture for some reason that we do not know. 

Lee is a very creative thinker in the way that he takes his photos. He is very careful in the way that he sets up his photos causing us to really think about his pictures and question his reasons for making certain photos. He really is a truly great photographer and I have enjoyed reading and discussing some of his fine work.

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