Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander was a photographer born in 1934 in Washington. His work has a huge diversity of subjects and types of photography, including portraiture, street photography and flowers. (1)

The book that I have been looking at and will proceed to write about is 'The Jazz People of the New Orleans' published in 1992, is a collection of images shot from 1957 onward. 

'Friedlander took many of these pictures while accompanying jazz scholars Richard Allen and William Russell as they conducted interviews for Tulane University's Archive of New Orleans Jazz' (2)

While this isn't an obvious book for the subjects I have in mind, when looking through I found myself rather interested in the portraits of the jazz people with their instruments as to me it showed such a clear narrative about the type of people they are, which I feel would be a nice element to add into my own photos. Getting to know the subject without actually meeting them. At this point, however, it can be hard to show the ultimate truth instead of construction as I will have things in my head that I want to get across. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; many documentary photographers construct parts of their images to get their message across, it just isn't what I have planned currently.

This image is titled 'Kid Thomas Valentine', who was a trumpet player playing with a band playing at the Grand Salon when this image was taken. The image has very little contrast which to me makes it more realistic and less in your face. Subtle tones help the details within the image become more prominent, such as within the skin. 

The fact that the man is holding his instrument is what drew me to this image, it tells us his profession without even having to check. His suit with his top button undone gives us a sense that this is backstage; a more casual environment than the actual show. The angle it's shot at gives the impression to me that the photographer had respect for this man and therefore shot at an angle that gives him power and authority. It's framed in such a way that his face isn't the automatic focal point for the eye, but instead the body and trumpet is. This could perhaps be to highlight the importance of his body and hands to his profession.

I feel a connection with these images because it shows history. It allows me to look into the past, to go through the streets of the 60's in New Orleans. Because of this it makes me want to look at every part of the image, as I think we all have an interest in the lives of people in that past. Something that surprised me is how well black people are painted within the images. They all seem happy and talented and powerful. It was a pleasant surprise because I, like many others, have been taught about the ridiculous racism around this time and was expecting black people to be much more suppressed than they are in these images. I feel that this humanises them; we often see images of racism is the past but allowing black people to be happy and have positive emotions is enforcing that these people are just like everybody else too; we can relate to these images with the feeling of happiness.