Famous Photographer Research Paper
Harry Callahan Harry Morey Callahan was born on October 22, 1912 and died on March 15, 1999. Harry was an influential twentieth century American photographer. He was born in Detroit, Michigan. As a young man, he worked at Chrysler. Then, he went to Michigan State University to study engineering. Eventually, Harry dropped out and returned to Chrysler to join its camera club. Callahan began teaching himself photography in 1938. He also formed a friendship with Todd Webb who was also a future photographer. A talk given by Ansel Adams in 1941 inspired him to take his photography seriously. In 1946, he was invited to teach photography at the Institute of Design in Chicago. He moved to Rhode Island in 1961 to establish a photography program at the Rhode Island School of Design, teaching there until his retirement in 1977. Shot in both black-and-white and color, Callahan’s subjects include his wife Eleanor and daughter Barbara, nature and light studies, pedestrians in downtown Chicago, telephone lines, architecture in Providence, landscapes in Cape Cod, and scenes from his travels to such places as Great Britain, France, Japan, and Morocco. He also photographed collages he had made using images cut from such magazines as Vogue. “I never refused when he wanted to take a picture,” said Eleanor Callahan, the 91-year-old widow of the photographer Harry Callahan. “I never complained whatever I was doing. If he said: ‘Come quick, Eleanor — there’s a good light,’ I was right there.” His wife, Eleanor, was his main muse. Most of the photos he took were of her. Callahan left almost no written records. There were no diaries, letters, scrapbooks or teaching notes. His technical photographic method was to go out almost every morning, walk the city he lived in and take numerous pictures. He then spent almost every afternoon making proof prints of that day's best negatives. Yet, for all his photographic activity, Callahan, at his own estimation, produced no more than half a dozen