Michaela Lopez

Ms. Larsen

Digital photography

8 August 2014

 

Helen Levitt: Street Photographer

 

Helen Levitt was an American photographer born on August 31, 1913 in Brooklyn. She is known for taking photographs in the streets of New York. She is also known for taking black and white photos. As a young woman Levitt wanted to do something with art, but she couldn’t draw well. Levitt left her school before graduating in high school and went to work for a commercial portrait photographer where she gained knowledge about photography. 

 

In 1935 she met French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who was spending the year in New York. Levitt accompanied him as he photographed the streets of New York. Cartier-Bresson inspired Levitt into pursuing photography. In 1936 she purchased a 35-mm Leica camera, the camera Cartier-Bresson favored. 

 

Levitt began taking pictures of poor neighborhood in New York as a subject. Children in the streets were her most frequent subjects in her pictures. Her photographs didn’t show any unusual happenings. Most of them just showed children playing in the streets. She always took photos in poor neighborhoods because the crowded streets were visually interesting to her.

 

In 1939 Helen Levitt’s work was included at the new photography section of Museum of Modern art in New York. In the year 1943 Nancy Newhall organized Levitt’s first solo exhibition “Helen Levitt: Photographs of Children” there. Levitt also made two documentary films with Janice Loeb and James Agee. Levitt was active in film making for almost 25 years.

 

Helen Levitt started taking colored photos in 1959. She was one of the first notable photographers to do so. In 1965 she published her first major collection, A way of Seeing. Levitt stopped making her own black and white prints in the 1990s because of sciatica which made it difficult for her to stand up. She also had other health problems. In March 29, 2009 Helen Levitt died at the age of 95 in her house in New York.