Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander, born in 1934, began photographing the American social landscape in 1948. With an ability to organize a vast amount of visual information in dynamic compositions, Friedlander has made humorous and poignant images among the chaos of city life, dense landscape and countless other subjects. Friedlander is also recognized for a group of self-portraits he began in the 1960s, reproduced in Self Portrait, an exploration that he turned to again in the late 1990s, and published in a monograph by Fraenkel Gallery in 2000. 

Made over the last decade and in a majority of the country’s fifty states, America by Car is a vast compendium of the country’s eccentricities and obsessions at the turn of the century. All of the approximately fifty photographs that comprise the exhibition were made from the inside of a car, most often of the rental variety. Friedlander transforms the car’s windows into deliberate picture frames.

Above are two of Lee Friedlanders pieces. My first initial reaction when I looked at these photographs were that they were original and simple but are very effective and powerful. I admire the detail and simplicity of the colours used. I especially admire the technique he has used of using his own point of view to capture the image. He has given us an insight on what he can see from his car window, this lets us see what kind of place he is in and what he sees on a daily basis. In the top image the cars seems to be the main subject of the photograph and it shows that this was taken maybe in the 70's. In the second image again there is a 70's style looking car but the main subject seems to be the tree that is in the centre. The way he has captured the tree in the side mirror and capture the tree in front is very effective as it looks like a smaller tree is forming into a big tree which symbolised the inside, outside and in-between theme.

The colours used are simply just black and white but these are great colours to use as it lets the audience focus on the imagery. The different shades of grey make the photographs look very old and vintage which adds a interesting effect. The images themselves are very dull but they are very inspiring and creative. This type of photography inspires me a lot and I am going to experimenting with these techniques for my own personal work.