The Person Behind the Camera
Aaron Siskind
Aaron Siskind was a teacher, editor, and photographer. He is the fifth children out of six. Aaron came from a Russian-Jewish immigrant family. He was mainly know for the abstract photography that he created. Siskind started off as a social documentary photographer. Siskind attended the college of New York and earned a Bachelor’ of Social Science degree in Literature in 1942. Then after he graduated he went on to teach english in New York. He began his career of photographing when he was teaching English at a public school. He drew inspiration from anything abstract. He was inclined in music and poetry. Siskind began his serious photography during the years of the Great Depression. When he was growing up he wanted to be a writer. In 1929 he was given a camera by accident and that's when he realized that he had a passion for photography. Anything that Aaron saw that was abstract he tried to capture it. His work was inspired by anything that he came around that was abstract like footsteps in the sand, or walls that looked like they were about to break. Another thing that inspired his work was anything that was "true to life" and that had some type of meaning. He also got his inspiration from the natural world. Anything that he found delightful in the way that the texture was. in a modern city or anywhere he went. Siskind got his inspiration also from street signs that kind of looked like it had alien writing on. Another thing he got his inspiration from was on signs that were cut off or the graphics that it had on it. Siskind's impact on the photographic world was that he focused mainly on the human interest. His main focus was on the social, political, and economic conditions of the residents. Aaron Siskind's work is different from everyone else work is that his mostly photographs had an attempt to express his own state of mind in photography, instead of him just taking a picture of the subject. Aaron Siskind’s vision/style of his photographs is his own abstract visual language. He is the best example of the shift in photographs with all his abstract work. His style of work is also just any ruined things that he would find on the streets or just anywhere that he would go and he would photograph it. This vision is expressed by basically anything that he finds thats abstract or that just stands out to him and he takes a picture of it.