These are some photographs taken by my selected artist, Helen Levitt. The most obvious element shown in these pictures is abstraction, along with black and white, focus, framing, and guiding lines. We can see the details in each picture clearly because there are focus on all parts of the picture. The work of this photographer inspired me because the photos that Levitt takes are mostly focused on black and white. Not only that but almost all of the pictures are taken in a matter of a second. The pictures taken by Levitt do not require positioning or angling very much. She just captures what she sees on the street. Moving on, a quotation that I find interesting written by Levitt is “I never had a “project.” I would go out and shoot, follow my eyes—what they noticed, I tried to capture with my camera, for others to see.” I chose this quotation because I found that the point that Levitt is making is very similar to her work. She just takes what she sees and shows it to others.

Evaluate and Image: Photo 6

I chose to evaluate this image because I think this image is the best image to show her work and the types of pictures that she usually takes. In this picture, I find the kids standing still surprising because a person might not stand still unless they know that you are taking a photograph of them. However, in this picture, the kids were standing still like they knew that someone was taking a photo for them. A Formal Element that I think is important and is shown clearly in this picture is the focus. This picture has focus on almost every part of the picture and shows details clearly. This gives the audience a good idea of what the image is about. Levitt’s photographs are abstract because most of them are black and white. I like this style because I think it’s really interesting the fact that Levitt uses black and white to show details in the picture and the art in the picture. In my own photography, I will take similar pictures on the street and edit them by turning them into black and white.