Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Idaho 1972, Lee Friedlander

Together with figures such as Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander transformed American documentary photography in the 1960's. By the late 1970's he was widely seen as one of the most penetrating photographers of American cities. In Friedlander’s images, surfaces are frequently broken, disrupted, or complicated; objects jut forward, obscuring others. Mirrors and windows reflect and refract events already in flux. Through his oblique take on the social and visual fabric of townscapes, unexpected patterns and social processes emerge.
I choose this image because I liked the interruption of the wing mirror in the picture. I gives another dimension to the picture, placing the photographer and therefore, the viewer in relation to the landscape. The picture is divided in three parts, showing three different images of the same landscape. The view to the left and right of the wing mirror could be conceived as two completely different photographs but the cloud in the sky connects the two together, almost assuring the viewer that it is only one image.