"I thought New York had it coming, that it needed a kick in the balls. When I returned to New York, I wanted to get even. Now I had a weapon, photography." William Klein is an American Photographer that was born in New York City in 1928. Post World War ||, Klein moved to Paris, France in 1949, to pursue a degree in painting. It was five years later, 1954, when he decided to head back to New York for a visit. During that visit, Klein had established a new hobby, career and future; it was photography. Two years after residing in New York and photographing the streets of the city, he published his first photo book which he named: 'Life is Good and Good for You in New York'. This photo book is said to be one of the most 'influential' of its kind, simply due to its unique perspective on the wild streets of New York at the time. "Everything turned into a show in front of his lens," Klein's camera lens was different to others, because each photograph it took was mixed with diverse perspectives; the European and the American. This had a great influence on Kleins New York photographs, as he managed to get his subjects to either smile, laugh, dance, pull angry gestures and facial expressions which added a sense of unbalance to the image, yet made it quietly brilliant. He also captured photographs of people 'pretending' to shoot each other, and this showed a different side to the rough streets of New York. One famous photograph of his revolves around two young boys, one who aims a gun towards the lens, and the other who stands staring at his friend. The photographs meaning is deep because of two main factors. Firstly, the gun pointed towards the camera lens is in fact out of focus simply due to its extravagant close range and secondly the contrast between the ' angry' looking boy holding the gun and his friend who looks calm and polite. Personally, William Klein portrayed the people of New York brilliantly within his photo album, because he was capable of maintaining simplicity within his images, in addition to that odd factor found in each image, which gives a Klein uniqueness.
"I thought New York had it coming, that it needed a kick in the balls. When I returned to New York, I wanted to get even. Now I had a weapon, photography." William Klein is an American Photographer that was born in New York City in 1928. Post World War ||, Klein moved to Paris, France in 1949, to pursue a degree in painting. It was five years later, 1954, when he decided to head back to New York for a visit. During that visit, Klein had established a new hobby, career and future; it was photography. Two years after residing in New York and photographing the streets of the city, he published his first photo book which he named: 'Life is Good and Good for You in New York'. This photo book is said to be one of the most 'influential' of its kind, simply due to its unique perspective on the wild streets of New York at the time. "Everything turned into a show in front of his lens," Klein's camera lens was different to others, because each photograph it took was mixed with diverse perspectives; the European and the American. This had a great influence on Kleins New York photographs, as he managed to get his subjects to either smile, laugh, dance, pull angry gestures and facial expressions which added a sense of unbalance to the image, yet made it quietly brilliant. He also captured photographs of people 'pretending' to shoot each other, and this showed a different side to the rough streets of New York. One famous photograph of his revolves around two young boys, one who aims a gun towards the lens, and the other who stands staring at his friend. The photographs meaning is deep because of two main factors. Firstly, the gun pointed towards the camera lens is in fact out of focus simply due to its extravagant close range and secondly the contrast between the ' angry' looking boy holding the gun and his friend who looks calm and polite. Personally, William Klein portrayed the people of New York brilliantly within his photo album, because he was capable of maintaining simplicity within his images, in addition to that odd factor found in each image, which gives a Klein uniqueness.
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