Vintage photo of the day — Dec. 27, 2010

Today’s vin­tage pho­to­graph of the day by mas­ter pho­tog­ra­pher Ernst Haas, is titled Binoc­u­lars and it was taken in Bat­tery Park, NY in 1952. Haas is well known for adopt­ing colour early on in his career before many of his con­tem­po­raries. Famous Haas colour pho­tographs include slow motion studies.

A Haas quote that I really dig is, “The best pic­tures dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves by nuances‚¦a tiny rela­tion­ship ‚ either a har­mony or a dishar­mony — that cre­ates a picture.”

Binoculars by Ernst Haas - 1952

Binoc­u­lars by Ernst Haas — 1952

This pho­to­graph works on‚multiple‚levels which is likely why it works so well.
The‚binoculars‚themselves look like human faces so we are‚immediately‚attracted to that aspect. How­ever, other ele­ments also make this image inter­est­ing. These ele­ments include the fence and the build­ings in the back­ground. For me, the fence, binoc­u­lars and back­ground build­ings rep­re­sent the fact that ‘mak­ing it’ in New York is dif­fi­cult. The fence sep­a­rates you from the build­ings but you can see them through the binoc­u­lars. Get­ting there, is a battle…but if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

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