Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton

       

Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton (January 14, 1904 – January 18, 1980), was a very talented fashion, portrait, and war photographer and also happened to have a talent in costume designing for films and the theatre. He was announced in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1970. He was the photographer of the royal family and also had a decades-long career with Vogue and Vanity Fair. He started at both Vogue and Vanity Fair in the 1930’s-1940’s, which were the two most respected magazines in the industry and still are today. He had some very special, exotic visions and was able to make all of them come to life, if he wanted a women to have a glass dome over her head or to pose like a statue, he made it happen. He made everything take its place in such a natural way, as if it hadn’t been choreographed. He had a wide range of artist talents, he painted, designed theatre sets, sketch, and he used all those talents in many diverge ways which made him excellent at almost everything he created. He took the most natural beautiful photos of Marilyn Monroe, were she was revealing as always but also projected a certain kind of vulnerability and innocence which not a lot of photographers captured of her in those days.

« Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. »

Cecil Beaton was the first photographer to photograph Marilyn Monroe as more than an actress in skimpy clothes and as a Pin-up icon, but really as a respected person which a genuine personality. It was as simple as her showing up to Beaton’s studio, with a little black dress and white fluffy evening gown, doing her own make-up and taking breath taking shots. They had a magnificent time working together and also talked very highly of one another.

Cecil Beaton had a beautiful outlook on life and made it show in his images, he once stated

“Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.”

and I find this statement to not only be completely true but also shows how a talented man like him lived an incredible life by never letting boredom and life’s ordinary ways get the best of him.

Audrey Hepburn

Victoria Von Hagen 1952

Audrey Hepburn

This is one of my favorite photographs by Erwin Blumenfeld, because it reminds me of the iconic Audrey Hepburn that I admire very much. I have always been inspired by Audrey Hepburn and how she can effortlessly be sophisticated and classy. I love the symbolistic photograph of Audrey casually holding her cigarette and looking nonchalantly « cool » because a women with a cigarette at that time meant mystery and a little bit of edge. I think it is fascinating that Blumenfeld is able to reproduce this historique image.
Erwin Blumenfeld portrays a women’s beauty by mysteriously showing half her perfectly red painted lips, and one eye with sublime eyelashes and a dark sculpted brow. The women is looking directly into the camera with a mischievous smile and her composed unimpressed look. Her elbow length gloves also show a simple elegance and profound desire to know more about the women in the photograph. She is carelessly beautiful and Erwin Blumenfeld is a genius for always being able to capture that.

The legend Erwin Blumenfeld

« Beauty is not pretty. »

Jean Pachett 1950

Erwin Blumenfeld was born on January 16, 1897 in Berlin,Germany. He became a legendary photographer when he started working for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar in the 40’s and 50’s. He captured the epitome of female beauty.

He has photographed a handful of celebrities, he also plays with fine art photography and Dada collages. Blumenfeld picked up a camera back in 1908 when he was about 14 years old and ever since then he has become the most influential photographer of the 20th century.

His first time shooting portraits was in Amsterdam while he was working at his handbag store in 1923, he discovered a dark room and began shooting mostly nude photos of his female costumers. His first photograph was published in a French magazine in 1935 where his career began to evolve. His leather handbag store went bankrupt in 1936, and he decided to move to the most beautiful and fashionable city in the world: Paris. He became very good friends with a photographer named Cecil Beaton which got him in with the Vogue crowd and got him signed in 1937. French Vogue fever. By 1950, Blumenfeld became the most well paid photographer in the world.