Photography: Ernst haas

1. Ernst Haas
By Elliott Kitcher

2. His life
Ernst Haas was born on March 2, 1921
in Vienna Austria and died on
September 12, 1986 in New York
making him 65 when he died. His
mother who was inspired by the arts
encouraged Ernst to discover his
creative side. Haas was a
photographer and photojournalist
who was influential for his
innovations in colour photography.
His best photographs include
experiments in abstract light and
form and he received the Hasselblad
Award in 1986. In his later life, while
Haas was in America he worked on a
few films in the camera and
electrical department producing still
photographs for the films.

3. How he became a Photographer
He originally was going to take a career in medicine
and was at a medical school in Austria until in 1947
when he drooped out and became a photographer for
a German magazine (Heute). He did a photo essay for
the magazine about prisoners of war coming home to
Vienna, which got him noticed and he got an offer to
join Magnum Photos by one of the founders Robert
Capa. This made him one of the first people to be apart
of magnum photos which is now highly accredited.
Haas moved to New York City in 1953 where he lived
for most of his later life.

4. His photographs
Some of Haas' most famous pictures were deliberately out-of-focus and blurred,
creating strong visual effects. He used the dye transfer process to make many of
his original prints. The images that he captures are brought to life in the
blurriness of the image and can be seen to be like an abstract painting. He seems
to have his own style throughout all of his images and doesn’t focus on an
particle part of the image so making it all out of focus. The energy that he is
seeing at the event is flowing through the photographs that he takes and it is
almost like you can see the movement. Ernst Haas uses a slow shutter speed so
that the image is dragged along which gives it this blurred effect. What I like
about Ernst Haas’s work is that is seems like the photographs that he takes is a
snap shot of the hectic moving world and he has just slowed it all down.

5. Quotations by Ernst Haas
"A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were
not in us, how would we ever recognize it?"
"I am not interested in shooting new things - I am interested to
see things new."
"There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your
photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are."
"With photography a new language has been created. Now for the
first time it is possible to express reality by reality. We can look at
an impression as long as we wish, we can delve into it and, so to
speak, renew past experiences at will."

6. Websites used
http://www.ernst-haas.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haas
http://www.biographybase.com
http://www.imdb.com