"Celebrity Press Photography"

I went to MoMA last week because there were three photographic exhibits I wanted to see.  This was the first, called "Celebrity Press Photography."  These were photographs that came from movie fan magazines, like Photoplay, after the Museum of Modern Art bought their archives.  Many of these photographs went back to the 1920's and 1930's.  This is Anna Magnani, photographed by Yousuf Karsh.  Absolutely stunning portrait, don't you agree?

This is a spectacular lighting effect to have giant shadows behind the subjects.  I can't quite decide if it is a double exposure.  I can't imagine how you get those shadows so much larger than the subjects, given how close the two actors are to the background.  But this was a style back then and it is pretty dramatic! The actors are Ann Sothern Maurice Chevalier.

I love how funny this photograph looks. When a magazine wants to have just a small image of an actor, they "silhouette" the part they want, in the old days, by using white paint carefully applied around, in this case, the actor's head.  Then when they are preparing the page they will make the rest of the photo go away and the head will be on a plain white background.  This is Harold Lloyd who was very popular and began in silent films, and later on, talkies.

This is an extreme example of the cropping out of a head from the main photograph.  This is Aldo Ray and Katherine Hepburn from the movie "Pat and Mike."  It was so interesting to see examples like this all throughout the exhibit.

And here is an absolutely beautiful portrait, of Jean Harlow, photographed in the style of the era.  There were so many "straight" photographs of famous people in the exhibit and they were fascinating because of the style of the lighting and posing of the time. As a photographer, it was a joy to see this relatively small exhibit!