Irving Penn

1. Penn's work didn't evoke much of an emotional reaction from me. His work is certainly of good quality, but even the odder photos aren't interesting to me. They're either too simple or unauthentic. For example, his portraits are nice to look at, but they seem unoriginal, because in modern times, plenty of portraits are taken in a similar style.

2. I would classify Irving Penn's work as celebrity and fashion portraiture, as he mainly photographs fashion models or celebrities for magazines like Vogue.

3. Compared to Damon Baker, who is also a celebrity photographer, I actually prefer Penn's work. After seeing more of Penn's work, I've realized it's much more creative, yet retains its simplicity that I now see as beautiful. Where Baker tends to stick with closeups to draw attention to his subjects' faces, Penn more often keeps more or all of the subject's body in the shot, as it usually adds to the message he's trying to get across to the audience. I tend to gravitate towards Baker's full face portraits, but Penn's full body portraits.

(Of course, anything Baker takes of Sadie Sink is favored by me, but overall, I appreciate Penn's work more.)

4. If someone remade Penn's work, it might stray from his style of simplicity, to reflect the increasingly maximalist and materialistic world we live in now. The work might also utilize a contrast between minimalism and maximalism within the same photograph for greater impact.

5.  I initially would have categorized Penn's photographs as not falling under his own definition of a good picture, but after viewing more of his work, I believe that a lot of his work does equate to a "good photograph". What makes his work truly good is the simplicity combined with exceptional composition. On the surface, what may seem boring is actually meticulously crafted; Penn utilizes hard, geometric shapes and lines, as well as shadows and subject positioning, to communicate to the viewer with preciseness that translates to effectiveness.