Archive August 2014

Ernst Haas: Color, motion, and creativity

Posted by on Aug 31, 2014 in Photographers, Techniques | Leave a comment

I love the work of Ernst Haas. He was a pioneer of color in photography often combined with experimental techniques.

Haas was born to artistic parents in Vienna, Austria in 1921, and a student he became a skilled painter. His father was a keen amateur photographer, but Ernst had no interest in photography until after his father’s death. He began to use his father’s darkroom to print negatives of family photographs, and his interest in photography quickly grew.

Haas moved to the United States in 1951 and began experimenting with Kodachrome color film. His work was published in many notable magazines. His photo essay on New York City published in Life magazine in 1953 was his first major color essay, and also Life’s first large-scale color essay.