Ernst Hass

 I have never heard of Ernst Haas before and I am happy to say that I really enjoyed his work. Ernst has was an Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. He was not only just a color photographer but he was one of the very first that made it an art form and known as the premier color photographer in the 1950s. At the time color photos were seen as amateur and childish but he showed how beautiful they could be and published a 24 page ground breaking color essay on New York City. But his career started much earlier when he was back in Austria and would take pictures of the soldiers returning from war. 


“The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE.” – Ernst Haas

 This quote is probably on of my favorites when it comes to photography. Haas made it a point to show that it didn't matter if you had all the latest and greatest equipment there was. If you had no vision and no eye you could never capture a great image. On the opposite end there could be someone with the bare minimum equipment and super outdated stuff but if they had an amazing eye they would be able to produce far greater images than anyone with the better equipment but no vision. 

 Through his color photos Haas showed New York in a way that no one had ever seen it before. From taking pictures off of reflective surfaces or getting super up close to random details like the cracked glass of a taxi cab. I find his images to be very interesting in the way that everything seems very intentional. Such as his photos of the bull fighter or the running horses which are both blurry but it adds to the images rather then taking away from them.