Elliot Erwitt - Colorado USA 1955 (Review)

ELLIOTT ERWIT

Elliott Erwitt – Colorado USA 1955

Legendary Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt is one of the world’s greatest commercial and documentary photographers. He is well known for his often ironic black and white images of everyday life.  Elliott Erwitt is a photographer that shows what interesting means. When you see a photograph from Erwitt, it might make you think, make you laugh, make you sad, but you will always experience some sort of emotion and you want to come back and take another look. Erwitt has a lot of patience. He sees the potential for something and he’ll sit and wait for it to happen. He’ll rarely direct a photograph, although he has been known to occasionally bark at dogs or blow a bike horn to get the attention of a passerby. A lot of his personal work is almost comical and you wonder if they are staged or Photoshopped. They aren’t. He is simply a master at capturing perfect moments.

This picture is called Colorado USA 1955 by Elliot Erwitt. In "Colorado, 1955," a small boy inside a truck stares out the window, his right eye obscured by a smashed fracture in the glass. The violence of the crack gives the illusion that a bullet had just passed through to strike the boy, who hasn't had time to register his demise. This picture draws attention to viewer’s eyes because of the clever angle Erwitt put on this photo so the crack in the wind shield looks like it is the boy's eye. Erwitt seems to be in the right place at the right time but he must have done something to seek boy’s attention and then cleverly framed the shot.  The boy might be in his early teens and wears clothing not typical to 1950’s although we know it was shot in 1955 In Colorado, USA. It is difficult to say exactly what is going on in this image it is very powerful and evokes many connotations. Mine being violence, innocence, child abuse, loneliness, disconnection, a boy that wants to be heard, war, mental illness, blindness, shattered life/home etc.

Elliot Erwitt is famous for his frames; most of his pictures are framed through car’s window and mirrors. He likes to show reflections in his pictures as well as he composes the picture in such a way that subject looks really meaningful. Elliot Erwitt is a famous street photographer who catches a moment and when we talk about right timing of Elliot, it is just because he carries his camera all the time with him. His habit of carrying a camera every time he goes out results in extraordinary photographs. Most of the subjects in his pictures might be ordinary, but he cleverly turns ordinary into extra ordinary with his amazing composition. Elliot Erwitt captures a moment but his pictures have a lot to say about specific subject and that’s what makes his photographs unique.

-Kamran Yousaf