Biography: Street photographer Garry Winogrand

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Garry Winogrand (14 January 1928, New York City – 19 March 1984, Tijuana, Mexico) was a street photographer known for his portrayal of the United States in the mid-20th century.

Winogrand’s subject was America. He documented the city and the urban landscape, concentrating on its unusual people and capturing odd juxtapositions of animate and inanimate objects. Winogrand began photographing in New York, doing commercial work. He was inspired by Walker Evans’ 1938 book American Photographs and for the first time realized that photographs could communicate something special and unique. Impressed by not only Evans, but also by Robert Frank, whose book The Americans also came out in 1958, Winogrand emulated their intelligent use of the photographic medium. And immediately set out to carve his own niche as an imagemaker who participated in, as well as documented contemporary life.

Winogrand made the city, the zoo, the airport, and the rodeo his home, and spent endless hours photographing there. A photographer of this sort is a wanderer, constantly roaming the globe, clicking the shutter wherever he went.