Gordon Parks is as important as Henri Cartier Bresson
Gordon Parks is one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century. He was photographer, filmmaker, writer and composer. It is time to to put it where it deserves: in the Olympus of street photography that it documents.
SEGREGATION IN THE SOUTH, 1956. Gordon Parks. Gordon Parks Foundation all rights reserved
I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera. - Gordon Parks
A photographer who has been involved in using photography as a useful tool to document injustices. A photographer with a conscious gaze who did not fail to present strong complaints through photographs of extraordinary intelligence.
His photography is truly humanist, it focuses on people, touching in many scenes. His gaze shows a photographer who is deeply sensitive and acute in observation. A lively and hyper-realistic photography where the people are beautiful. From black and white to color he showed a work that transcended the simple act of photographing becoming a document of social struggle. But he did it with an attitude of resistance that emerges from every single shot. Even in the work of portraits made to Muhammad Ali, between 1966 and 1970. I have often remarked in my books about the importance of creating iconic images,that it cannot be taken for granted and that, however, if it is not fundamental for street photography, it becomes so for certain documentary/journalistic photography.
We are not so far apart as it might seem. There is something about both of us that goes deeper than blood or black and white. It is our common search for a better life, a better world. - Gordon Parks
His precious legacy is the conscience of human beings, I mean conscience for men who have a conscience. His words were not addressed to the photographic technique but rather to the social situation. This also makes him a photographer profoundly different from others.
