August Sander- artist

A fellow classmate, Connor, has chosen August Sander as his inspiration for his final project. I have seen Sanders work when Connor brings it in and I always find myself wanting to see more. So I'm getting off my horse Procrastination and looking him up. Like my last artists, he is German. I'm sensing a theme....(maybe because a few weeks ago my husband asked me about moving there?). Anyways, "Early in his career, perhaps after tiring of prizes that were too easily won, August Sander set for himself a problem that ranks among the most ambitious in the history of photography: He assigned himself the project of making a photographic portrait of the German people. He set about his task as systematically as a taxonomist, gathering, specimen by specimen, exemplary players of the roles that defined German society. Hod carrier, gamekeeper, confectioner, student, functionary, industrialist --- piece by piece Sander collected the elements for his composite portrait... Sander, however, was a very great photographer. His sensitivity to his individual subjects --- to expression, gesture, posture, costume, symbol, habitat --- seems unerringly precise. His pictures show us two truths simultaneously and in delicate tension: the social abstraction of occupation and the individual soul who serves it... Sander was a professional portrait photographer, but many of the subjects for his great project surely did not pay him. Some doubtless could not, and others, if paying customers, would have expected to be shown less fully revealed. In his professional role he must have made safe and routine portraits, but there are none among the two hundred or more of his published works.On the evidence of these pictures, it would seem that he found every station and every individual of consequence." http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/August-Sander.html

I know that was a long quote, but someone worked hard to write all that and did a great job so I'm not going to mess it up with a summary.

He was a great black & white photographer, another reason I am interested in his work. He didn't have the option to choose B&W or color, or film or digital. But I wonder what he would choose if he did have the choice? Removing the color takes some distraction away from content you don't want the eye drawn to, as well as keeping the focus away from where you do want it. I don't know if that is making any sense, its late and I'm up waiting for my husband to call from Afghanistan! But I appreciate Sanders careful consideration of what else went into the frame, beyond the person. Thats been a matter of conversation regarding Connor's images for his project. I have been asked to take portraits and its always at the park or in a "studio" but what I want is to take them in their own environment. If you really want your portrait to be about you it should give some hint to your personality and standing in front of a black drape reduces that.