Catherine

Photography

Mrs. Burakowski

18 May 2017

Andr Kertsz

Andr Kertsz is a talented photographer who used creative techniques so that his

photographs could catch peoples eyes and draw peoples attention towards his name. His first

photographs were published in 1917 in the magazine Erdekes Ujsag during World War I, while

Kertsz was serving in the Austro Hungarian Army. In many of his photographs there is cement

portrayed. He uses cement buildings and pictures where the background is usually cement. His

work influences me because of how his photographs are so simple, yet they have so many

different things going on within the frame that makes them so interesting. Andr Kertsz is a

creative photographer who uses different techniques to make his photographs so unique and

striking.

Kertsz was born on July 2, 1894 in Budapest, Hungary and had died September 28, 1985

in New York City, New York. (Britannica) He was Hungarian born and had lived in Manhattan

and Paris during his lifetime. During World War I, he had seen a lot of action on the Eastern

Front and began to take pictures. When he got back from the war, he worked at a bank but still

continued to develop his photography career by continuing to take pictures. The main influence

on Kertsz was that he saw a lot of action, and decided that the scene in front of his eyes needed

to be captured. One person that he influenced was his first wife, Rozsa Klein, in 1928. He began

to teach her the basics of photography and soon her career started to flourish. Klein had went
from being a painter to a respected photographic portraitist. (Britannica) Kertsz had also set the

standard by the use of the handheld camera and created a highly autobiographical amount of

work, in which he portrayed his own life through a camera lens. He also established a distinctive

visual language, where his work is not like most photographers. (The Getty) In many of his

photographs you will see the use of shadows and reflections, which usually attracts a persons

eye because they are peculiar to what is going on behind the camera and what is causing that

certain reflection or shadow.

The first picture that will be described is called Circus in Budapest, 1920. In all honesty,

it is a strange picture, yet it is very intriguing. The cause of this image was because of the

influence of his own nationality and family. The message Kertsz is trying to send is depicting

the way relationships work in a middle class Jewish Hungarian family. (Britannica) it is simply

two people within a family peeking through the cracks to get a look at the action that is

happening inside. He illustrates this idea by using a simple background, but having two main

objects within the picture. He also uses line as a composition on the background. This image can

influence my own work in a variety of ways. One way is giving me the idea of capturing my own

family pursuing our own traditions. The photograph makes me think about the way modern day

relationships work within a family, but in America.

 The second image that is being described is Mondrians Glasses and Pipe, 1926. This

picture is different because of how simple it is, yet there is a lot of meaning behind it. In Kertsz

illustrated press market, he had taken a variety of photographs on postcard stock. He would crop

it in certain ways so it would be characterized as physical, printed objects. (Atget Photography)

Kertsz had sent his message across in a very prestige way. He started his own little revolution of

using the postcard stock in a series of his photographs. He had somehow managed to use such

simple things in his photograph, but made it have a lot of meaning behind it. He used

composition techniques such as simplicity and negative spacing. The image influences my work

because it makes me wonder how something can be so simple, but have a positive affect and

make the main object pop.

 The third image shown is called the Satiric Dancer, 1926. This photograph shows a

woman impersonating the object to the left of her. The photo is different from the first two

because it is a little more scandalous and it has a different style to it. The message that Kertsz

was trying to send was to capture people in motion. The photographer portrays the message well,

but it could have been better by showing a little more motion by maybe blurring it a little. It

influences my work by showing that my own motion pictures could be captured in a better way.
 The fourth image shown is called Greenwich Village, New York (Woman reading in fire

escape window), 1963. In this image, a woman is just reading in her free time in the fire escape

of her building. The image could influence literature because he is basically promoting reading

by showing her sitting comfortably doing it. There is rhythm within this photograph because of

the bricks and the bars of the balcony. They give a good frame of what is going on inside of the

window. The message Kertsz is trying to send is that he wanted to get a lot of detail in this

photo. He did a great job with this because it is so much more than his other images, which are

very simple. It makes me want to capture a lot of detail within my own photographs.

Kertsz used many different techniques in his photography career and showed his pure

talent. His family, nationality, and his creative mind is what influenced his images the most.

Kertsz wanted to show that he had a wide variety of talent throughout the photography business,

showing some images as so simple and others with concrete detail. Seeing his work had
influenced my vision on photography and surely made me want to be better. Andr Kertsz had

showed that you can be different types of great and that if you keep an open mind and have

different varieties, then you will succeed in whatever your heart wants to do.
 Works Cited

Albers, Patricia. "Andre Kertesz." Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc., n.d.

Web. 17 May 2017.

"Andr Kertsz (American, Born Hungary, 1894 - 1985) (Getty Museum)." The J. Paul Getty in

Los Angeles. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017.

"Andre Kertesz." Atget Photography. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017.,