USA - Friedlander style

Lee Friedlander’s fascination with the American landscape and his photographic reactions to everyday life is the stuff of legend. His pictures, often filled with meaningless moments from the street, of passers-by, shop fronts, advertisements and social gatherings all appear as little more than snapshots of contemporary American life. The pictures could be understood as nothing more than a record of the mundane and the commonplace but this was very much Friedlander’s style, he had a beautifully strange sense of composition. Sort of, USA - Friedlander style.

I first discovered his work through a book called The New Cars 1964.
Now, long out of print, I remember finding a copy in a local library and was immediately drawn to the pictures of automobiles brought together in multifaceted angles and views. There was a real visual language here
that I didn’t really understand but that fascinated me and I felt that I could somehow learn from.

Friedlander, was hired by the art directors at Harper’s Bazaar in 1964 to photograph the new car models that were to appear that year. However, in true Friedlander style, he chose to photograph them, not in glamorous locations, but in parking lots, near burger bars and in used-car lots. The pictures and locations look quite natural to the eye and it’s not until you know the backstory that you start to see them in a different light.
However, to me it makes the images even stronger when I learnt that he orchestrated it all, the pictures were set-up, he had the cars delivered to the locations that he wanted to shoot them in. This, to me, proves the brilliance of the man’s mind and his sheer creativity in that he elected to work this way. Friedlander himself said, “I just put the cars out in the world, instead of on a pedestal.” Unfortunately, the editor’s of the magazine were not impressed and they feared that the cars, depicted in this way, would deter advertisers from the magazine and so the pictures were never used.

Looking once again at his pictures, it’s easy to see how people can connect with Friedlander’s work, he gives us simple things but presented in a very personal way. There is so much wit and humour in his photographs and he has an innate way of framing his subjects and his compositions look like the result of many hours of thought and deliberation, when in reality, they are often simply the product of a moment’s inspiration. Friedlander shows the viewer something they already know about but may not be aware of.

His framing techniques are perhaps the most interesting aspect of his photography for me. To some eyes, the habit of using things like poles to obstruct views, would be seen as a basic photographic error. He often used his own shadow and reflection in his pictures and they are like an ever-present intruder. He published a series around them called Self Portrait in 1970, his apparition evident in shop windows, car wing-mirrors and reflective surfaces such as cigarette vending machines. However, he was a self-portrait interrupter and blocked his face out using any means
at his disposal.

Lee Friedlander certainly played a part in redefining the photographic landscape and we get a real sense of the world in which he worked. Revisiting these pictures and particularly those of the automobiles and understanding the important part they played in formulating and establishing him as a photographer, reminds me that developing a style and adding a definite personality to our pictures, can ultimately make us better photographers.

You can see more of Lee Friedlander’s work in my video Top tips: how to use cars in street photography on YouTube.

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