Realism assignment
August Sander was a German Photographer who took pictures of the citizens of the Weimar Republic in Inter-war Germany from the artistic, the bohemian elite to the Nazis and those they persecuted. His photography told stories of hyperinflation and political turmoil. People taken away from their families, sent off to countrysides to never see their families again. Sander is most known for his project "The people of the 20th century" , believing that through photography he could reveal the characteristic traits of people.
The picture above is of Zeughaus-street, taken in the 1930's. The social context of this photograph is the build up to World War 2 and the effects of the Great Depression, which left over 6 million Germans unemployed. The picture tells us this, not only by the date of when it was taken, but the lack of people in the picture, creating an allure of questions on where the people who lived on this street went, sent away or met their tragic ends. Or, possibly this was a street where the upper-middle class occupied. The street is vacant of life, gloomy.
Art techniques used in this photograph is the leading lines made by the buildings of the street. causing the viewer to focus of the middle of the picture. We also have a use of rule-of-thirds, which cause the viewer to focus on the people walking on the bottom of the photograph. The photograph was taken in portrait and is a documentary photograph, depicting how the architecture was designed and how the landscape looked in 1930s Germany.
For a modern interpretation of the photograph, I decided to go onto the highest point of the street i live on and took a picture to emulate the elevated point of view, along with the leading lines in the picture to a vanishing point.
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