William Klein Born on April 19, 1928 in New York

I think I rather like rebels and nonconformist photographers and Klein certainly was one.

“I came from the outside, the rules of photography didn't interest me. There were things you could do with a camera that you couldn't do with any other medium—grain, contrast, blur, cock-eyed framing, eliminating or exaggerating grey tones and so on,” he reflected. “I thought it would be good to show what's possible, to say that this is as valid of a way of using the camera as conventional approaches.”

Klein rebelled agains many of the Street Photography Greats like Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was not averse to using many different focal length lenses although he is known for his up close and in your face photography with a very wide angle lens (21-28mm) that often added distortion to his images. He had the same view as Koudelka when photographing gypsies. Klein wanted to get more into his photos especially in a landscape format. Likewise he is less of a candid photographer than Cartier-Bresson as his subjects certainly get to feel his presence, and his interaction with people is important.

In 1948 Klein moved to Paris and trained at the Sorbonne. He became a painter studying under Fernand Léger. Later he worked as a fashion photographer for Vogue but also became known for his photo essays on various cities, notably New York in the 1950s. He was also very talented in film producing many short and feature length documentaries as well as numerous TV commercials.

He was an untrained photographer and did not have the many preconceptions that a schooled photographer might have had. He just wanted to capture what he found interesting and make a photographic diary. In camera club competitions technical excellence tends to be of utmost importance whereas grain, high-contrast, blur, decomposition, and accidents are often criticised without considering their effect. Just so these “imperfections” were frowned upon by Klein’s contemporaries. However, Klein used such blemishes to his advantage by creating a feeling of energy and vibrance. He liked the experimental and accidental side of photography. Shake and blur are very much part of life and, when incorporated into images, can give a much greater sense of what is going on as was the case in Robert Capa’s photographs of the D-day landings at Omaha beach.

“I have always loved the amateur side of photography, automatic photographs, accidental photographs with uncentered compositions, heads cut off, whatever.”

His book containing his New York photos published in 1956 (“Life is Good for you in New York”) went against the grain and his unconventional type of photography remained unfashionable for much of the 20th century, although now have become largely accepted by contemporary critics. His photographs of New York weren’t beautiful, romantic or charming. A better way of describing them would be gritty, grimy, rugged and raw. They depicted the rough parts of the City that had been neglected by the media in general. They were, as travel photographers like to say, illuminating a sense of place, but not the sense of place that others had in mind. Another aspect to Klein’s photography was that although he photographed what appealed to him, he did not do this in a totally disorganised way. Far from it, he photographed in energetic bursts which were guided by the projects and books that he wanted to publish. In doing so, unlike Eugene Smith, he was able to finish his work quickly and efficiently.

John Heilpern estimated that his:

“four books of photography, on which so much of his reputation is based, took him an average of 3 months each to photograph and several more months to edit and design. (Klein did the design, typography, covers, and texts for all his books.) But little more than four years of his life have actually been spent seriously taking photographs.”

John Heilpern “William Klein: Photographs” 1981 Aperture

An article in Wikipedia sums up Klein’s contribution to photography very succinctly:

‘Klein's work was considered revolutionary for its "ambivalent and ironic approach to the world of fashion", its "uncompromising rejection of the then prevailing rules of photography" and for his extensive use of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, natural lighting and motion blur The New York Times' Katherine Knorr writes that, along with Robert Frank, Klein is considered "among the fathers of street photography, one of those mixed compliments that classifies a man who is hard to classify.’

What Klein loved to do was to really get in the mix of things. He enjoyed the confrontational aspects of photography. He wanted to get into an interesting situation and then maybe look for some goof fortune. Just as he confronted the subjects of his photography so he also confronted the photography establishment. He went against accepted ideas of composition, he often used blurring, grain , and high contrast to great effect.

'“I’d take shots without aiming, just to see what happened. I’d rush into crowds – bang! Bang! I liked the idea of luck and taking a chance, other times I’d frame a composition I saw and plant myself somewhere, longing for some accident to happen…It must be close to what a fighter feels after jabbing and circling and getting hit, when suddenly theres an opening, and bang! Right on the button. It’s a fantastic feeling.”

Klein was not afraid to pose a photograph if he could achieve a certain effect that he was after. Like Eugene Smith, he did not want to follow the rules of others. The ‘Kid with Gun’ photograph illustrates this perfectly. Be tough he asked the kid and so it was that he got his photo. It seems to me that photographers are always selecting their version of reality they want to portray so why not select a reality that is enhanced by staging if it fulfils a purpose.

“In another way, it could be worse—a provocation and a threat. But generally, the people I photographed in New York seemed flattered. If I manipulated them sometimes, they didn’t seem to think they should mind… I think that should be a valid picture. They’re telling us something about themselves.”

Klein justifies his approach versus the candid approach by saying that in the candid approach people can appear ambivalent and often reveal ambiguous expressions whereas prompting a response allows people to express themselves in a more obvious and meaningful way.

“Rather than catching people unaware, they show the face they want to show. Unposed, caught unaware, they might reveal ambiguous expressions, brows creased in vague internal contemplation, illegible, perhaps meaningless. Why not allow the subject the possibility of revealing his attitude toward life, his neighbour, even the photographer? Both ways are valid to me.”

Finally, Klein came to Street Photography with a very different outlook to that of Cartier-Bresson. He didn’t think that a photographer could be totally objective and that therefore engagement was the name of the game:

“According to the Henri Cartier-Bresson scriptures, you’re not to intrude or editorialize, but I don’t see how that’s possible or why it should be. I loved and hated New York. Why shut up about it?”

“I liked Cartier-Bresson’s pictures, but I didn’t like his set of rules. So I reversed them. I thought his view that photography must be objective was nonsense. Because the photographer who pretends he’s wiping all the slates clean in the name of objectivity doesn’t exist.”