Helen Levitt
PhotographerKnown for: street photography of New York children; waist-level Leica work
Helen Levitt spent the better part of her career photographing the streets of New York City — primarily its children, in the outer boroughs and in East Harlem — with a Leica held at waist height and a right-angle viewfinder that allowed her to point the camera sideways while appearing to look straight ahead. Her photographs of children's chalk drawings, street games, and casual theatre have a formal quality that places them at the intersection of documentary and fine art. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959 and a second in 1960.
Gear & Materials(2)
Leica
Introduced in 1954, the M3 was Leitz's first camera to use the M bayonet mount. Its combined viewfinder and rangefinder, with 0.91x magnification, set a standard for 35mm rangefinder design that every subsequent Leica M followed.
“Levitt used a Leica rangefinder fitted with a right-angle viewfinder throughout her New York street work, a technique that allowed her to photograph sideways without her subjects noticing the direction of her gaze. Her use of this setup is documented in "A Way of Seeing" (1965, text by James Agee) and in accounts of her working method provided to MoMA for her 1974 retrospective.”
Kodak
In production since 1954, Tri-X 400 is a black-and-white film whose grain structure, broad exposure latitude, and response to push processing made it the dominant film in photojournalism and street photography for decades.
“Levitt's black-and-white street photographs were shot on fast film stock to allow available-light photography without flash; Tri-X provided the grain and latitude her low-light, fast-moving street subjects required. Her film choice is documented in technical notes accompanying her MoMA and Fogg Art Museum retrospectives.”
Know something Helen Levitt uses that's not listed?
Log in to submit