Rene Burri

Burri is a Swiss photographer born 1933, died 2014. During his career he travelled extensively throughout Europe,  Middle East and Latin America. Burri became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1959 and helped with the opening of the Magnum Gallery in Paris. He also made films for large charity and nationwide organisations to raise awareness about poverty or hardship.

This is the view from the Azarieh building and it was taken in 1981. when I first saw this image I thought that it was three separate images. It was only later that I realised that it was a window frame through the image. The broken glass on the second bar resembles that of a cliff face. and rocks protruding from the sea; especially with the vertical dirt marks creating texture and a sense of depth. A large aperture has been used to capture the detail of the glass, the buildings and the horizon. I feel that this is very important because of the depth of this image. and how one element like the glass can effect the whole view the audience might have. The image has been taken in colour however all the colours in the image are very dull. I think that this was inescapable because of the cloud cover; as seen in the top half of the image, the clouds look very dense and wide. This would create a soft box effect on the whole scene; this also explains the lack of tonal contrast of shadows. However I think that this is important in this image because it intensifies the power that the black bars and glass has on the image. The landscape image of the apartments is very interesting and displays a great amount of detail; however the darkness of the black just separates the image and draws all the attention of the viewers to it. I really admire the use of dull light to intensify other aspects of the image.

This image was taken in 1959, the year he became a full member of Magnum. The monument in the background is the Kaiser Wilhem Memorial Church in west Berlin, Germany. This image reminds me of styles used by Lee Friedlander and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The use of lines to lead the viewer through the image is incredible. If curves through the image so simply and takes you as the audience through all the main subjects like the church and the subject about to jump. This moment has documented this man about to jump for the next pole. It already looks like his balance is not very good by the fact he is holding onto the column next to him. We don't know what is going to happen to him or what is going to happen to him. The background to this image looks very pale compared to the foreground. this is something that could have been done post production; however I think that there may have been fog; which is more likely. It feels like two images have been made from this one because of the central column being so large and the density of material on each side is very different. I really love this image because of the amount of compositional factors and complexity used to make this image. It almost looks as if it has been staged because Burri would have had to see what the model was going to do and set himself up to make sure all the lines match up. This goes to the extent where the right church tower is almost central to the corners of the scaffolding.