Andrea Rodriguez

2nd period
October 8, 2018
Ms. Martinez

Aaron Siskind
“photography is a way of feeling, of loving, what you have caught of film is captured
forever… It remembers little things long after you have forgotten everything” – Aaron
Siskind
Aaron Siskind was born in New York City, NY on December 4, 1903. His parents were Russian
Jewish immigrants and he was the youngest of five siblings. He was interested in literature and
poetry as a child, everyone thought that he would become a writer when he got older, although
that wasn’t the case. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and entered the College of
the City of New York, where he acquired his bachelor’s of Social Science degree on Literature in
1926. Right after that Siskind started teaching English, for about 20 something years, and began
photography in 1932. One of his firs woks as a photographer was to make a documentary about
the Great Depression, so he created “Dead End: The Bowery and Harlem Document,” where he
photographed neighborhoods of Harlem during the Depression that showed the concern for
pure design as for the plight of his subjects. He became the first photographer to combine real
world and abstract, yet other photographers didn’t accept his abstract work at first. In 1950 he
wrote “Credo” as an artist’s statement for the symposium, “What is Modern Photography?.”
Some of Siskind’s accomplishments were: In 1969, he was named Bingham Distinguished
Professor in Humanities at the University of Louisville, in 1971 he received a degree of Honorary
Doctor of the Arts at Colombia College in Chicago, In 1976 he was awarded the National
Endowment doe the Arts Grants for Visual Arts in Photography, and also the Philadelphia
College of Art Gold Star of Merit Awards, and the Rhode Island Governor’s Prize for the Arts.
Today he is remember for creating a way of communicating ideas, feelings, perspectives on life
and history though abstract photography.
Andrea Rodriguez
2nd period
October 8, 2018
Ms. Martinez

I chose this picture because it was

from the first ones that he took for
his documentary of Harlem during
the Great Depression

I chose this picture because you can

appreciate the deterioration of the
walls, that have been given little to no
care at all.

I chose this picture because you

can see every detail in that
building even through the harsh
back and whites of it.