Biography of Harry Callahan

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I personally don’t like writing biographies– much of this section is heavily

borrowed/copied/paraphrased from the Harry Callahan book introduction. But here we go:

To get to know the life of Harry Callahan, we need to realize that he had a prolific working life as a
photographer (he lived from 1912–1999) and was definitely one of the pioneers of the 20th
century American school of photography. He had an outstanding 38 exhibitions at the New York
Museum of Modern Art from 1956–1997. The great curator John Szarkowski also curated Harry’s
retrospective in 1976 called “Callahan”. Also in 1978, Harry Callahan was the first photographer to
represent the United States at the Venice Biennial, which he did with painter Richard Diebenkorn.

Harry also traveled a lot during his life as a photographer. In the states, he took a lot of photos in
Detroit, Chicago, Providence, Atlanta, and New York. Internationally he went on trips to France,
Italy, Morocco, Portugal, and Ireland.

In terms of his own photography, he saw himself as an “art photographer” and the main themes of
his photography included nature, his wife Eleanor (and daughter Barbara), and the city streets.

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How did Harry make a living? Well, he started off making a living teaching photography, starting in
1946 when he was hired to teach at the Department of Photography at the Institute of Design in
Chicago. In 1961, he was asked to establish and head the Department of Photography at the
Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Although he enjoyed teaching, he enjoyed
photographing more.

When his photos started to sell in the mid–1970’s, he contemplated retiring so he could devote his
entire life to traveling and making pictures. His dream was fulfilled in 1978, and he soon quit
making black and white photos and explored color photography. During this period, he made lots
of rips to Japan, China, Mexico, and Ireland and he made thousands of Kodachrome transparencies
of all these trips.
How did Harry Callahan get started in photography?

So in the previous section we got a quick look into his life as a photographer– but let’s get more
into the nitty gritty of how he first picked up a camera and got started in it.

On picking up his first camera

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In 1938 a cousin of his wife Eleanor inspired Harry Callahan to buy his own camera. Harry shares
the story below:

“He showed me this thing and it looked just like a jewel. That’s what started me— that nice piece
of machinery.”

Harry was fascinated by the camera, and he was 26 and an office clerk in the Chrysler Motors mail-
order department brought himself a Rolleicord 120 that shot 6×6 film. He learned to develop his
film.

On joining the “Chrysler Motors Corporation Camera Club” and the “Detroit Photo Guild”

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Initially started at the Chrysler Motors Corporation Camera Club, an amateur club for practical
tips. He shares his experience:

“I saw that these people were serious about photography– that photography was important.”

Later on, he moved onto the Detroit Camera Club. This club was a different type of beast– they
had a very strict set of rules, manipulated their photos heavily– which turned Harry off:
“They had a fellow, I forget what … I think his name was Fossbender. He came and gave a talk to
the Detroit Camera Club. And he did all kinds of manipulation with paper and paper negative stuff.
And he painted out pictures and painted in things, and stuff like that. And he says, well, “Now you
people, it’s going to take years to ever get to be this good.” And I thought “Oh, God, I don’t want
to go through that.” I wasn’t really nuts about what he was doing anyway, but I was impressed.”

In the Detroit Photo Guild, many of the members imposed their stringent rules on others (based
on the creative traditions of Pictorialism). The rules included the following: they manipulated their
photos strongly, and also had lots of stringent rules on craftsmanship, technique, and laws of
composition.

Furthermore, a lot of members in the club spent a lot of time discussing aesthetic theories that
dated in the late 19th and beginning 20th centuries (which bored Callahan to death).

Harry hated the stringent set of rules that the Detroit Photo Guild imposed. He wanted to be more
spontaneous with his work:

“I made photographs that looked kind of good to me. But I felt kind of frustrated, things seemed
all wrong.”

Turning point: meeting Ansel Adams

Photo by Ansel Adams

Photo by Ansel Adams

In August 1941, Ansel Adams held a lecture at the Detroit Photo Guild, followed by a workshop.
Ansel Adams was opposed to Pictorialism, as he was one of the founding members of the group
f/64 that was established in 1932 that advocated “Straight Photography.” The concept was that
they didn’t want to manipulate their photos, and they wanted to show their photos as “faithfully”
as possible.

This is what Adams said about great photos:

“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the
deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. And
the expression of what one feels should be set forth in terms of simple devotion to the medium.”
Harry shares more in-depth of how Ansel Adams inspired his work:

“[Adams] showed his work and it was all straight photography—sharp and beautiful prints. Seeing
Ansel’s work just completely set me free. I asked him what kind of lenses he used, what kind of
film he used, what kind of paper he used, and what kind of developer he used. I wrote it down and
that was my bible for over a year. The camera was a machine and it could take machine-like
pictures which were very beautiful. It could get such texture— you know, that was just
magnificent to me. I got an 8×10 camera, and just contact-printed my pictures because that was
the sharpest you could get.”

Callahan was fascinated by the sharp and highly-detailed photos (and tonality) so he got a 9x12cm
Linhof Technika bellows camera and traded his enlarger for an 8×10’’ Deardorff large-format
camera. Callahan also quit the Detroit Photo Guild, and decided to meet like-minded amateurs at
Arthur Siegel’s place (where he also benefitted from their large photography library).

Ansel Adams shooting his large-format camera (on top of his car)

Ansel Adams shooting his large-format camera (on top of his car)

Callahan was inspired by Adams’ work and decided that he wanted to become not just a
photographer, but also an artist. Harry Callahan also shares how photography filled a “spiritual
need” deep inside him:

“I was just ready for it. I figured it out on the basis that I had been religious and I didn’t really
believe in religion anymore and I needed to fulfill that spiritual need. Photography did.”

Harry also started off by not caring about what others would think of him and his work. He was
just interested in making great art (which would please him):

“I was off by myself, I think, in those days. I thought, ‘Well, sure, I’ll be like Van Gogh and nobody’d
ever know about me but Id make really great art.’”

As time went on, Harry started to define himself as an artist and found that photography wasn’t
just a hobby anymore– it was something he deeply believed in:
“I found photography as a hobby, and then finally realized that it was something I really believed
in. I had believed in the hope of believing in something, and photography was it.”

To completely dedicate him to photography, he gave up his job at General Motors in 1945 and
along with his wife Eleanor and friend Todd Webb headed to New York for a “personal fellowship”
of several months, which he financed from his own savings.

This is what he thought his photography could do for him— he thought it could express his
“feelings and visual relationship to life within me and about me.”

What kind of photographs excited Harry the most? Well– it were the photographs in which the
photographer would express him/herself faithfully:

“The photographs that excite me are photographs that say something in a new manner; not for
the sake of being different, but ones that are different because the individual is different and the
individual expresses himself.”

Harry shares more of his thoughts on his passion for capturing life in this scholarship he applied at
the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1946):

“My project could only be to photographs as I felt and desired; to regulate a pleasant form of
living: to get up in the morning—free, to feel the trees, the grass, the water, sky or buildings,
people—everything that affect us. This, I know, is not a definite project because life itself is not
definite, but it could be the part of a lifetime project.”

Through Harry Callahan’s entire life (1938–1990’s) you could argue that his photography “project”
was documenting his entire life.

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In 1979 (at the age of 67) Harry wrote about his photographic life (looking back). He wrote the
importance of constantly moving forward and photographing what he found interesting and
important:

“I’ve always liked the idea of the way Walt Whitman wrote his “Leaves of Grass.” He kept working
on it all his life. Basically, he kept most of the same ideas, but he was always throwing out some
parts and putting in some new things. I’m kind of like that. I just keep shooting. Now, of course,
I’m a different person and so I might bring something else to a picture if I attempted the same
subject again, but that doesn’t change the validity of the photographs made in the past.”

And if you were curious about “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman– you can read it below:

“The art of art, the glory of expression is simplicity. The greatest poet has less a marked style and
is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution, and is the free channel
of him. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance or
effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will nothing hang in
the way. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. What I experience or portray shall go from my
composition. You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me.”

Harry Callahan on subject matter

One thing that sets Harry Callahan’s work apart from many other photographers is just how
diverse and multi-faceted his work is. Harry talks more about the variations of subject matter he
photographed below:

“It’s the subject matter that counts. I’m interested in revealing the subject in a new way to
intensify it. A photo is able to capture a moment that people can’t always see.”

Harry continues by sharing the importance of “wanting to see” and being curious:

“Wanting to see more makes you grow as a person and growing makes you want to show more of
life around you.”

Furthermore, he is interested in exploring his subject matter for longer periods of times (often
several years):
“In each exploration or concern for the subject, I continue in the area for a great length of time,
sometimes a couple of years.”

Harry Callahan on creativity and experimentation

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How was Harry Callahan able to stay so inspired, creative, and prolific through his entire life as a
photographer?

On creativity

Well, he first took the long-view in terms of creativity. He didn’t see photography and creativity as
just a short-sprint. He valued the importance of having a long creative life, as he said this in 1957:

“Creativity can only be measured by the value of an individual’s whole photographic life from
beginning to end.”

On experimentation with printing

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When it came to experimentation, Harry Callahan would print his photographs very differently. In
this way, he differed from Ansel Adams who wanted to create “faithful prints of reality.” Harry
wanted to achieve his own inner-vision through his prints.

For example, he liked contrasty prints, as he talks about his photograph “Weeds in Snow, Detroit,
1943”:

“I tried to print them like a so-called “classic” print— tone, texture, all that— and they didn’t look
very good. So after maybe a month I printed them again, and finally I printed them with contrast,
very black and white, which was sort of against what Ansel was talking about.”