Iconic Photographer Irving Penn Passes away at the age of 92

 As a Vogue subscriber since the age of 15, I learned early on, that Irving Penn was not just a photographer. His work truly honored the fashion  he photographed, by creating extremities in mood and tension around a designer's work. His work consistently inspired the fledgling artist in me, and he will be missed!

"Photographer Irving Penn, who died this week at age 92, was a lucky man. His career took off just after World War II, when advertising, publishing and celebrity itself demanded photographs that could convey the message that ever more alluring commodities were being produced for a world growing more remarkable every day.

Penn delighted in the art of illusion, but he let you see what goes on behind the scenes. He used soft light that came in from a skylight, not big hot studio lamps; posed fashion models on planks and ladders; took portraits in spaces that were almost empty, aside from a wall, or a chair, or a hunk of industrial carpet. The trick, if you could call it that, came from his imagination, his subject and the medium of photography itself.

Early on, he worked solely for the printed page, notably Vogue. His photographs created a marvelous world that could be experienced vicariously for the price of a magazine. In that world, he explained, "there is no room for less than perfection. There women do not wrinkle as they age, fruit does not decay, babies do not cry." And his responsibility was to keep that fantasy alive."

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Check out more of his work: Getty Exhibition