VISUAL SIGNATURE

Fred Herzog

  • Photographer who lived in Canada
    (born in Bad Friedrichshall, southern Germany, on September 21, 1930 – came to Vancouver in 1953 – died September 9, 2019)
  • Colour pioneer (known for colours of Vancouver's life in 1950s and '60s)
  • Used Kodachrome film slides
  • Was employed as a medical photographer by day, and on evenings and weekends he took his camera to the streets, documenting daily life as he observed it
  • Focused his camera on storefronts, neon signs, billboards, cafes and crowds of people, he eloquently depicted the architecture of the street as a framework for human interaction, presenting a view of the city that is both critical and elegiac
  • Admired works of Walker Evans, August Sander, Eugène Atget and Robert Frank...
  • Switched to digital photography in his late works

“What’s miraculous about the whole thing is that when I started taking photographs in that style in 1957 — in colour — there was nobody that I could copy. Nobody.”
– Fred Herzog (talking to Georgia Straight in 2011)

Note: Herzog was an earlier pioneer of colour photography than more famous colour photographers like William Eggleston or Stephen Shore.

FredHerzog-Curtains_1972

FredHerzog-two-men-in-fog1958_x1500

FredHerzog-New_Pontiac_1957

“I loved the city for its grittiness. I wasn’t a journalist. I did not have the chance to become that. But I photographed like I was a journalist the scene that was Vancouver.”

FredHerzog-Robson_Street_1957

FredHerzog-HastingsAndColumbiaStreet1958

“In those days we were convivial. That means we can live together. That has gone away. We are no longer convivial. We’re ‘You’re better than me,’ and ‘I’m better than him,’ and ‘I’m going to kick butt on him.'”

FredHerzog-Vancouver-Pender1958

FredHerzog-HubAndLux1958

FredHerzog-BarberShop

FredHerzog-ElysiumCleaners1958_x1500

FredHerzog-Sign_of_Good_Taste_1959

FredHerzog-URNext1959

“That was the best barber shop of all times. It was also the first [photo I took]. I couldn’t improve on it. Look at this, it’s almost like a Hollywood movie set, it’s beyond belief.”

FredHerzog-ParisCafe1959

“The thing that street photographers hope to discover has to do with the disorderly vitality of the street; the street people on the corners and plazas, in billiard parlours, pubs and stores, where shoppers, voyeurs and loiterers feel at home.”

FredHerzog-Magazine_Man_1959

fredherzog-HotelGranvilleStreetAtNight1959

FredHerzog-Granville-Robson1959

FredHerzog-Granville-Smythe1959

FredHerzog-ManInBlackHat1959

FredHerzog-Granville-Street-Bridge_x1500

FredHerzog-AlexanderStreet1959

FredHerzog-FamilyOnLawn1959

FredHerzog-Reader_Spruce_1959

FredHerzog-Vancouver1959

FredHerzog-OldManMain1959

FredHerzog-WildAnimal1960

FredHerzog-ArthurMurray1960

FredHerzog-HoweAndNelson1960

FredHerzog-GrantvilleStreet1960

FredHerzog-Carnival1960

FredHerzog-CafeMain1960

FredHerzog-BognersGrocery1960

“The neon signs and the soft drink signs, the cigarette ads and the billboards and the posters and the grafitti and collages of torn-off posters, all that contributes to make the city a place where art actually happens.”
– Fred Herzog

FredHerzog-Squatter-RailroadTracks1961

FredHerzog-SecondHandShopCordova1961

FredHerzog-NewspaperReaders1961

“When people see you, the picture’s gone for good,”

FredHerzog-Chinatown1961

FredHerzog-Jackpot1961

“The jackpot is for 25 cents. Look at the size of the coin. You’d think she had won 250 grand. But there’s five cents, and there’s five cents and there’s 10 cents. It’s not big money.”

FredHerzog-Diefenbaker1962

FredHerzog-Red_Stockings_1961_x1500

FredHerzog-9

FredHerzog-1961

FredHerzog-BoysonShed1962_x1500

FredHerzog-BargainShop1962-1

FredHerzog-Bookshop1963

“I loved the docks, the airport, the street, the people,”

FredHerzog-BoatSorapers1964

FredHerzog-NewWorldConfectionery1965

FredHerzog-MexicoCityShoeShine1963

FredHerzog-Commercial_Hotel_1966

FredHerzog-EmptyBarber-Shop1966_x1500

FredHerzog-Barbershop1967

FredHerzog-Victoria1967

FredHerzog-LucyGeorgia1968

FredHerzog-Side_Road_Curacao_1967

FredHerzog-Family1967

FredHerzog-HastngsAndCarrall1968

“Signs in this context expressed the vitality of a city. You notice that now the city has no signs, the vitality is no longer visible"

FredHerzog-ManWithBandage1968_x1500

“Timing in photography is almost everything. You have to pay attention to where the light comes from, you have to pay attention to your background.”

FredHerzog-san-francisco

FredHerzog-Arcade1968

FredHerzog-foot-of-main-1968

FredHerzog-BoysWrestling1969

FredHerzog-MamsShoes1969

FredHerzog-Airshow1968

FredHerzog-TwoWhiteCarsQuebecCity1969

FredHerzog-GirlOnSteps1969

FredHerzog-MartinLutherKing1970

FredHerzog-OrangeCarsPowell1973

FredHerzog-Lady_in_Red_1975

FredHerzog-LakeLouise1975

FredHerzog-RoomingHouse1975

FredHerzog-StylingBarberShop1976

FredHerzog-PinkDoorKansasCity1979

FredHerzog-DressInWindow1986

FredHerzog-Crossing_Powell_2-1984

Fred-Herzog-crossing-powell-1984-equinox

FredHerzog-Go1985

FredHerzog-CPRPierAndMarineBuilding1953

That’s a treasure now, to see a picture like that. Not to have the damn thing around and catch mice at night, but to have a picture of that, because that is how the city looked in those days."

FredHerzog-HerzogFish

“New, clean, safe and honest neighborhoods do not give rise to interesting pictures”

FredHerzog-Two-Boys-1960

FredHerzog-CanadaDry1966

“I was aware I was taking art. That’s the conceit of young people. I knew that what I am doing is not only unique, but that someday I’m going to unpack that and shock people with it. And that was 50 years ago. It’s sort of a fairy tale story, but that’s exactly how it’s beginning to play out.”

FredHerzog-CPRTrack1971

“Isn’t that lovely, the train coming, the car crossing just in time. I knew two people who died [in train/car crashes], two good acquaintances of mine, one a friend. I was in the fire department [in Germany] and our fire chief got killed just like that. Not in Vancouver, in my hometown in Germany."

FredHerzog-White-Ship1967

FredHerzog-HotelGuatemala1964

FredHerzog-MexicoCityChev

FredHerzog-8

FredHerzog-VacuumCleaner1990

“I have 80,000 slides. I don’t have them all anymore. Furthermore many of these slides don’t play in this kind of thing. They were done for very different reasons. I’ve got lots of pictures of motorcycle races and of butterflies and God knows what else. I’ve made 28,000 negatives. I counted them, I figured it out, per page of 36 exposures."


FredHerzog-Self-Portrait1959

"There is a saying about seeing: Only a few people can see but most people don’t even look. And that says a lot to me. You can only see if you have something in your mind to bring to the picture. The camera is just the least important adjunct to your ideas. Your observations are important because they’re you."
— Fred Herzog


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"Fred Herzog" by David Campany

FredHerzog

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