Dirty, gritty, scary

My little sister asked me to help her find a famous photographer that she could do a project on for her Media class. I don't know very many photographers, and was having trouble thinking of one off the top of my head. But then I recalled reading a post on the Selvedge Yard about William Gedney. We looked through a lot of his photos, and the first thing she said about his work was that alot of the images were scary looking. That's precisely the feeling that Gedney attempted to portray in his work. He produced images that were haunting with truth surrounding the lives of the poor, rebellious and overworked across America from the 1960s until the 1980s. Below are a few of my favourite images I have seen from his collections:





Man with cigarette on motorcycle, San Francisco --taken '66 or '67.



Europe



Boy covered by dirt smoking cigarette with one hand, holding can of tobacco in other. Kentucky, 1964.



Man driving car and drinking can of beer. Kentucky, 1972.

Take a look at more of his photographs here.