People who inspired us - Ernst Haas

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When the whole world was living the dream of photography in black and white, only a handful of photographers came out and experimented with the first color film which was introduced in 1949. Ernst has is one among them who introduced the power of color photographs to the world and made it the future of photography.

Ernst is an Austrian born photographer who was born in Vienna in the year 1921. Initially he wanted to be a painter and explorer. His career as a Photographer was an accident. He studied photography in his early 20’s and started taking photographs with his first camera Rolliflex. After the Liberation of Vienna in 1945 Haas taught photography classes organized by the American Red Cross. His photographs featuring the beauty of Vienna were displayed in a Exhibition which attracted Warren Trabant, Editor of the German Magazine Heute. So Warren offered Haas the job of a photographer in his magazine

His first work exploring the life of Austrian prisoners was released in Heute magazine and it was grand success. This success story has got him two prestigious job offers. One was from the world renowned magazine “Life” and another one was from the Magnum photo agency. Since then Haas was a part of Magnum and also continued t work with “Life” under various freelance assignments

In 1949, Haas got a new leica 35mm camera which was very popular camera of all times. He started experimenting with the new Kodak color film “Kodachrome” which was also introduced in the same period . He took a series of color photographs in New York city and published a photo essay in “Life” magazine which was its first full colored photo easy. The Photo essay covered two issues involving 12 photographs in each issue.

One more incredible work for which Haas is remembered even now , is the photo easy named “Beauty in the Brutal art” which was published in  “Life” in 1957. The free lance assignement featured photographs about bull fighting in Spain. The uniqueness of the photographs are , that they were taken using long exposures, which created a new way of capturing and interpreting motion.

In 1962 , The museseum of modern art , New York honored Haas by organizing an exhibition which completely featured the work of Haas. It was also the first color photo exhibition in Moma’s history.

In 1971 , he published a book titled “The Creation”. It featured pictures of the natural world from many countries which took several years for Haas to photograph. The book had a record breaking sales of 350000 copies. He also published many other works like “The Himalayan pilgrimage” , “Heaven’s Gate” etc.

Ernst has died at the age of 65 due to stroke. His death has shocked the entire photographic industry. But still he’s considered as one of the important photographers who brought out a lot of innovations into color photographs.