Photographer's Research - Alfred Cheney Johnston

Alfred Cheney Johnston was a New York based photographer who lived from the years 1885 - 1971. The work that Johnston was most well known for was his portraits of the Ziegfeld Follies - a group of showgirls who were active in New York from the years 1907 - 1931. Johnston worked with the Follies for around 15 years, whilst maintaining his own successful photo studios around New York City. From then on, he carried on photographing showgirls as well as actors, actresses and products for retail commercials.

This image shows one of the showgirls sitting in front of a black background, holding some flowers. This could signal that it was after a show as she could have collected these flowers whilst on stage. There is strong contrast between the woman and the background as her skin appears very pale against the dark background, which creates an intriguing look and is very aesthetically pleasing.

Again, there is an extremely strong contrast in this image between the pale woman and the black background. This appears to be a common trend with Johnston's work as it helps to make the woman pop in the frame and really helps to keep all attention on her. The fact that she has a sheer back skirt on her bottom half could be a way to keep the focal point as her waist and up, as this is the part of her that stands out the most.

The woman in this photograph is smoking a cigarette, which helps us get an insight into how times have changed in regards to how people view smoking. As this was taken in a studio, this would have been inside and so the woman is smoking inside, which is now illegal in many countries. Not only this, but she is portrayed to be quite glamorous, and so the addition of smoking a cigarette would have possibly, at the time, been quite a glamorous thing to do.

This image shows a younger woman, looking away from the camera whilst she hides her chest with her hand. This could suggest that the woman is shy or perhaps uncomfortable in front of the camera as she will not look at it and is covering herself up. There is high contrast between herself and the black background which, again, helps make her pop in the image.