Gordon+Parks

Gordon Parks

Have you ever gone to the movies and the movie is so good that you want to see more movie that director made? Well that was sort of what Gordon Parks must have felt like. He was the first African American (film) director to direct a movie for a major studio (Warner Brothers). The movie he directed was called the “The Learning Tree” the movie got four and a half stars. He also directed “Shaft” and “Shafts Big Score”. Gordon Parks not only did movies but he also took pictures. He took pictures for Time Life Magazine which was a really big deal back in (1948-1972) because it was a really famous magazine and still is a famous magazine.He was Life's only black phtographer.He also took pictures for other things to he did a lot of portraits but his best known photograph was called the “American Gothic”. As a child Gordon Parks many issues, he faced poverty as a child, and prejudice, when he was a teenager his mother died. He was the youngest of 15 children so his mother’s death was really hard for him. When his mother died he dropped out of high school. He took on odd jobs like being a waiter and a pianist. When he finally got his first paycheck the first thing he did was buy him self a camera. He eventually stated taking pictures for Time Life Magazine and from there he did “The Learning Tree” which is a book and a movie. He won many awards which are as follow  §  Julius Rosenwald Fellowship, 1941  §  Notable Book Award  §  Emmy award for documentary (Diary of a Harlem Family) 1968  §  Spingam award, 1972  §  Christopher award for Flavio, 1988  §  National Medal of the Arts, 1988  §  He was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, 200

Sources are : www.imdb.com/name/nm0662953/ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/arts/design/08parks.html [|www.time.com/photoessays/2006/gordon_parks/] [|www.gale.cenage.com/free_resources/bhm_bio/parks_g.htm]

He took pictures for 20 years, but, also he was a composer. He also helped raise money for a luiitle boy in Brazil named Flavio da Silva by taking phots with Life. Some people say that he might have been the best photgrapher of all time. The thing that most impresses me about Gordon Parks is that he did not give up when his mother died, well he did quit high-school but he still made it and he was a very well known man, the one thing I think he could have donr better is he could have stayed in high-school he might have been even more succesfull.