Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe was a photographer born in 1946 in a suburb of New York, he was brought up a catholic and at age 16 he left for the Pratt institute, an art college as he craved excitement. Once attending the Pratt institute he discovered both photography and Patti Smith. Patti Smith was only ever a friend as Robert was a homosexual, they met by walking into the wrong room at the Chelsea hotel,. He died from AIDS in 1989. The prime time of Mapplethorpe was the 70's-80's.

Robert was known as Americas most controversial photographer for his sexually explicit pictures of Manhattans homosexuals which shocked many. However, Mapplethorpe was also well known for his pictures of flowers and portraits. His pictures made a very big impression on the art scene. Due to the content of his explicit photographs, Mapplethorpe was accused of being a pornographer, however Mapplethorpe shot homosexuals to express himself as he never cane out due to being catholic. Robert shot a picture of himself with devil horns, there were many interpretations to this picture and whether it was related to the fact that he was gay.

Robert Mapplethorpe was a very confident person and a confident photographer, he would approach the rich and famous and would ask if he could take portraits of them for free, he would then charge them the money for the prints, this is how he built his business.

His first portraits were of friend, Patti Smith, he started his photography with just a Polaroid camera. Taking his photos, he would film, process the film and then take stills from it, in this time there was no digital camera. Mapplethorpe also shot his work symmetrical like catholic composition (the alter), which he thought was just his subconscious. By his working being symmetrical, his work was also precise. In the majority of his photos, Mapplethorpe used black and white.

Mapplethorpe was believed to be ahead of his time, however he photographed the life he lived. He was a very honest photographer and captured what he thought people would want to see. Due to his team growing Mapplethorpe needed money to continue his career so he begun to photograph flowers, he commented that he liked the flowers structure.

There was controversy when Mapplethorpe begun to use black homosexuals in his photographs in a structured manner, due to everyone else being unstructured he was thought to be a racist.

Robert Mapplethorpe didn't set out to make a statement with his photographs, it just grew out of what he did.