Rest In Peace William Klein (April 19, 1926 – September 10, 2022). Truly one of the greats, he revolutionized street and fashion photography through his dynamic eye and energetic compositions. While focusing on a career as an abstract painter in Paris in the early 1950s, he began to experiment with photography in the form of photograms; abstract experiments with light, colour and form that mimicked the way he applied paint to canvas. At first Klein's photos reflected his training—in April 1954, Vogue wrote of him as a young painter "who—using photography to record and interpret reality—turns reality itself into abstraction." Taking this highly personal vision to the outside world, Klein's street photos and fashion photos (starting in 1955 for Vogue) celebrate reality, in all its hecticness and high energy; when I was an undergraduate in photo, his city books ('New York' 1956, 'Rome' 1959, 'Moscow' 1964, and 'Tokyo' 1964) shifted the way I saw the world around me. He legendarily took fashion models out of the studio and into the streets—beacons of elegance amidst the hectic blur of city life—yet even his studio work is irreverent and highly personal. More than anything, I love his movies and documentaries but more on that tomorrow. For now, some of my favourite of his lesser-seen Vogue photos. 💔💔💔 #williamklein #fashionphotography #fashionhistory #photographyhistory