Gjon Mili
Gjon Mili ( born November 28, 1904 in Korçë, Albania, † 14 February 1984 in Stamford, Connecticut ) was an Albanian- American photographer.
Life and work
Mili was born in 1923 in the United States. He studied electrical engineering degree at MIT ( completion 1927) and worked from 1928 to 1938 as an engineer at Westinghouse Electric ( Lighting Technology ) in Cambridge (Massachusetts ). Photography, he taught himself. From 1939 ( until his death ), he was a freelance photographer for Life Magazine in particular operates. In the same year he moved to New York. Many of his photos were published in Life, and he had in his lifetime several exhibitions in New York. For magazines he photographed, inter alia, Pablo Casals in Prades in exile in France, Pablo Picasso in the South of France ( while drawing with light), Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Jean Paul Sartre and Edith Piaf in Paris, Ireland and its inhabitants. He also photographed Hollywood stars like Paul Newman (and the stills of the film Exodus ), sporting events such as boxing matches of Joe Louis, concerts, dance, theater, opera and musicals, sculptures and architecture (such as in Florence and Venice). The mid-1940s he was assistant to the photographer Edward Weston.
Mili worked with Harold Edgerton of MIT in the 1930s together in the use of very short flash pulses for high -speed imaging. Outside of scientific applications he was a pioneer in the use of electronic flash and stroboscopic light, eg by dancers and sports ("Stop Action " photographs).
In jazz, from 1944 he is for his short film Jammin 'the Blues (Norman Granz was " Technical Director " for Warner Brothers, ) is known, he realized with Norman Granz and in the well-known jazz musicians such as Lester Young, Sweets Edison, Illinois Jacquet, Barney boiler and Jo Jones occur. He himself was not on the camera ( but Robert Burks ), but left his trademark in the techniques used ( multiple images of musicians, lighting the dancer, and others). Together with Granz he also realized the film music Improvisation ( 1950); In 1955, he also filmed Dave Brubeck and his quartet ( Stompin 'for Mili ).
Mili has published several books of his photographs.
Literature (selection )
- Gjon Mili Photographs and Recollections, New York Graphics Society, Boston, 1980, ISBN 0-8212-1116-1
- Gjon Mili Homage to Picasso 1967
- Gjon Mili The Magic of the Opera 1960