I’ve just discovered Ida Wyman’s photography and I am blown away and ashamed that I was such an ignorant in all this time. Ida Wyman is just amazing and the more I look at her photography, the more I get inspired and discover such raw beautiful, annoying and mind-blowing slices of life.
“I want to photo a certain synchrony of heart, eye and brain.”
– Ida Wyman
Born in 1926, she moved to New York when she was just a child and started to photograph her neighborhood, Bronx, while she was a teenager. Shortly afterwards, from 1945 she started to work as a freelance photographer and got her shots published in some of the greatest magazines and publications of that time, like Life or The Saturday Evening Post.
She became known and popular in a field that was exclusively men during that time, but she was so unique and innovative that her photography caught people’s attention and more important, it was very much appreciated so the magazines wanted her work!
Ida photographed what she loved and what inspired her, capturing the essence and glory of every day life with all its beauties, anger, chaos and routine. This famous portrait (in the left) of the Girl with Curlers on the streets of LA became hugely popular! She was one of the pioneers of street style photography, shaping the way we see street style today and the world, being also one of the first women to work in a men’s field.
She was a very successful lifestyle and street style photographer and at some time became even a scientific photographer at Columbia University, but she returned in the 80s to photojournalism. She lived almost all her life in New York but she moved in 2006 in Wisconsin where she happily leaves now. Thank you, Ida, for your inspiration and absolutely amazing street style photography!
