100 Photos by Sam Shaw for Press Freedom, the new book published by Reporters Without Borders, is now available. Sales of the book will help the organization defend journalists around the world who are imprisoned or persecuted, campaign against laws designed to restrict freedom of the press, and provide grants for journalists in need of legal aid or medical support.

The New York photographer Sam Shaw called "the photo that went around the world." One of the most famous images of the twentieth century, showing Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway vent, in a white dress lifted by a gust of wind. An image taken during the filming of The Seven Year Itch, which had come at the invitation of Billy Wilder Shaw. Shaw, a friend of Monroe from filming Viva Zapata, photographed until his death in 1951.

During the 1950s and 1960s, all of Hollywood stars - including Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Marlon Brando, John Cassavetes, Anthony Quinn or Woody Allen-passed through the camera lens of New York photographer. Shaw preferred impromptu snapshots, without makeup or perched, and offered the public an unknown picture of what was happening behind the scenes of Hollywood.

His heirs have given generously 100 of his best photographs for the collection of Reporters Without Borders, "100 photos for press freedom", which now offers a career retrospective of the photographer who helped make legends to the biggest stars in Hollywood .

The album also offers a look of Ed Ou, winner of the Prix Bayeux Calvados War Correspondents 2012 in the category "young photo-journalist," an interview with the young Congolese photographer Baudouin Mouanda, and the testimony of Laurent Van der Stockt of hell lived in the Syrian city of Aleppo, along with the text of the journalist who was with him, Jean-Philippe Remy.

The proceeds from the sale of this collection, with three annual publications since 1992, are used to finance the activities of Reporters Without Borders and account for over 50% of its resources.

100 PHOTOS BY SAM SHAW FOR PRESS FREEDOM
New album on sale, 20 x 26 cm. 144páginas, price of 9.90 €

Reporters Without Borders.  Founded in Montpellier in 1985, Reporters Without Borders is today headquartered in Paris and operates in over 150 countries. Defend press freedom for over 25 years and is an organization which today speak instutuciones governments and worldwide.

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Sam Shaw. (1912-1999), a lifelong New Yorker, was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Shaw is internationally recognized for his photographs of films and movie stars, though his interests and talents covered a wide array of subjects including music, theater, sculpture, painting, literature, journalism, as well as social and political activism. Shaw’s prolific six-decade career is remarkable in its breadth and diversity, and remains a historic record of the twentieth century.

Shaw displayed his artistic talents from an early age— without money for materials, he gathered tar from the streets of New York to make sculptures. Shortly after graduating high school, he shared an art studio with the artist Romare Bearden. Shaw eventually turned towards photography but Bearden and Shaw continued to work together throughout their lives. Many of Shaw’s photographs from films, as well as portraits of jazz and blues musicians appear in Bearden’s collages and murals. The two also collaborated on projects with the jazz and literary critic Albert Murray.

In the 1940s, Shaw worked as a courtroom artist, then as a political and sports cartoonist and art director for The Brooklyn Eagle. His career as a photojournalist began with Colliers magazine, which allowed him to travel throughout the United States documenting the lives of coal miners, sharecroppers, burlesque performers, New Orleans' musicians, civil rights activists, and other everyday people and circumstances. These soulful photographs comprise Shaw's “Americana” collection, images depicting American life in the mid-twentieth century. Shaw was also an early contributor to the prestigious photographic agency Magnum Photos.

In the early 1950s, Shaw began working in the film industry as a special still photographer. He captured countless stars of the cinema, including Woody Allen, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and many more. His photographs appeared often on the cover of LIFE and Look magazines, as well as in Paris Match, L'Europeo, The Daily Mail, Der Stern, Harper's Bazaar, Connaissance des Arts, and others. Shaw preferred to shoot his subjects without set-ups, makeup, or decorations, encouraging them to be spontaneous and improvise— a style that set Shaw’s work apart from the stereotypical Hollywood “glamour” photographs of the day and foreshadowed his later role as an independent filmmaker.

Shaw was also known as a master of publicity for many of the films and stars with whom he worked. In 1951, he photographed Marlon Brando in a ripped t-shirt, a portrait that came to symbolize A Streetcar Named Desire. A few years later, he created the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe with her white skirt blowing over a subway grate in the film The Seven Year Itch. Shaw’s “flying skirt” pictures are some of the most widely seen photographs ever taken.

After years on film sets, Shaw started making films himself in the 1960's. The first film he produced was Paris Blues (1961), starring Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Joanne Woodward, Diahann Carroll and Louis Armstrong. Shaw’s good friend Duke Ellington wrote the score for the film. Shaw also worked closely with acclaimed actor-director John Cassavetes, the father of American independent cinema, as an advisor on Cassavetes’ first film Shadows (1959). Shaw went on to produce many of Cassavetes' films including A Woman Under the Influence (1974), nominated for Best Actress and Best Director at the 1975 Academy Awards, and Gloria (1980), which won the prestigious Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion. In addition, Shaw produced Cassavetes' Husbands (1970), Opening Night (1977), and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) (he later removed his name as Producer), the latter for which he was also the Production Designer. These films, like Shaw's pictures, embraced independence and encouraged spontaneity.

John Cassavetes aptly described his best friend Sam as a “Renaissance Man.” Shaw's true love, however, remained photography. Even as a producer, Shaw remained the special photographer on set, while also helping to create the publicity and advertising campaigns for all the films he produced.

Shaw carried at least two beat-up Nikons around his neck wherever he went; ready to capture anything and anyone that caught his attention in both black and white and color. As a result, Shaw's photographic archive contains a vast array of subject matter from crime photography, sports, landscapes and photojournalism to classic American and European cinema, independent film, and portraiture. The collection includes photos of prominent musicians, artists, intellectuals, and other well-known individuals such as Marc Chagall, Arthur Miller, Marcel Duchamp, Igor Stravinsky, Joe DiMaggio, Irving Berlin, Tennessee Williams, Patti Smith and Deborah Harry of the rock band Blondie.

Today, Sam Shaw's legacy and work is preserved and promoted by his children and grandchildren through Shaw Family Archives.

Act.> 01/01/2013

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Published on: January 3, 2013
Cite: "100 PHOTOS BY SAM SHAW FOR PRESS FREEDOM" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/100-photos-sam-shaw-press-freedom> ISSN 1139-6415
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