stern<\/em>, revealing how he made his well-known sitter-with-dog portrait series. <\/strong><\/p>\n\u2018From the kitchen table to the museum\u2019 could describe the trajectory of many highly regarded photographs now exhibited in the art world. By the late 1950s, photojournalism in Germany had become an attractive, even glamorous profession. Insatiable public demand for novelty, for stories from near and far, both everyday and exotic, allowed many photographers to develop an impressive body of work. Stefan Moses was one of them.<\/p>\n
In 1948, Henri Nannen launched the magazine stern<\/em>, where he initially led an editorial team of just four people. At the time, Moses was working as photographer for the National Theatre in Weimar, where he had been hired a year earlier. When it was launched, stern <\/em>had an Allied press licence, a requirement to publish, but little else. The magazine\u2019s photographs were largely taken from the press agencies authorized to operate in Germany. The new crop of German magazines looked to foreign news magazines, especially the American magazine Life<\/em>, as both an inspiration and benchmark. Competition between magazines centred on print and design quality, which could make the difference between success and failure during the reconstruction of the West German media landscape, which had been devastated not just by severe wartime restrictions but also censorship and co-option under the Nazi regime in the few years of \u2018peacetime\u2019 before that. To be a magazine photographer in the early years of new republic was to have a well-paid, prestigious job.<\/p>\nIn 1950, Moses moved to Munich, becoming a freelance photographer for illustrated magazines including Neue Zeitung, Revue, Das Sch\u00f6nste<\/em> and magnum<\/em>. As a profession, magazine photography was relatively open to newcomers, and photographers\u2019 professional networks often overlapped. One of Moses\u2019s Munich neighbours was Herbert List, who made artistic photo-essays for the magazine Kristall<\/em> and also taught Max Scheler, later photographer with stern<\/em>. The 1956 uprising in Hungary became a meeting point for many international photographers: Rolf Gillhausen was in Budapest, covering the events for stern<\/em>, as was Moses, whose work appeared in Neue Revue<\/em> and Quick<\/em>.<\/p>\nCompeting with Television<\/h3>\n
During the 1950s, stern<\/em> became a genuine mass market magazine. It kept up with the times, increasingly looking to photography to help it compete against television. Photographs could serve as visual commentary, but were also a form of narrative in their own right. New technology meant images could be printed to a higher quality. As Nannen put it: \u2018You have to throw money out the window for it come back in through the door.\u2019 With circulation and advertising revenues increasing, stern\u2019s <\/em>founder wanted to attract the best photographers in Germany to the magazine. Moses began working for them in 1961, delivering reports from New York, South America, Israel, and Asia. Travel may have been a professional duty for photographers at the time, but it was a privilege most West Germans did not share \u2013 only 28% of them could afford a holiday in 1960, with just half that figure travelling abroad. Although stern\u2019s<\/em> covers and many advertising images were in colour, most photographs of foreign locations remained in black and white until the late 1960s. Moses had no problem with black and white: \u2018colour drowns you\u2019, he would tell interviewers.<\/p>\nAs his fellow photographers travelled the world, Moses increasingly concentrated on Germany. Stern\u2019s<\/em> photographers all had their own approaches and styles, but human interest <\/em>was their common denominator. Beyond the magazine, their photographs were exhibited at the World Photography Exhibition <\/em>(1964\/68), a collaborative show primarily organized by several museums across West Germany. Illustrated magazines became known for making connections between (ostensibly) private and public life. Themes and photo-series were often \u2018to be continued\u2019: spilling over several editions. Life <\/em>carried double-page spreads featuring Philip Halsmann\u2019s famous \u2018jumps\u2019 (portraits of celebrities in mid-air), as well as the portrait series of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. The photographs reflected their subjects\u2019 personalities, but also the photographer\u2019s authorial concept. As a stern<\/em> photographer, Moses worked on the kind of news reportage that was crucial to the magazine, but increasingly he went further, developing new forms of visual narration. For example, his series \u2018It\u2019s Time to Lift Some Weights\u2019 (22\/1964) showed politicians posing with a wooden dumbbell. The prop lent the portraits an unfamiliarity, spontaneity and humour lacking in typical depictions of politicians, while also highlighting the subjects\u2019 individual personalities. Series like \u2018Neighbours\u2019, \u2018The Germans\u2019 and \u2018The Great Old Ones\u2019 offer sympathetic encounters with sales girls, tradespeople and artists. Later Moses explained his interest in people with a quote from Novalis: \u2018Every human being is a little society\u2019.<\/p>\nPeople and Dogs, Side by Side<\/h3>\n
A good photo is one that does not over-narrate. It tells only a certain part of a bigger story, transporting us and touching us with emotion. It creates a personal bond, as seen in Moses\u2019s smaller series \u2018Celebrities Who Live With Dogs\u2019 (31\/ 1968), in which normally glamorous celebrities are posed outdoors, often sitting on a stool in the street. The double-page spreads radiated curiosity, interest and amused attention, all arranged by the man who called himself \u2013 sometimes even signed himself \u2013 \u2018Tomcat Moses\u2019. The pictures made clear how the mutual fascination of animals and humans can bring out a surprising resemblance between them.<\/p>\n