Visual:

At a first glance, we can see Krupp at the very front looking at us, he is clearly the main subject of the photo being the very first thing we notice. Behind him, seems to be some sort of industrial building and looking closer their are also trains in the background. The blue sparks on the left train, because of the bright lighting, catches your eye and it looks like it’s coming from someone welding the train which implies that this place is supposed to hold, manufacture or repair trains. Some other items are spotted too, like the collection of wheels right behind Krupp and all sorts of bars and tools laying around behind him as well. Notice also how the lighting is only shining on either side of the man’s face from two adjacent lightbulbs above him creating artificial lighting except for the rest of the factory where natural light is shining through, the lightbulbs create contrast on his face as the middle appears darker. Two scratched-up and written on columns are also on both his left and right which can create a way of measuring rule of thirds as it helps separate different sections of the photo and the columns also create a sort of frame inside a frame effect, limiting the view of the rest of the factory. Lines of perspective can also be seen going all the way through the factory to the end wall to show depth of field and how long the building is. The man’s clothes aren’t what you’d expect a factory worker to wear, he is wearing a suit which means he must be the manager of this factory.

Contextual:

This Photograph is of Alfred Krupp and was taken by Arnold Newman in Germany, 1963. Alfred Krupp is a German Industrialist and a Nazi Sympathiser and Arnold Newman is a Jewish Photographer. These two kinds of people have very brutal history together, particularly during World War Two. In the factory you can see trains and railways, which were used mostly to transport captured Jews to the concentration camps during World War Two. Krupp would enslave Jews during WW2 by giving them hard labour until they couldn’t work any longer, rendered useless, he would send them to the concentration camps to be killed. Given this information it gives the photo a sense of unease and gives an idea on what this photo is actually about. Krupp is now seen more as a bad guy, which can be both applied to his actions and serious appearance in the photo.

Technical:

Arnold Newman at first didn’t want to take the photo of Alfred Krupp obviously due to their history together. Arnold said he ‘saw him as the devil’ and that he wanted to ‘put a knife in his back’. When Newman agreed to do the shoot and had Krupp positioned in the factory, he asked him to lean forward so he put his hands together under his chin and leaned in, giving a more serious stare which made him look scarier. Arnold later said that his “hair stood on end” because of this. Arnold also said when he clasped his hands together that “As a Jew, it’s my own little moment of revenge.”, ‘It was my impression of a Nazi who managed to survive despite killing millions of people’.

Conceptual:

The meaning of this image is clearer now, given the info from Newman himself we now understand that he wanted to show how this person got away with doing what he did and the aftermath of World War Two still remains.