Mini-Portfolio: Ben Rosengart's Family Pictures

I spend too much time looking at awful snapshots and "test shots," and it's a nice antidote to occasionally come across sets of pictures that are straightforward and joyful and well seen.

Ben Rosengart is a regular here, and a regular commenter as well, whose comments I sometimes feature. Born in New York City in 1978, he says he "followed his youthful love of science fiction straight into a career in computing," which explains his sig line:

2.3.2 418 I'm a teapot
Any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot should result in the error code "418 I'm a teapot." The resulting entity body MAY be short and stout.

He's good with kids. Ben and his sweetheart, now wife, relocated to the Bay area in 2007, where they're raising a son. Take lots now, Ben, because by the time he's 12 he'll stop cooperating.

His pictures (we're aware that we're looking at personal documentation, of real lives) are simple and unpretentious, without trying too hard to be arty or edgy or fashionable, but you believe the moments and the expressions.

This fits our recent "quiet color" theme, doesn't it? Ben's pictures are pretty remarkable in their quietude, actually. He doesn't hit any of the sliders very hard.

You should never mix color with black-and-white, but he does, so I will too.

These pics look better on Flickr, bigger.

I can't stop to present on the site samples from every reader's portfolio I visit, but it's an important part of my day, part of what I get back from doing this.

Ben Rosengart (photo by Oliver Rosengart)

Stop by and take a look at more of Ben's work, if this quiet and real style of photography appeals to you.

Mike
(Thanks to Ben)

Photographs ©2013 by Ben Rosengart, all rights reserved

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ben Rosengart: "Thank you, Mike. Your criticism on this site has influenced my work, helping me feel comfortable shooting what I shoot, without trying too hard to emulate my heroes."

Mike replies: Never meet your heroes—and never emulate them, either. You should see what happens when I try to take Koudelkas and Friedlanders. It is not pretty.  :-)

Steve J: "Back when I was just beginning photography, I went through numerous related magazines, especially as I had easy access to U.S., U.K., and Australian editions. One of the greatest lessons I learned from this early instruction (aside from the utmost importance of preternatural sharpness) came from an issue that featured a photographer's family photos. Names of the photographer and magazine unfortunately forgotten, and the photographer did not have a website at the time. Nevertheless, I still clearly remember some of the amazing photos he took of his kids (and I ain't one to like children that much). Anyway, the lesson learned: Great photography is great photography; the subject matter can be anything."

Comments

[Øyvind Hansen]

These are some really uplifting photos. Real life beautifully presented, no artifice. This is the kind of look I try to achieve in my own photography, but Ben pulls it off way better than me.

[rnewman]

"You should never mix color with black-and-white"??!!!??!?
And why not?? properly done, it can provide an emphasis, or a change of perception, which can really up impact.

[Peter]

Some lovely pictures, with a very serene feel to them. Makes me wish that I had taken more of my kids. Hope none of them end up being ripped off for some obnoxious ad campaign.

[Roger Bradbury]

I've already seen his photos, from his link on the David Hufford item. I am usually not too interested in other people's pictures of their child, but I found that these were well worth looking through.

[Eli Burakian]

We're seven weeks out from our due date for our first kid, and needless to say, having a child is not one of the things that I've ever wanted. Seeing these photos (on his flickr feed) as well as other photos from dads and moms, (when done well, which is not often) is probably the factor that is aiding most in my acceptance of and excitement for becoming a dad.

Oh, and why shouldn't we mix black and white and color?

[Kevin Purcell]

For those that don't recognize it as an error message (it's a 4xx number like 404) is described in RFC 2324 ("Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol").

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text_Coffee_Pot_Control_Protocol

Released April 1, 1998. :-)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Hey, nice going, Ben!

[Mike]

Good stuff Ben, and thanks Mike. What it's all about really.

Mike

[Moose]

Nice stuff, Ben! Way too much to look at at once. Greetings from a sort of neighbor. I'm a life long Berzerkely resident who raised my boys here.

"You should never mix color with black-and-white, but he does, so I will too."

Also a bi-coastal mix, as you've followed a color shot in Berkeley with a B&W one on the Brooklyn riverfront. Looks like just upriver from the footings of the Brooklyn Bridge, near DUMBO.

If you get homesick, here's my photo essay Three Days in Brooklyn.

Moose

[Sven W]

"You should never mix color with black-and-white"

... I think Mike has lots of rules around B&W ;-)

In this case it works well ... it must be the contrasty B&W amongst some quiet colour photographs. I'm sure a low contrast B&W amongst over-saturated colour would stick out.

[jean-louis salvignol]

Totally OT: Is Ben Rosengart aware that Rosengart was an automobile manufacturer in France?

A charming example =

http://gazoline.net/article2.php?id_article=1209

The history of the brand =

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosengart

Lucien Rosengart =

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Rosengart

Cheers

JLS

[Mark St. John]

How refreshing!

Among what I learned from Ben is to not delete all those emotionally great shots just because they might be a bit out of focus or blurry (or otherwise technically imperfect).

[Ben Rosengart]

Hi Moose! I moved to SF this year to be closer to my job, but I miss Berkeley and still visit often. And yeah, I'm from NYC. That photo is from my sister-in-law's wedding, which she held in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Hi Jean-Louis — yup, I know about Rosengart cars — as far as I know, we're not related, though.