The Lens According to Gjon Mili

Tweet

“Time could truly be made to stand still. Texture could be retained despite sudden violent movement.”

Gjon Mili (born 1904, Korça, Albania 1984) was an Albanian-American photographer.

Born to Vasil Mili and Viktori Cekani, came to the United States in 1923. Fifteen years later, he was a photographer for Life (a relationship that continued until his death in 1984), and his assignments took him to the Riviera (Picasso); to Prades, France (Pablo Casals in exile); to Israel (Adolf Eichmann in captivity); to Florence, Athens, Dublin, Berlin, Venice, Rome, and Hollywood to photograph celebrities and artists, sports events, and concerts, and sculptures and architecture.

Trained as an engineer and self-taught in photography, Gjon Mili was the first to use electronic flash and stroboscopic light to create photographs that had more than scientific interest. Since the late 1930s, his pictures of dance, athletics, and musical and theatrical performances have astonished and delighted millions of viewers, revealing the beautiful intricacy and graceful flow of movement too rapid or too complex for the eye to discern. His portraits of artists, musicians, and other notables are less visually spectacular, but equally masterful.

In 1939, Mili became a freelance photographer working for LIFE. In the course of more than four decades, literally thousands of his pictures were published by LIFE as well as other publications.

Gjon Mili is the one photographer who has formed our contemporary visual understanding of movement, both in the direct example of his pictures and in the influence his work has had on all action photographers who have come after him.

His book Photographs and Recollections is a summary of his fifty years of work in photography. -- Wikipedia

50565_Egyptian_Samia_Gamal_1952_

49698_Samia_Gamal_12_122_394lo

49716_Samia_Gamal_06_122_152lo

49718_Samia_Gamal_08_122_165lo

49720_Samia_Gamal_10_122_214lo

50048_Samia_Gamal_sequence_1_

50564_egyptian_samia_gamal_1952_3

50568_Egyptian_Samia_Gamal_1952

49699_Samia_Gamal_01_122_543lo

49709_Samia_Gamal_03_122_370lo

49709_Samia_Gamal_04_122_469lo

49717_Samia_Gamal_07_122_557lo

49721_Samia_Gamal_11.

49715_Samia_Gamal_05_122_339lo

49719_Samia_Gamal_09

50046_Samia_Gamal_sequence_4.

50049_Samia_Gamal_sequence_2.

50049_Samia_Gamal_sequence_3

Gjon Mili. Moira Shearer.

Ballerina Moira Shearer

Ballerina Moira Shearer 1

Ballerina Moira Shearer as Cinderella

Moira Shearer

Gene Kelly by Gjon Mili

Tony & Sally DeMarco, ballroom dance team 1941

Tony & Sally DeMarco

Tony & Sally DeMarco1

Alicia Alonso & Hugh Laing executing a grande jete en avant

Ballet dancer Hugh Laing executing a leap w. legs crossed

Ballet dancer Hugh Laing executing a leap w. legs split

Alicia Alonso & Hugh Laing executing a port de bras

Prima ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white costume

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 3

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 4

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 5

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage7

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 10

Dancer actor Gene Kelly in multiple-exposure dance sequence 1944

Dancer Anita John (front), of Anita John School of Dance, doing an interpretive dance on beach

Kaye Popp & Stanley Catron demonstrating steps of The Lindy Hop.

Figure skater Carol Lynne movements are charted by flashlights imbedded in each boot while stroboscopic light stops her in mid-leap

Figure skater Carol Lynne does an arabesque camel spin illustrated by flashlights imbedded in each boot

Spanish dancer Jose Greco performing

Stroboscopic Dancer

Spanish flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya (R) performing w. her sister Antonia

gjon-mili-spanish-flamenco-dancer-carmen-amaya-performing

Untitled study of nude female dancer

GjonMili 1947

George Balanchine w. dancer Suzanne Farrell

corps de ballet in a performance of the NYCB production of Harlequinade

American Ballet Theater production of The Nutcracker1947

N.Y. Ballet-Tanaquil Leclerc

Dancer Tanaquil LeClercq performing portion of Bouree Fantasque at Gjon Mili's studio.

first image-multi_expo-00

Multiple exposure of Antony Blum and Kay Mazzo.

Allegra Kent & John Prinz in pas de deux.

Multiple exposure of Allegra Kent & Anthony Blum in New York City Ballet production of Dances at a Gathering choreographed by Jerome Robbins.

Multiple exposure of Allegra Kent & Anthony Blum in New York City Ballet production of Dances at a Gathering choreographed by Jerome Robbins 1

 George Balanchine & dancer Suzanne Farrell in costume for the ballet Don Quixote.

Multiple exposure of Kay Mazzo & John Prinz.

Stroboscopic image of dancer Ethel Butler of the Martha Graham Dance Group performing - 1941 (LIFE)

Nureyev in his prime, dancing w. Margot Fonteyn.

Betty Friedman jumping 1937

Marjorie Bell & Loren Hightower in unident. ballet.

Violette Verdy (L) & Roland Petit (R)

Alicia Alonso & Igor Youskevitch 1947

New York City Ballet 1956

Moira Shearer Red Shoes 1948

Triple exposure of ballerina Alicia Markova

ballerina Alicia Markova 1944

Triple exposure of ballerina Alicia Markova of the American Ballet Theater dancing the title role of Giselle

Dancer Angna Enters performing Odalisque, a dance on a couch, in a series of four photographs

Dancer Angna Enters performing Odalisque, a dance on a couch, in a series of four photographs 1

Dancer Angna Enters performing Odalisque, a dance on a couch, in a series of four photographs 2

Dancer Angna Enters performing Odalisque, a dance on a couch, in a series of four photographs 3

Alicia Alonso

Fernando Alonso & Norma Vance in costume for Peter and the Wolf, Gala Performance respectively.

Romeo and Juliet Nora Kaye w. Hugh Laing.

Alicia Alonso, John Kriza, Janet Reed 1940

Dark Elegies 1947 Lucia Chase, John Kriza (R) & unident

Petrouchka Lucia Chase 1943

Violette Verdy (L) & Roland Petit (R) in pas de deux from the Roland Petit Ballet Company production of Ballet du Loup.

Suzanne Farrell in the NYCB production of Tzigane choreographed by George Balanchine

Tony & Sally DeMarco, ballroom dance team 1941

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage.

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 1

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 2

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 6

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 8

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in white tutu dancing alone on stage 9

Spanish dancer Jose Greco

Martha Graham performing her own work.

 *Original post Apr 6, 2011



*I claim no credit for any images featured here.
All images are by LIFE magazine
and photographer Gjon Mili*