Bill Owens is born in 1938 and is originally from San Jose, California. He graduated from high school in Industrial Arts and spent the following two years in India and Jamaica. This is when he began to establish his social photography background. In 1967, he began to work with a variety of newspapers in his local area. After finishing up his first photography project that was dedicated to the culture of California in 1968, he started his most popular series ever. Bill Owens is best known for his series Suburbia. All of the images in this blog post are from that series. The Suburbia book was originally published in 1973 and has had multiple reprints since that time with more than 50,000 copies sold. He has lived as a professional photography since the 70's and is currently working on a photography journey called 115 Days Across America.
Bill's work surrounds social and culturally interests. He was raised in California and dedicated his most popular series on people of the suburbs of California. Most of his images are portraits but it does also capture shots that relate to his overall work. His subjects are staged but in their own environments. He uses his subjects to help tell his story and wants that story to be genuine. Although he has since moved into digital and color, this work is mostly in black and white and was all done with film. He is actually keen of selfies these days.
I've known about Bill's work for years. When I think of social and cultural photography, he is the first that comes to mind. I found his Suburbia series when I first started to explore photography so it holds an important place in my heart. I'm drawn into how he displays his subjects to tell their story. He isn't afraid to show to show discomfort and stereotypes. I actually think he prefers it that way; it makes for a better photo overall. I'm also drawn into how he frames his subjects. In many of his images, his subjects have been framed without in the shot and it immediately draws you into the subject matter.
It's so cool that you posted this this week - I was trying to remember this series in class on Wednesday! I remember seeing some of these photographs in a sociology text talking about suburban life (way back when I was an undergraduate the first time around), and being really pissed off because he seemed to be mocking it. I grew up in suburban California not far from where he took these photos, so I didn't like feeling like a way of life I valued was being made fun of. Anyway, being older and wiser, I can appreciate the photos much more know, although I'm still not sure about the extent to which he is seeing only the surface of the life he is photographing. But he is amazing.
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