The Mentor Project - Minor White

 Minor White was an American photographer, poet and educator. He is a master of textural photography, a style that captures seemingly ordinary images that hold deeper meaning. Minor White was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1908. He attended the university of Minnesota for Botany, and worked various jobs before he concentrated on photography; working as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration in Oregon from 1938 to 1939. White believed that taking and examining photos had a spiritual purpose, and many of his photographs reflect these beliefs, many possess meaning of Roman Catholicism and Zen Buddhism.

  He served in the Second World War as an infantry man, from 1942 until 1945. Following the war he focused entirely on photography, He attended the University of Columbia until he was recognized by the California school of fine arts, and he worked as an assistant to Ansel Adams. White displayed his great potential and with this opportunity he cofounded the magazine ‘Aperture’ with Ansel Adams. White eventually became the Director of the California School of Fine Arts, and later taught at the Rochester Institute of Photography as well as the Massachusetts Institute of technology.White spent many years as a professor of photography, and his style was much sought after. 

  I find Minor White’s work so intriguing because of his ability to portray a seemingly mundane image, with a great deal of deeper meaning. Much of White’s work does not possess standard focal points to draw the viewer’s attention, and often forces the viewer to focus on obscure forms that cannot be categorized. Despite the obscurity of the images he captured, they illustrate masterful tonal ranges; much of his work displays deep tonal blacks as well as contrasting bright whites.