by donalfall

Created on: September 07, 2007   Last Updated: July 26, 2010

Nan Goldin ( 1953 - present ) is a contemporary American fine-art and documentary photographer, and indeed is one of the leading contemporary photographers to have successfully combined the two genres. She is often compared to Diane Arbus ( 1923 - 1971 ) and can be seen to have influenced the styles of a diverse range of contemporary photographers, such as Nobuyoshi Araki ( 1940 - present ) and Larry Clarke ( 1943 - present ). Goldin is credited with the creation of "Heroin Chic" and was blamed for its prevalence in the fashion industry by then-President elect Bill Clinton. She was also a pioneer in gaining acceptance for the use of color film in the Fine Art photography world, although it has been variously claimed that this was as a result of accidentally using a roll of color film rather than the Black and White more common to the field, or that she couldn't afford the use of a developing room at some early points in her career.

The focus of her early work is a documentation and reinterpretation of intimate moments between members of her friends and those she has chosen as her surrogate "family", as well as self portraits of key moments in her life. Her early style follows the contemporary American trend of the snapshot aesthetic - quick, almost unposed photographs taken in available light. Her more recent, later works have become more impersonal and have included land and sea- scapes as well as children and childhood and seem to be following more general themes of innocence and tranquility, rather than the earlier, more claustrophobic subject matter. The style in these works is more formal and composed, which may be a conscious decision or a reflection of Goldin's mature technical skill with a camera.

Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and was raised in Maryland for much of her early childhood. She ran away from home and was fostered by a variety of families in her teens. Her sister also committed suicide at a very early age, events which set the tone for much of her life and work. During 1968 in Boston, Goldin was introduced to photography at the age of fifteen, and progressed to study and graduate from the Boston Tufts University with a qualification in Fine Arts in the 1977/78 academic year. Before she had ever graduated she was presenting solo shows, based on her photography of the transvestite and drag queen communities of Boston. Her early shows tended to be in the format of a slide-show, and screened in the fashion of a movie. Goldin's early work,

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