Irving Penn, phenomenal photographer and utter legend passed away yesterday aged 92.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Irving Penn, whose photographs revealed a taste for
stark simplicity whether he was shooting celebrity portraits, fashion,
still life or remote places of the world, died Wednesday at his
Manhattan home. He was 92.

The death was announced by his photo assistant, Roger Krueger.

Penn,
who constantly explored the photographic medium and its boundaries,
typically preferred to isolate his subjects — from fashion models to
Aborigine tribesmen — from their natural settings to photograph them in
a studio against a stark background. He believed the studio could most
closely capture their true natures.

Between 1964 and 1971, he completed seven such projects, his subjects ranging from New Guinea mud men to San Francisco hippies.

Penn
also had a fascination with still life and produced a dramatic range of
images that challenged the traditional idea of beauty, giving dignity
to such subjects as cigarette butts, decaying fruit and discarded
clothing.

A 1977 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented
prints of trash rescued from Manhattan streets and photographed,
lovingly, against plain backgrounds.

Penn's most recent work was a series of still-life photos made of ceramics that he and his wife had collected in Europe.

By Kelsi Smith