Photography

Diane Arbus
http://www.photogs.com/bwworld/50masterphotogs.html
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/01/theory-where-diane-arbus-went.html

She learned a great deal of her photography skills from her parents. In the 1940's her parents decided to open a commercial photography business. Diane as art director and her father the photographer. They did mainly fashion  photography though they both hated it. In 1956 she quit her family's business,  She began photographing on assignment for magazines such as Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Sunday Times in 1959.Approximately 1962, Arbus switched from a 35mm Nikon camera which produced grainy rectangular images to a twin -lens reflex Rolleiflex camera which produced more detailed square images. She has been noted for those black and white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid... that she would be known simply as 'the photographer of freaks." However, that phrase has been used repeatedly to describe her.

The first thing that really made me stop and look at her work was the fact that she used a sq format. You don't see many people that do that now a days. With doing digital most people just stick to the format that we are use to seeing, rectangle. I also thought that it was interesting that she quit her family business to do her own thing however to me it seems like her work still had a magazine look to it. The above image was done on her own and though it is of a circus performer I can see this being featured in a magazine revolving around tattoos.


Richard Avedon
http://www.designboom.com/history/avedon.html

 In 1940, at age 17, Avedon dropped out of highschool and joined the merchant marine's photographic section, taking personnel identification photos. Later, he went on several missions to photograph shipwrecks. Upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer in a department store. Initially, Avedon made his living primarily through in advertising. As a staff photographer for Harper's Bazaar and later for Vogue, Avedon became well know for his stylistically innovative fashion work, often set in a vivid and surprising locales. Although Avedon first earned his reputation as a fashion photographer, his greatest achievement has been his reinvention of the genre of photographic portraiture. His ability to express the essence of his subject. Avedon’s pictures continue to bring us a closer, more intimate view of the great and the famous. The portraits are often well lit and in front of white backdrops, with no props or extraneous details to distract from their person - from the essential specificity of face, gaze, dress, and gesture. when printed, the images regularly contain the dark outline of the film in which the image was framed.

I really enjoyed looking at his work. One of the things that I found most interesting was the fact that he left the black outline of the film strip round the images. Most people blow the image up so that you crop off those areas. I think that it helps to add something more to the photos. It is kind of like he is trying to put them in a box or even to single the subjects out even more. The next thing that made me stop and look at his work was the fact that he captures all his subjects with no emotion in the faces, they all seem to be just there. Which kind of goes with the black box around them, as though they are trapped and have been there for too long and are void of emotion.

Phil Borges
http://www.philborges.com/bio.html

For over twenty five years Phil Borges has lived with and documented indigenous and tribal cultures around the world. Through his work, he strives to create a heightened understanding of the issues faced by people in the developing world. Phil attempts to create a relationship between the audience and his photographic subjects. “I want the viewer to see these people as individuals, to know their names and a bit of their history, not just to view them as an anonymous part of some remote ethnic or tribal group.” In 2004 Phil began an ongoing project to highlight the oppression and discrimination women and girls still face in the developing world.  Phil worked with the organization CARE to release the book and exhibition titled Women Empowered in 2006. Phil has hosted three television documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic as a part of a series that investigates indigenous cultures that still maintain a spiritual dialogue with the natural world.

I really enjoyed the images that he has in each of the different galleries. I think my favorite is the one with the women, i feel that he did a great job of showing them strong and a glimps of who they are and what they have to deal with every day! The other part that pulled me into these images was the eyes, he did a good job of getting you captivated as a viewer in their eyes. They pull you in and hold you there, as if they are speaking to you.

Cindy Sherman
http://www.cindysherman.com/biography.shtml

The majority of her photographs are pictures of her, however, these photographs are most definitely not self-portraits. Rather, Sherman uses herself as a vehicle for commentary on a variety of issues of the modern world: the role of the woman, the role of the artist and many more. It is through these ambiguous and eclectic photographs that Sherman has developed a distinct signature style. Through a number of different series of works, Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art. In these photographs, begun in 1977, Sherman places herself in the roles of B-movie actresses. Her photographs show her dressed up in wigs, hats, dresses, clothes unlike her own, playing the roles of characters. While many may mistake these photographs for self-portraits, these photographs only play with elements of self-portraiture and are really something quite different. In each of these photographs, Sherman plays a type -- not an actual person, but a self-fabricated fictional one. There is the archetypal housewife, the prostitute, the woman in distress, the woman in tears, the dancer, the actress, and the malleable, chameleon-like Sherman plays all of these characters.
Sherman's second most known body of work came some time after the Film Stills had already been well received, around 1988-1990. In the History Portraits Sherman again uses herself as model, though this time she casts herself in roles from archetypally famous paintings. While very few specific paintings are actually referenced, one still feels a familiarity of form between Sherman's work and works by great masters. Using prosthetic body parts to augment her own body, Sherman recreates great pieces of art and thus manipulates her role as a contemporary artist working in the twentieth-century. Sherman lived abroad during this time in her life, and even though museums would appear to be the source of inspiration for this series, she is not a fan of museums: "Even when I was doing those history pictures, I was living in Rome but never went to the churches and museums there. I worked out of books, with reproductions. It's an aspect of photograph I appreciate, conceptually: the idea that images can be reproduced and seen anytime, anywhere, by anyone."

One of my fellow classmates did a presentation on her in one of my other art classes. Therefore I was already aware of her style and what she was most known for. However I hadn't the chance to know her as much as I did through her bio on her page. I also was gravitated towards her because I have often thought of doing whole projects where I take on different types of people. Mainly because it is kind of cool to study the people that you are looking to become and try to make the image portray who they truly are. A good example would be to do a lot of research on influential women in history and do several scenes where you portray them. I think that doing images of your self also takes a lot of patience because you cant see through the lens, so you really have to have an image in your head and take it over and over until you get what you are looking for.

Minor White
http://www.vasculata.com/minor_white.htm

Minor White (1908-76) was one of the greatest American photographers of the period after the Second World War as well as one of the greatest teachers of the medium. One of the best-known names in photography until the end of the 1970s. White was a deeply religious man whose whole life was a spiritual journey. His photography arose out of this and was an inherent part of this pilgrimage. It isn't an approach that has been fashionable in academic circles in recent years.  He bought a 35mm Argus camera and with a few dollars in his pocket set off for the West coast. At Portland, Oregon he found a job as a night clerk in a hotel, which allowed him to photograph during the day.While in Portland he joined the Oregon Camera Club and there he learnd more about photographic techniques, especially printing. For the only time in his life he also became involved in politics, acting as a brief spell as secretary of the 'People's Power League'. This led to his being offered work as a photographer by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal 'New Deal' project set up to provide work for the unemployed.


I really enjoyed reading about Minor White. I had never heard of hime but think that his work is pretty good. The above image is 'Front Street, Portland, Oregon, 1939'. which was one the he did for WPA. I really liked the viewpoint of this photograph, I think that it is cool to see it done from a high view point. A lot of the ones that I have seen are done from the ground looking up where it distorts the buildings. I also liked how the light was coming in on this setting. It gives the road and the building to the left great detail from a cross light from the sun. Looking at some of his other work i=I would say that he understood lighting and how to use it. His lighting really brings the images to life.


Joel-Peter Witkin
http://www.davidknipper.com/famous_person/biography.htm

Joel-Peter Witkin is a photographer whose images of the human condition are undeniably powerful. For more than twenty years he has pursued his interest in spirituality and how it impacts the physical world in which we exist. His constant reference to paintings from art history, including the works of Bosch, Goya, Velasquez, Miro, Botticelli and Picasso are testaments to his need to create a new history for himself. By using imagery and symbols from the past, Witkin celebrates our history while constantly redefining its present day context. Witkin begins each image by sketching his ideas on paper, perfecting every detail by arranging the scene before he gets into the studio to stage his elaborate tableaus. Once photographed, Witkin spends hours in the darkroom, scratching and piercing his negatives, transforming them into images that look made rather than taken. Through printing, Witkin reinterprets his original idea in a final act of adoration.

I liked the fact that he use history and other artist to create his works. I chose the above image because I thought that this one looked like it was inspired by Botticelli's Birth of Venus. I might be just seeing that knowing that it was one of the images that he would have been looking at. However when you look at her stance and the cloth you can see resemblance to Botticelli's. I found the fact that he manipulates the negative with scratches and piercing. It is something that I haven't heard of doing, usually if your negative has a flaw in it, the image isn't always what makes you happy. His changes really add to them though.


Will Pearson
http://www.willpearson.co.uk/about.php

A professional panoramic photographer living in London and working worldwide. His panoramic photography and virtual tours have been showcased in the press, and the panoramas have been exhibited in various spaces in both the UK and China. He is frequently commissioned to take panoramic photographs to be reproduced at large-scale. A recent commission was reproduced at 32m (105 foot) long. Will has always tried to push the medium further. Browsing through his panoramic portfolio you will find fashion model ensembles, reportage shots of the anti-war demonstrations in London, shots inside burned out caravans in the desert, opera houses and offshore wind farms. His London skyline series of panoramas give viewers a new perspective on the capital from above.

It is incredible how detailed his panoramic images are. Alot of the time there is that atmospheric haze going on in the image that makes them kind of dueled out. I also was intrigued by the size that he can print his images at. As I will be taking the large scale printing in the spring I thought it was cool to see someone else doing large scale. The other part that I really liked was the fact that his images are just so striking. They make the viewer want to be where the image was taken. Some of the appeal to me is the skys and that there is usually verry little activity going on, they make hectick places look nice and peaceful.

Edward Steichen
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPsteichen.htm

At the age of fifteen Steichen began a lithography apprenticeship with the American Fine Art Company in Milwaukee. He also attended lectures by Richard Lorenz and Robert Schode at Milwaukee's Arts Student s League. Steichen took up photography in 1895 but continued to paint for the next twenty years. Steichen began experimenting with colour photography in 1904 and was one of the first people in the United States to use the Lumiere Autochrome process. He travelled to Europe and collected the work of the best photographers and these were exhibited by AlfredStieglitz in 1910 at the International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography. Thirty-one of Steichen's photographs also appeared in the exhibition. During the First World War Steichen became commander of the photographic division of the American Exepditionary Forces. This gave him the opportunity to become involved with aerial photography. Shocked by what he witnessed on the Western Front, Steichen denounced impressionistic photography and instead concentrated on realism. He later wrote: "I am no longer concerned with photography as an art form. I believe it is potentially the best medium for explaining man to himself and his fellow man." After the war Steichen became increasingly involved in commercial photography. He worked for the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency and in 1923 became chief photographer for Conde Nast Publications and his work appeared regularly in Vogue and Vanity Fair.

I really like the above quote. I think that it is true that you can show man what the world is really like through photography. When you are taking images of war, or true destruction, you get an image that you just cant make up. I also think that photography can be verry powerful in the fact that it can show many people the reality of a situation.

Tim Walker
http://www.timwalkerphotography.com/

Born in England in 1970, his interest in photography began at Conde Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive for a years work experience prior to University. After graduation he was a freelance photography assistant in London before moving to New York City as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon. Then he returned to England and concentrated on portrait and documentary work for UK newspapers. At age 25 he shot his first fashion story for Vogue. In 2008 his first major show was held at the Design Museum in London, which coincided with the publication of his first book.

I enjoyed flipping through his images. There was a number of them that made me feel like I had stepped into a new space or alternate world. He has a lot where he puts a bunch of randome colorful balloons. Taking something standard and adding a dash of childhood fun really changes the image. I chose the above image because I think that it is interesting.  To me it as though the dresses are alive, or haunting. I also feel that you can tell that he spent a lot of time developing his own individual style.


Brassai
http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/BRASSAI.html

Brassai took his name from the town of his birth, Brasso, in Transylvania, then part of Hungary, later of Roumania, and famous as the home of Court Dracula. He studied art at the academies of Budapest and Berlin before coming to Paris in the mid-twenties. He was completely disinterested in photography, if not scornful of it, until he saw the work being done by his acquaintance Andre Kertesz, which inspired him to take up the medium himself. In the early thirties he set about photographing the night of Paris, especially at its more colorful and more disreputable levels. The results this project --- a fascinatingly tawdry collection of prostitutes, pimps, madams, transvestites, apaches, and assorted cold-eyed pleasure-seekers --- was published in 1933 as Paris de Nuit, one of the most remarkable of all photographic books. Making photographs in the dark bistros and darker streets presented a difficult technical problem. BRASSAI"s solution was direct, primitive, and perfect. He focused his small plate camera on a tripod, opened the shutter when ready, and fired a flashbulb. If the quality of his light did not match that of the places where he worked, it was, for BRASSAI, better: straighter, more merciless, more descriptive of fact, and more in keeping with BRASSAI's own vision, which was as straightforward as a hammer.

I really enjoyed looking through his different images. The ones that have people in them are interesting. He has some that appear as though he is capturing an intimate moment between the subjects, and others show them doing every day things such as sitting and eating, then you have the more scandals ones where the couple is doing something that in the bedroom that you don't see every day, a private moment. I really like his night scenes of just the buildings or streets. They are just stunning. I love the way he captures the lights. It makes a deserted street just simply come alive.