Friday, November 13, 2009

Man Ray

Here is an example of the solarization done my Man Ray
Glass tears.
This one is an example of his "rayogram" or pictogram.

This is one of the very surrealist images

Man Ray was born in Pennsylvania in 1890. He was such an innovative photographer for his time. He was often just labeled as a modernist. He contributed so much to the photography side of surrealism, the dada movement and avant- garde. He considered himself a painter. At the beginning of his career he actually was a painter. He had a strong cubist influence in his paintings. After he got involved with the dada movement is when he abandoned painting and turned to photography. His photographs went well with the surrealist movement I think. For example, the image of the woman laying on the grass with the lips in the sky is something you would see in a surrealist style painting. The other techniques used were also very surreal, like solarization. He coined the term "rayograms" which is basically what we call pictograms today. He also reinvented solarization. Man Ray brought about or reinvented so many of the techniques we still use today.

"I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence."- Man Ray

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Roy DeCarava





Over the last couple years I have seen the work of Roy DeCarava. He is one of my favorites photographers. I like the idea behind his work. He is know as the Harlem photographer. I decided to do my blog on him this week because he recently passed away at the age of 89. He changed the history of African- American art and lifestyle. He actually had 60 years of photography under his belt. His photography was revolutionary for his time. Looking at his photos, I see a similarity between them and quite a few photographers that I have written about already. However, they have a different quality to them. They are all of African-American life and people. His images gave insight into what it was like to live in Harlem New York. They provoke very different emotions than other "street photographers" if you will. I recently took a trip to Nashville, where I tried this type of photography. I shot many images of African- American elderly men who were "down on their luck." These didn't quite turn out the way I was expecting. Mine were a bit exploitive. I think that Roy DeCarava did a wonderful job documenting instead of exploiting.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Alan Sailer

Here he shot a rose dipped in liquid nitrogen.
Here he shot a plum dipped in liquid nitrogen.
Here he shot a chocolate kiss.
Here he shot bacon
Here he shot a snow globe

Seeing that I'm bad about forgetting, I figured I would go ahead and do the blog for this week. A friend of mine found this photographer and shared it with me through facebook. His name is Alan Sailer. He is considered an expert in high speed photography. I have never seen anything like his photography before (though I read that it has been done before). He literally shoots his subjects. He used a rifle to shoot the objects that he wishes to photograph. He has shot everything from fruit to snow globes to roses. He shots something at room temperature, some hot, and even freezes some in liquid nitrogen to enhance the explosion that he will then photograph. He is very aware of the colors as well. He often uses the complement color of the object being shot for the background to make it stand out. This is such an interesting project to me. I love to try new things and this would not have even crossed my mind. I liked this so much it was quite difficult for me to pick the ones to post here.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Warren Thompson





In the last couple weeks I have changes my film photography project drastically. Warren Thompson is doing what I would like to take a shot at for the rest of the semester. He photographs people doing their job, walking around, talking to others, etc. Some of these images are more staged but others look at if they do not know that the photographer is there much less taking an image of them. Most of the time when someone sees a camera they smile and try to look nice. It has become a natural reaction to the camera. He catches unflattering images of people. I am interested in the expressions and actions that people do not want a camera to catch. When they are not expecting to have a picture made of them. I think he does a wonderful job of catching these actions.

Louis Daguerre




Louis Daguerre was the inventor of the daguerreotype. No surprise that he was a chemist. A daguerrotype images is processed by exposing an image directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. Then developing by heating over a cup of mercury. After this you "fix" these in hyposulfate of soda It was a very advanced process for his time. He invented this type in 1839. It is very similar to the tintype processing. I love these types of processing because of the history behind them. I feel like by processing film and images as they once were long ago you have a better understanding of photography itself. For example, I think that taking film photography in the darkroom will help my to understand digital much better. These basics are where photography first came from and they are why photography has come so far today. The images themselves are very beautiful, they are usually portraits. The examples are of the Daguerreotype process, not done by Louis himself.

Julius Shulman





This week I was looking at movie reviews and I came across a movie titled " Visual Acoustics The Modernism of Julius Shulman." After doing a little research on this I found that he was a celebrated architecture photographer. I feel like I should have know him before because of my brief attempt of shooting architecture. He had a different outlook on shooting building and making them interesting. Some of the images are taken at night making for very beautiful lighting. The compositions are also quite different. They are not you plain, boring, straight on shots of buildings and houses. The example with the stepping stones is what I am referring to. Normally that would be a bother in an image but instead he turns it to make it the focus, or at least the part that leads you into the entire image. He makes the lines and the curves of the homes and buildings work in his advantage. In one of the examples I'm going to put up, the lines help to lead you around the image. He took photographs of many famous architects work, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Pierre Koenig.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Robert Frank






Robert Frank is someone who Gay told me to look into durning my last critique. He was born in Switzerland in 1924. His most popular work is "The Americans." The book was actually first published in France and showed post-war America. His works are of the American culture. Which I find interesting because he is not from America. He has an outside view of post-war America and the people who live there. I think that sometimes when you live somewhere you forget the beauty of it, and sometimes cannot see it when other people come into town and say how gorgeous everything is. For example, moved to Cullman about 7 years ago and I see nothing more than a town with nothing in it. However, when my roommate came to visit she told me how beautiful of a place it was. I just don't see it anymore since it's home. I think that the same applies to Robert Frank in this situation. America is new to him. So he sees the beauty of it still. These images are very "America Dream." They depict american flags, cowboys, soda shops, etc. Things that you think of to be "American." Things that you don't see much anymore, but were there and played a large part in our culture.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Matt



This one is short but sweet. To all who don't know, this is Matt Minor. I was never fortunate enough to have a class with him, but I got to know him seeing that we were both in there so often. I went to a show of his one night and was completely blown away. Truth be known the images I saw that night are what really got me into photography. He is one of my favorite photographers professional or no. His images above are very personal. They tell you a lot about him and how he feels. These two images are self portraits taken in the studio, which are printed with images from his trip to Europe. I have tried my hand once at this method but my results were nothing compared to his works here. He has amazing composition, contrast, and technique. I really do look up to him for this. I would like to try more of this and work to getting results and print quality like his.

Chris Birdwell






I've decided to do local photographers that I admire this week (and the ones to make up for last week). I am very interested in shooting concerts and have been asked on occasion to shoot for one band in particular and I can never seem to get the results that I would like. My problems include and are not limited to, movement in the performer, being blown out by the flash.
This is Chris Birdwell. He graduated from here a year or so ago. I had the pleasure of having a class with him while he was here. He uses a film (35mm and 120) camera to shoot concerts. I'm am a huge fan of his work and have asked him on occasion to give me his secret to shooting the the low light conditions that he does. He told me that I needed a fast lens, around f-stop 1.4, a swivel flash, and a handheld light meter. I found that my lens is not fast enough by any stretch of the imagination. He has produced many beautiful photos using this process. He also incorporates light painting to some of his work, which is something I have already written about this semester. I'm going to continue to work at getting better results and will continue to look to his work as an example.

Colin Stearns




Colin Stearns may sound familiar to some because he was a photography instructor here at the University of Alabama for two semesters. I was lucky enough to have him during the Spring and Summer which he was here. Colin encouraged me to try different types of negative manipulations including bleaching, scratching, and burning. Also encouraged was different types of printing including ortho-film, salt printing, van dyke, argyrotype, etc.
In his work he uses the same van dyke, salt, and argyrotype processes that he shared with us. He shoots with a 5x7 film camera and contact prints the negatives in the sun. I thought this was fantastic seeing that you do not have to have a darkroom to do this type of printing. The series of his work that I wanted to share is called "I cannot see the forest for the trees." He has more photo series, but I feel like this is the strongest one. This is a rather ironic name for the series because the works portray the clearing of forests. I think that this process give an extra touch to this images because of the natural look that it brings. It is also not on a glossy surface or even mass manufactured paper, but on handmade paper for an even more natural element.
I have some work that I have done with these types of alternative printing and I would like to try and possibly incorporate them into a collage with digital and darkroom images. I still try to experiment as much as I can with my photographs and processes. I am very interested in learning different ones.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Dorthea Lange

This image is probably her most well know. It is called "Migrant Mother."
"Next Time Try The Train"
"Shack"


Dorothea Lange had a very large influence on the world of photography and photojournalism. Many of her works were from the era of the Great Depression. I am interested in her work and this kind of work because it, in a way, goes with my project I am working on in darkroom photography. I am shooting images of "old" landscapes and buildings, etc. I am working on capturing the things that will be gone in 20-30 years. In the same manner Dorothea Lange when captured the time period that is now gone of the Great Depression. She photographed everyday people in their environment. No posing or backdrops, just natural. These images often dealt with poverty, migrant workers, and people who were unemployed or homeless. Her images, in my opinion, need no words to go tell the story of these people and the land. They evoke many emotions while viewing them. In her case, I suppose a picture IS worth a thousand words.



Thursday, September 3, 2009

Burn Blue Photography


While watching a demo in a photo class I became intrigued with the idea of "light painting." After researching it on the internet I came across Burn Blue Photography & Design. Toby Keller, the photographer, uses light to create or manipulate, if you will, images.The process is rather simple. You must open the shutter on the camera to the bulb setting, then simply take a flashlight, laser pointer, or what ever you prefer and shine it into the lens. You have the shutter open for so long that you can walk in front of it to do this and the camera will not pick you up in the image. Toby Keller leaves his open for so long that you can see the star trails in the skies of the images while he makes intricate designs with his lights. (Keep in mind he does this at night) I have given this a try a few times and they have been interesting but never what I am really looking for. I suppose the difference is that I did mine in 30 seconds while he does his within several hours.

http://www.burnblue.com/