Other Photographers Work.

In this section I'll be looking at other photographers work that I find interesting, relevant to what I'm working towards or just peoples work that stand out to me and deserve a closer look.

9th June 2012

Joel Sternfeld.

These first few were recommended to me by my tutor for further consideration after we began talking about what photography I liked and the general feel I wanted for my own work. Sternfeld's work took colour photography to new and more interesting places in the 70's America as he traveled across the country capturing images of ordinary people living there everyday life's. What you get from his work is the feel of the underlying socioeconomic issues that were present in America at this time but he approaches it in a way that contains a lot of irony and humor so that you can see the issues but also see the funny side of what he's depicting. You can really see this best in the final shot on the left where the house is burning down in the background while one of the firefighters has a closer look at the pumpkins for sale at the farmers market, its the kind a view you wouldn't image you'd see but he capture the strangeness of the moment perfectly. What sets his work apart during this period is because most of his fellow documentary photographers were still working in black and white see colour as the realm of advertising and fashion photography. Sternfeld saw colour as a new way to express the world around him, he also new that to use it he'd have to produce a different type of visual thinking. Again you can probably see this most clearly in the pumpkin photo. Here what he does is use similar colours to lead the eye through the photo, pumpkins in the field, around the stall and then the flames from the house making the use of orange colour throughout even with a slight tint to the light as well.

Photos taken from www.luhringaugustine.com

Richard Misrach

Misrachs work focuses on human effect on the landscape, often his subject matters tend to reflect the beauty he see in the planet but at the same time he also captures the negative effect we have on the environment. With the majority of his work you find that the landscapes seemed to be relatively muted but he finds a focus point within these scenes that give the work a very strong presents be it say a dead animal or an area of desolation within the view, by doing this he creates real impact because of the contrast between the beauty of the landscape and the clear effect we're having on the places. His use of colour gives his work almost a dream like other worldly feel at times but it still has its grounding very much in reality. You can very easily argue that his work is of a environmentalists stance but I'm not so sure he'd see this as being the main aim of what he produces. His current and possible best known series called Desert Cantos is a study of man's relationship towards his place on earth, in a lot of this work there's a poetic nature to the scene which reflects the idea created by the title of the body of work. Another collection that I find interesting is his study of graffiti in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, it gives a strong insight into peoples attitudes and feels following the disaster.

Photos taken from www.artnet.com

Jem Southam.

Southams approach is similar in a way to Misrach in that he's focusing on how we as people can effect the environment around us but he has a slightly different way of looking at his subjects. What he'd does is return time and again to the same scene shooting it as it evolves through the process of time, by doing this he's able to chart both natural and social changes that can occur over the periods be it seasonal or over a few years, this in turn means that the narrative dynamic between the images becomes increasingly important. He describes the English countryside as being a astonishing complex place, when shooting a particular area he'd researches the history and geological landscape to gain a greater understanding and spend a lot of time just walking the area gaining more and more insight into his subject. Inspiration wise he took ideas (like Sternfled and Misrach) from the work of William Eggleston and in the 70's when starting out found himself at the forefront of this kind of photography in the country because none was using colour in this way to document the countryside. 

  

Photos taken from www.jameshymanphotography.com

10th June 2012

William Eggleston.

Discovered I'd already look at Egglestons work when looking at Colour Formalism in a previous course but I felt it was relevant to what I've been looking at above so I'm going to included it again here rather then covering the same ground again. Colour Formalism Study.  

7th July 2012

Mitch Dobrowner.

Came across his work in this month copy of National Geographic and was hit by the stunning beauty of his shots focusing on the extreme weather in America. Working in Black and White he use's this to create images that get over to you the violent nature of some of the storms he's photographing but at the same time there's another worldly beauty about the way he's captured the forms and patterns found in the cloud formations. He's use's what little light there's present to really capture the texture of the clouds and landscapes so that you feel you could reach out and touch the scene it seems that real. Although his work doesn't help me that much with my own I wanted to included him in this section because I like his approach to capturing the natural world be it a very chaotic part but what he does is make it seem far more ordered. Its not just storms that he's photographed, using his skill at making the best use of available light he's also captured the sculpted landscape of the American west with its amazing rock formations and rolling plains. Epic would be a good word to use when describing his work. To see how good his work is check out his website www.mitchdobrowner.com.

 

 Images taken from National Geographic.

10th October 2012

Kai Fagerstrom.

 A really unique set of photos from this Finish photographer under the title of Once Upon A Home looking at how wild animals have taken over a group of abandoned cottages. What I think I find most appealing about these image is that there all so spontaneous, there's no real planning gone into them its just a simple premise of putting some food around and about and then sitting and seeing what happens. Another thing that I like is the use of natural light, fair enough it say in the article I first spotted the work in that he can't afford a flash so he makes do with natural light but its the skill of bring all the elements together to produce a stunning shot. I think with using this kind of light it gives the photos a kind of mystical mysterious feel because there's alot of strong shadows but at the same time it feels strange to see wildlife in these kind of surroundings. It makes you think about how nature goes about reclaiming an area so quickly if left to its own devises.

Images taken form www.kafa.fi