Jorg M Colberg

Beautiful landscapes with an erie atmosphere about them, not many shots in the sun but thats worth it in my book.

Gus Powell

Powell's images effectively capture the essence of the cityscape. While construction and smog is never glamorous, he has been able to capture such phenomenon as it exists, and made it thought-provoking and dynamic. I thoroughly enjoy looking through his work and conjuring my own memories of trips to New York. His work ranges beyond the city as well, and each image seems to capture the aura of wherever location he has stopped. 

http://www.guspowell.com/ 

Robin Schwartz

Almost all of Shwartz' photography appears to feature this young girl and some kind of animal. The scenes each give off a domestic vibe, with each appearing to be photographed in either a home or a backyard. This is odd, seeing as elephants are in no way domestic creatures. However the way she is photographed and the body of work these images exist within seem to portray a kind of family photo album. Alternatively, the girl could be a sort of "Eve" character -  existing in a paradise setting, interacting with different animals in every photo, yet seldom sharing the scene with another person.

http://www.robinschwartz.net/

Manuel Vazquez

While immediately, I was off-put by Vazquez' work, the more I observed it the more it seemed to captivate me. His use of light (or lack thereof), the linear perspectives, and his image of the person drew my interest. Each photo seems to view humanity as a lonely, crowded thing - we see people close together on small squares of light, but far apart from one another, wandering crowds, and what appear to be darkened streets. Everything seems to utilize the idea of a "void" that people exist within. I was very taken with his work.

http://www.manuelv.net/

Akihisa Nakamura image 3

Untitled, a photo by ©AKI on Flickr.

I picked this photo in particular because It reminded me of my first trip to Richmond as a child.
When i was a kid I used to get scared if I was the only one awake in my house.
So this one time my mother had to take a trip to the city for a work meeting. I was probably around 6 years old. We stayed in a hotel and had a nice view of the city from our room. That night I couldn’t fall asleep and I started getting scared. So I found my way to the window and went behind the curtain. When I looked out I saw all the lights of the city. It was very comforting, because then knew I defiantly wasn’t the only one awake. I starred out the window for awhile just watching all the lights.Then eventually crawled back in bed and fell asleep. To this day the color of a sodium vapor lamp( the orange yellowish color of street lights) is still my favorite color.

Akihisa Nakamura image 2

Untitled, a photo by ©AKI on Flickr.

Akihisa Nakamura 1

Untitled, a photo by ©AKI on Flickr.

Akihisa Nakamura is a Japanese photographer.

When I look at these photos I feel like he has captured simple moments from his life in a beautiful way. The viewer is easily brought into personal moments of the photographer’s life. We have no way of knowing what these moments actually meant or why they were important to the photographer, but we don’t need that. The viewer doesn’t need any the of backstory. Yet we can still understand their value and share these personal moments with strangers.

Ryan Hardy

I found Ryan Hardy on Flickr. There’s not much on his profile other then he lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

http://www.flickr.com/people/qoruna/

I connected to these photos. His pictures have a very peaceful quality and are less about communicating any big concept or idea, but more about bringing the viewer the experience of going out and being there in the moment with the photographer. I think sometimes it’s nice not think about anything deeper in a photo. and instead just share that beautiful and tranquil environment with the photographer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qoruna/4379209948/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qoruna/5323944448/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qoruna/6124048221/in/photostream

Bharat Sikka

Bharat Sikka was born 1973 in India. He traveled to New York to Attended Parsons Arts School and received a BFA in photography. His work is based mostly around the condition of India and has been featured in galleries and museums all around the world.


http://www.bharatsikka.com/fiction3.html

His fiction 03 series caught my eye. There area lot of unnatural colors of light used in these pictures, vivid reds, yellows, and greens, but the way the colors are used make them feel natural to the environment. That’s just something I’ve always found impressive. How a photographer can combined the use different colors of light to create a new reality out of an environment that’s still very much based in our own.

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was an American photographer who captured human oddities. I love how harsh the subjects can be and how she embraced and celebrated the flaws of people. Although it seems that she wanted to be separated from her work towards the end of her life, I think her photographs are important in that they show a range of people that do not normally get exposure. Her life and work is definitely worth researching.
http://diane-arbus-photography.com/

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are an artistic couple that met in college and started a series called the Architect's Brother (which includes the photos I put in this post). They use a bit of mixed media in their art by painting on their photos to give them an other worldly look that is much more natural in my opinion than digital processes. Their newer photographs are made using photoshop, but the work still keeps a more natural look that I love. They create a quirky world of their own that I pull a lot of inspiration from.
http://www.parkeharrison.com/

Helen Van Meene

Helen Van Meene is a photographer living in the Netherlands. Primarily young and female, her subjects look very stoic and even a bit eerie. I’m incredibly drawn to her work because of the way she uses film and natural light to enhance her work. Instead of relying on Photoshop to fix the problems, she allows her subject’s imperfections and unusually odd looks to become a focus in the picture in a way I find very beautiful.

check out her website, she has a very interesting body of work: http://hellenvanmeene.com/

Michael M Koehler

Michael M Koehler is a photographer who's photos (for the majority) are in black and white. As a result the way he uses contrast in the images creates a point of interest for a lot of his work and is what attracted me to his images.

As a photographer he is attracted to creating the sensation of being in the picture which I think the above demonstrates well.  ( http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=26580850820 )

"I photograph gently to allow the story to unfold in front of, within and beyond me. Capturing the light in these transitory spaces of time reveals the poetry of humanity, integrating elements to provide a heightened human relationship within a solitary moment. Through this alignment, a temporal moment becomes eternal."

 - Michael M. Koehler (http://michaelmkoehler.com/mmk/index.html)

I think his core ideas that he tries to communicate through his photography resonates with me as it's what I love about the art of photography most - taking a moment and making it permanent/an art form. 

Chen Man

 

www.chenmaner.com.cn

Chen Man is a 31 year-old Chinese photographer, born and raised in Beijing. She graduated from the photography department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. But before she even gradutated, she had already started collaborating with Shangai-based fashion magazine Vision, which was one of the few, if not the only, progressive magazines around at that time. This, and a contact of hers, were her open door into the world of heavy weights such as Harper’s Baazar, Elle, Esquire… and the list of magazines, agencies and campaigns goes on.

Her passion for beauty and glamour is obvious in each of her shots and her emphasis on the beauty of the Asian woman have made her one of China’s most important fashion photographers.

Yves Marchand & Ramain Meffre

http://www.marchandmeffre.com/index.html

Yves Marchand & Ramain Meffre are two photographers working together to photograph Detroit. They have been focusing on documenting the decayed, abandoned and forgotten. They have a large series of photographs of  various theaters throughout Detroit. Their work attracted me because I have always had an interest things forgotten; the things that used to be dealt with in everyday life just left to their own devices for years.

Glen Erler

A lot of Glen Erler's photography seems to be caught in a moment - it is not often that many of his subjects appear posed.
Ahorn's magazine with Erler (http://www.ahornmagazine.com/issue_1/Interview2_erler/interview_erler.html) sees Erler describe his approach to his work as almost making it up as he goes along - seeing what works as it happens.

I was drawn to his work because of this fact and like that he has the same caught in the moment feel in images that don't even include people;

A lot of his images have a lower saturation which I think contributes to the mood that he goes for. 

A lot of what he photographs are of things he knows - places and people, something which affects the aesthetic as I think familiarity can make something seem more beautiful. 

His approach to his photography, colour pallet and tendency to photograph the familiar I think creates a very nostalgic look in his pictures. 

http://www.glenerler.com/

Iain Crawford

www.iaincrawford.com/







































Crawford lived in Africa as a child and had a strong love for photography. He later moved to London where he worked as an account handler and eventually quit to work on his photography career in New York. He is currently re stationed in London but works all over the world. Iain focuses on chaotic images that have extensive focus on textures. His paint series that he is working on is the interest between the collision of paint and model, a chemistry of sorts.

Irina Popova....Another Family

I just discovered a site called Lens Culture, a meeting place for photographers around the world to share their stories and work. From there, I found a series by a photojournalist, Irina Popova, documenting the life of a drug-using young family in Saint Petersburg. The family comprised a young couple and their daughter Anfisa (maybe 2-3 years old?). The series caused some controversy because of the photographer's seeming indifference to the danger surrounding young Anfisa, to which she replied that much love and affection can still be found in a family like theirs. Photojournalism interests me greatly, I love that I can become connected to a family halfway around the world through a series of captured images as seen through the eyes of someone else. It's a very intimate idea.





If you'd like to read more about the story, her lens culture article + photos are here: http://www.lensculture.com/popova.html?thisPic=4