Ashley Kronsberg - Weekly Artist Post #3

Trevor Christensen

The above photos are from Trevor Christensen's photograph series titled "Nude Portraits." Obviously in the above photos no one is nude, and that is because the series is based on Christensen taking photos of his subject's reactions to him being naked. I thought this was an extremely interesting twist on the idea of nude photography. Based on the above photos, he does not have a particular tendency towards either color photography or black and white. Also in the first and last photo he seems to use a more open aperture in order to deepen his depth of field, allowing him to capture all the details in the room, not just the subject - which leads me to believe they were also taken using a tripod. In the second photo, there seems to be a shallow depth of field, indicating a more closed aperture, allowing for only the subject and her blanket to come into crisp focus while the background is slightly blurred. These photos made me feel inspired to think outside the box, and remember that there is nothing not worth trying when it comes to photography.

Constance Pemberton- Weekly Artist Post 2

Aaron Ruell

I don't know much about the technical side of photography yet but it seems to me that Aaron Ruell uses a digital camera and shoots in color.

Aaron Ruell loves the use of color in his pictures. His photos look like commercial art, they are bight, organized and aesthetically pleasing. He likes to photographs people and places. Most of the time the people he shots aren't looking into the camera. 

I love that his pictures look like commercials! They all have a very nice flow to them that is not at all organic but chosen very specifically. Aaron does get a lot of advertisement work, which i think is fitting due to the nature of his work. He is not only a well known photographer but also an actor and director. I think almost everyone has seen a piece of work by Aaron Ruell. Some of his most famous work is the opening scene of and advertisement for Napoleon Dynamite.  It was very hard for me to choose just three of his pictures.

Ratcliffe- Weekly Artist Post 2

Elena Shumilova

 

1.) It seems like this photographer uses a slower shutter speed to capture moments. This artist even captures beautiful rain drops falling from the sky. This artist also really captures light in a beautiful way, I'm not sure what the technical choices to do that are.  This artist blurs out the background of the pictures to pull focus to the most important part of the picture that she wants to draw her audiences eyes to. I'm not really sure how to describe technicality of photos at this point, but this is what catches my eye. 

2.) She always seems to have portraits of her children or people in her family as the theme of her photos. Its always of family members on the farm that she lives on i believe.  She uses light to amplify her photos so that might be another focus of her photos. occasionally a farm pet or animal will be in the photos as well. Mostly it seems like she likes to capture people on her land enjoying the beauty of nature that it offers. 

3.) I love her photos. I think that they are absolutely stunning. The way she captures the sunlight and the smallest details of something like a raindrop is so beautiful. I would love to learn how to capture sunlight and fog and raindrops like she does. 

Ratcliffe- Weekly artist post 1

Miren Pastor

1.) It seems to me that this artist focused her concepts on nature. She also included soft beautiful photography of people she photographs. It seems like she uses a digital camera.

2.) She uses exposure and depth of field to express the softness of his photos. It also seems like she uses light to direct her photo, she uses a lot of beautiful sunlight to emphasize the theme of her photos. It seems like she uses

3.) I really love that she focused on nature. It is one of my main interests! I like how soft she made the photos as well. She took a lot of photos of the moss on trees and the roots or vines, and it was cool how she made it abstract looking. So simple, but so beautiful. I also like how in some of the photos she used the sunlight and shadows to emphasize her photos that was really appealing.

Ayana Chavis - Weekly Artist Post #2

Toni Amengual

1. From my unprofessional eye, it seems that Amengual's photos are taken possibly using an old film camera or digital with manipulation to the photos by reducing their saturation of color. Voom lenses were used or either close up photos were mainly taken, with seemingly no flash.

2. The theme and name of the photo book is "PAIN". The close in range photos depicts the upper body and faces of people out and about who look quite unhappy or angry. Amengual's motive was to definitely represent these expressions along with connections to colors such as red that represent things such as pain and anger.

3. Making the book so that one needs to stick some sharp object inside of the pages to reveal the photos, such genius. Up until the person showing the book started to cut into the pages my face was all bunched up thinking did someone really make a photo book of all red and yellow pages and how I felt my time was wasted. Now thinking about it, maybe Amengual wanted the viewer to have that exact reaction of frustration or anger contributing to the generalized theme of the book. Like I said, such genius.

Weekly Artist Post #2

Martin Kollar 

1) Although i'm not very technically inept, there are a couple things that i noticed are similar in all three images. First, each image seems to have a center subject. Also that subject is much more colorful and saturated than the rest (outer parts) of the images. This outer part is not your typical gray or black, but rather a common sort of white, cream or tan. This very light background with a colorful forefront is almost framing each subject perfectly, like they are being set on a stage. 

2) Conceptually, he is definitely trying to make a point. The mere fact that he chose to photograph Israel says a lot about his photographic language. I clearly see the subjects of each image as something very unordinary that i have either never seen before or that is very rare for me to see. Then i understand these subjects to be placed or found in a very normal or even bland looking place. With this believe he is trying the show the very unique evolution of the israeli nation and it's identity. I also wonder if maybe he wants to show the effect of war and the irregular tension it creates for the everyday people of the country. 

3) I find his approach very creative. As a creative problem solver i love looking for answers and things that really engage the viewer. Like Kollar, i believe that when viewing an image there is always an expectation of meaning. When people reach that meaning to easily it is boring, but when done right, people become very engaged in the process of finding this meaning. I think by focusing on the relationships between the normal and the absurd, Kollar has really created some nice conceptual complexity here. 

Tyler Zheng - Week 2 Artist Post

AYORCH

The photographs in this album seem to have used many different filters. The filter used in the first photograph increased the contrast between colors, and then the 3rd photograph seems to have used a blue-hued filter. The smile of this happy dog is always the focus of every photograph.

The theme of these photographs is definitely the happy life of this well-loved dog named Gluta. It's tumblr page describe how Gluta was adopted, and later on defeated several diseases including cancer.

Every photograph in this album makes feel happy, simply because of seeing how happy this dog is. Through the pics, I can sense how much trust the dog has in its owner, and how much the owner loves his dog. 

Gabe Lugo - Weekly Artist Post #2

Greg Skas

Greg Skaz's Facebook Page

Greg Skaz is an interesting photographer that I discovered recently. A lot of his work that I enjoy the most is commercial in nature, and captures different aspects of the firearms industry and community. Given the commercial nature of his work, and the watermarks and editing that go along with that work, Greg Skaz uses a Canon DSLR. Which model exactly, I am not sure of. I saw a photo of the backside of his DSLR and it looked somewhat similar to my roommate's EOS 60D. It may be an older model, but I know that he works with high end Canon DSLR's. Many of his photos are probably taken using a macro lens given the incredibly high level of detail, and I would imagine he uses a wide aperture so that more of the image can be in focus. A lot of his work is done in a studio, which is evident by the highly controlled lighting and background in his first two photos. The second photo in particular was clearly edited to layer two photos of the same gun-wielding, tattooed, gentleman on top of each other, and then adding the gentleman's signature as a third layer. The photo looks like it may be an HDR shot due to the detail, colors, and contrast. I'm not familiar enough with HDR at this point to ID the photos, but I am guessing this photo is HDR. His final photo was taken outdoors, at what appear to be very high shutter speeds to capture the exact moment a firearm goes off and shows a muzzle flash. He probably shot his DSLR in burst to capture this photo, since it would be very hard to get it in one shot. The fast shutter speed also seems to have affected the brightness of the photo, since there was less time for light to hit the sensor of the DSLR at those speeds. 

Greg's work is very heavily focused on firearms, automobiles, and the outdoors. That seems to be the common theme that connects all of his work. As I mentioned previously, much of his work is commercial and as such he goes to great lengths to ensure he captures incredible detail in his closeups of weapons and weapon parts. The studio work, macro shots, and high speed photography seem to be the common styles he uses. He likes to inject a bit of humor into his work to keep things light, so some of his photos may come across as cheeky and lighthearted. In a world where firearms and anything related to them tends to be incredibly serious and often controversial, it is nice to see someone who's work doesn't take the subject too seriously while still exhibiting great quality and technical skill.

Greg's work captures some of my favorite things, guns and outdoorsy things. I think he does some cool stuff with lighting and macro shots. Close-up shots that capture lots of detail are really interesting to me, because they often highlight features of an item that you may not notice using the naked eye... even if you are familiar with the item being photographed. High speed photography is also awesome, in that it shows you things that you can't really process or see with the naked eye at regular speed. The muzzle flash on a rifle is a perfect example. Guns being fired are naturally very loud, bright, and fast. When you shoot a gun or watch one being fired, it all happens so quickly that it overwhelms the senses. You just hear a bang and see a flash. High speed photography unlocks the ability to really see and comprehend what is actually occurring when the trigger on that rifle is pulled. You get to see everything, even the bullet traveling out of the barrel if you time the photo right. 

Ashley Kronsberg - Weekly Artist Post #2

Kenji Shibata

Kenji Shibata is a Japanese photography. Unable to find more information on his process, it seems the shoots in both black and white and color, and he has a creative array of themes. The above photos are taken from his latest album Locked in Ether in which he freezes flowers and then takes photos of them. Some other themes he has explored include the seven deadly sins and sunsets.

The album Locked in Ether caught my eye the most because personally it was the most interesting of the photo sets. All of his photography is aesthetically pleasing; however, the concept of freezing something to take photos of it was new to me unlike the seven deadly sins and sunsets.

I really enjoy the crisp quality of his photography. When photographing in color, Shibata manages to capture his objects in a kind of light that doesn't seem ordinary, making his photos have a sort of surreal feel to them.

Mary Pforr- Week 2 Artist post

Artist: Cindy Loughridge
Photo Cred: http://cindyloughridgephotography.com/

i. Cindy uses light in contrast continuously in her work. The natural light gives her work a crisp and sharp look, and everything she posts is digital. There is strong verticals in these photos that bring the viewers eyes throughout the entire photo.
ii. Simplicity is a key concept in her work it seems, a majority of her photos are of daily life and quiet, sincere moments. This gives her work a continuous aesthetic that is recognizable to her.
iii. I enjoy her work; she has side projects that add to her portfolio of different '365 days' projects. Her use of natural light is absolutely beautiful, and gives a sense of quiet and bliss.

Helen Westergren - Weekly Artist Post

Osamu Yokonami

Osamu Yokonami is a photographer based in Japan who's photos deal primarily with collective identity. He makes pictures that have the appearance of film stills but maintain their presence as stand-alone works. He is not very public about his process but it's obvious that a lot of foresight goes into production. Most feature a large crowd or are a series of different people doing the same action. From the looks of it, Yokonami shoots in digital, which allows for the hyper-real quality of these photos to be well understood.
Yokonami, as said before, works with concepts of identity. In many of his works feature uniform-clad subjects as a way to present them as one person, or multiple entities of one person. This masking of external identity often in turn augments the differences between the models that are unique to them. By asking subjects to do the same thing over and over again, or show many people wearing the same garments, he creates an interesting sort of narrative.
I've been drawn to Yokonami's work before, mainly because the images are just so beautiful. They have a certain devoid of seriousness that also really interests me. The subtle colors also really appeal to me which probably is why I find them so interesting. I also like this idea of many parts of one whole. The way that he goes about highlighting difference while also maintaining a lot of similarities is remarkable. I also really appreciate the attention to detail I constantly find when looking at his work.  He has a clear vision of what he wants to communicate and is, at least I feel, successfully doing so.

Katherine Ratcliffe- What do I care about?

I care about my family. My family has helped shape me into the person I am today! Another thing I really care about is the Earth. My major is environmental studies, and I really care about nature. All of my favorite hobbies have helped me find a deep connection with mother earth. Surfing, hiking, snowboarding and all my other outdoor hobbies help me feel alive, healthy, and happy. My happiness is another thing I really care about, and has been my priority due to recent events in my life, which have made me really focus on my happiness and myself. I care about my friends, the real ones who are really there for me when I need them. I care about real moments… no fakeness, just raw emotions and following my heart.

Ratcliffe- Pictures I'm Scared to Post

Erin Copeland- Weekly artist post #2

Daisuke Yokota

Daisuke Yokota is a Japanese Photographer that works predominantly in black and white. His works are often distorted. They create a haunting, creepy, surreal feeling. He Manipulates the photos, creating layers which results in a completely different image from the original photo.

Yokota uses digital photos with a combination of traditional film in a process of reshooting photos multiple times. Also he manipulates the film with photocopying and photoshop sometimes to create these layered photos.

I love the beautiful, creepy, dreamlike quality of his photography. For me, I look into his photographs looking though each layer like I am analyzing my own dreams. I really love black and white photography that has like a grainy, scratchy quality to it that I have yet to learn how to achieve in my own work.

Lindsey Mott - Weekly Artist Post #2

Jessica Tremp

Jessica Tremp’s work is combination of “found” scenes from her travels, and posed shots, both in the studio and in natural settings. Although she’s known for shooting portraits and landscapes, her diverse work is united by their soft muted colors, which she achieves through editing. In studio, she experiments with both patterned and plain backdrops, and often has her models lie down so she can shoot them from above.

According to her personal statement on her website, Tremp is inspired by theatrics, romanticism, and nature. Her posed photographs often contain nude female figures in a natural environment, obviously inspired by romantic art. Although her work does have a whimsical theatricality to it, there is also subtle macabre quality to her work. Lying down, her figures are often limp, and her use of muted colors adds to the “dead” appearance of her models. In her work she is not only exploring the beauty of humans and nature, but also death.

My favorite element of Tremp’s photographs is the beautifully creepy quality to them. The same things that seem to draw you into the photograph (ie: beauty of the female form) also push you away (ie: but is she dead??). I also like the way she uses a palette of muted colors to unite all of her work, despite the fact their themes are often very different.

(Erin) Dani Brown -- Weekly Artist Post #2

Alex ten Napel

Alex ten Napel is a portrait photographer. His photos have a specific subject placed in front of a neutral backdrop. While some of his projects feature black and white photography, he seems to value dramatic uses of color, particularly in his subjects' eye colors.

A theme in his work seems to be identity; usually human identity. These images, however, show chickens placed in the role of subject, not object, and seem to imply each animals' unique personality outside of its ability to provide eggs or become a meal.

I really enjoy Alex ten Napel's work, particularly the images of the chickens. I like how they are posed, and even though some of them are doing normal chicken things, they seem elevated, as though they are more important than the average chicken. These photos first stood out to me because I found them humorous, but now I actually think they are quite beautiful.

Selasi Fynn- Weekly Artist Post (week 2)

Nakeya Brown

These pictures were created by photographer Nakeya Brown. She has a few different series, but these three are specifically from the series titled, "Hair Stories Untold." In this series she uses a lot of pink and blue to either create a bright background, or to add a pop of color against a neutral colored background.

Brown is obviously wanting to portray an overall image that women of color, specifically black women, and identify with. Hair is an important part of the African American culture and I feel like Brown wanted people to feel some sort of nostalgia when looking at these photos. Another thing I also noticed about this series is that there is no face to each of the pictures although there is a person in the photo. I think Brown decided to this in order to create some kind of a unified identity.

I respect Brown as an artist and I like her choice of color schemes in each of her series. Out of all her projects on her website, my favorite one is "The Refutation of "Good" Hair." I can relate with the message I think she's trying to portray through those pictures.

Daniel Potes - weekly artist post

Cindy Sherman

The work of Cindy Sherman revolves around the concept of intermingling Film and Photography into one art form. Though she technically shoots still photographic images, Sherman manages to imbue a feeling of immanent action into her images. Always looking off camera, her self-portrait film stills have a sense of anticipation and power to them. While she does have color images, I chose 3 black and white ones in order to showcase her filmic attributes, and the characters she manages to portray, such as the femme fatale or the 50’s wife.

While self-portraits have often been utilized by artists of all backgrounds, Sherman manages to give her works a unique spin by both using images that are full of mystery and by using her imagery to create a dialogue on feminism. By using different characters in different settings, Sherman asks questions of the viewer that are impossible to answer simply by looking at her images. In order to understand some of the dialogue she’s placed within her work the viewer must use a combination of imagination and historical references to build their own conversation.

Cindy Sherman caught my attention in my moving pixels class because of her combination of Film and photography, as someone who studies cinema actively and philosophically, I gathered facets of her work that might have been missed by others, especially references to old films that she sneaks into her work. I chose her because not only does she take photos of stunning quality, but she captures a moment in time that can only be understood through a sort of conversation with the photograph itself “What is she doing, what is she looking it, what time period is she, where is she located?” By making an active viewing series of pieces, Cindy has managed to capture the attention of both viewers and critics for many years, for good reason too.

Weekly Artist Post: Week 2

These images are from a series by Michal Martychowiec, entitled La Chambre de Labastrie, or the Alabaster Chamber, referring to a fictional room in which the inhabitants can see the outside world, but the outsiders are unable to see inside. Martychowiec portrays the subjects of his photos out of focus, removing the viewer's ability (what he calls privilege of sight) to truly see the subject.

Martychowiec's motive behind this photographic choice is to reverse the usual parallel of the viewer and the subject. Rather than the viewer being able to fully see and analyze the world of the image, the image itself has the privilege of sight over the viewer. Martychowiec's use of black and white reinforces the notion of the viewer's limited sight privilege in not only seeing a limited view of the subject's figure, but also the subject's tones and facial details. 

I love these images most of all because of Martychowiec's idea of taking a visual spin on an otherwise abstract, literary idea (Benoit de Saint-Maure's Alabaster Room). There is also something chilling about feeling that you are being watched by the people in these photos, all while being unable to clearly view them yourself. 

Martychoiwec's Website: http://michalmartychowiec.com/?art=la-chambre-de-labastrie

Sierra Doucette- Weekly Artist Post

Viviane Sassen

These photos are from Vivian Sassen's book Pikin Slee, shot in a village in Surinam (formerly Dutch Guyana). Sassen's photos focus on color and shadow to create striking images. Sassen also uses different textures to make her photos interesting and to develop a focal point. 

In most of her pictures, Sassen either hides or disguises the subject's face. This is because she believes that photos cannot deliver an "absolute truth" and therefor attempting to show the fundamental truths of a person through a photograph is futile. 

I like the contrast of Sassen's photos and I think they're interesting to look at. The way she chooses to disguise her subjects gives me something to think about. While I agree that a photograph can't express the entirety of a person, I think that a photo can capture certain elements or aspects of them.