Sarah Retchin: Ciril Jazbec

Jazbec is an independent freelance photographer who has quite a diverse portfolio. He’s produced commercial advertising work, documentary work, photojournalism-style work, etc., but all of his photos seem to have one thing in common—they all capture a moment in time. Yes, all photography is supposed to do that, but he seems to capture those moments that mostly goes unnoticed, and that renders him with really honest photography.  

He studied at the University of the Arts London where he received a Master of Arts degree in photojournalism and documentary photography—he says he does commercial work in order to afford his documentary works, which he prefers most. His personal and assigned projects have taken him to Kiribati, Alaska, Uganda and recently Greenland. In 2012, he traveled to Shishmaref, Alaska, on assignment from GEO Germany to document the Inupiat people, who face losing their island due to the effects of climate change. He actually won the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award 2013 for his most recent portfolio “Waiting to Move,” so he’s been gaining more recognition as of late.

“I believe in the power of photography; otherwise I would not be able to pursue what I do with such enthusiasm. I find myself increasingly attracted to using photography to send a message. The stories that interest me nowadays are different than they used to be – I want to show positive examples of how to solve various problems of our society and the world in general.”
                                                             ---Jazbec

Gregoire Cheneau - Hannah Nees

Gregoire Cheneau is a French photographer with the series above titled, Altered States. In this series, he  creates composite images of portraits of people. These composite images are ones that Cheneau puts together to create one photograph. The images usually end up pretty frightening/ disorienting after taking a moment to actually look at the portraits themselves. When interviewed about this series, Cheneau talked about how not one image was alike when it came to the placement of the model's body parts. 

Cheneau went about this series with the idea of creating a normal snapshot of models against a white wall.  He says that his idea to create composite images came after taking many of these similar photographs of the models against this white wall. The thematic element in this series revolves around the complexity of an individual. The photo shoots used to create Altered States are taken over a few hours and without breaks so that the models don't switch their positions too much. 

http://www.gregoirecheneau.fr/

Abbey Reddington- Henrik Knudsen

This weeks blog goes out to Virginia. Henrik Knudsen, a dutch photographer, gets most of his inspiration from film and cinema. Traveling all over Europe, he captures one small moment of time in a large scene. The lights, appearing to the viewer to be artificial, seem soft and natural. A narrative plays on in the scene that is very unclear yet magical. Creating a mind puzzle for the viewer to play with; Unlimited possibilities, no wrong or right answers.

The colors are beyond breathtaking. Khudsen has the ability to capture the colors reflected on peoples skin as well as most nude photographers can with their work. Symmetry is also commonly found in Knudsen's work.  Straight lines and satisfying angles show his clear recognition of cinema. These photographs are helping me to starting looking at the scene in the portrait, as well as the subject.

Elijah Gowin- Lexi Wilson

Elijah Gowin is an American photographer who uses the camera to explore humans partaking in religious rituals. In his series on baptisms, Gowin combines hand crafted techniques and digital technology to produce his images. He starts by using editing software to alter amateur internet photographs. These new images are then printed on small paper negatives, hand cut, and scanned, producing a distressed and ambiguous final product.

Gowin uses photography to speak about ritual, memory and landscapes. In Gown's Watering series, he presents individuals and groups of believers engaged in baptism. The grainy surfaces, distorted colors, and dark frames add mystery to otherwise mundane views of this experience. These images portray a wide range of emotions of the participants. These include joy, serenity, passion, pain, insecurity and aggression.

Brian Soko

Brian Soko is a street photographer who likes to capture what occurs after the "main moment". His photography normally occurs after the action has died down and the subject is in his/her most relaxing state. Brian is able to capture this expression of vulnerability by getting very close to his subjects, he wants to be apart of the scene. He also believes that his subject is the most important part of the photo so he uses a short depth of field, even if he has to give up the background to achieve this. By using a flash Soko is able to capture the moment quickly, making his works well composed snapshots. Flash also helps to enlighten the subject pulling him/her away from the background.

Even though he normally works in monochromatic he does have some experimental work in color.

Within his works he likes to connect and tell stories through them. He feels as if his photography is not only a reflection of the city (Chicago) but also a reflection of himself. His main purpose of making these candid shots is to inform and educate people. He wants you to be able to learn from his works.

Dana Popa

Dana Popa is a Romanian based photojournalist. I first encountered her work when I saw her series 'Not Natasha' a photographic series she crafted after spending time in the Republic of Moldova - the poorest country in Europe - and investigating the sex industry.

I really appreciate the way she manages to not only investigate and document her experience, but how she is able to incorporate emotional nuances in her images through composition and other stylistic choices - color, depth of field, etc.

Her work is also a testament to photojournalism, whilst many often refer to it as a dying medium I think she draws attention to why its important, with her images documenting a patriarchal culture and a unique perspective that might have otherwise not been observed. Throughout her images it is clear that she really worked to understand her subjects, with her photographs serving as deeply personal portraits of the women and their environment.

Gottfried Helnwein - Hannah Nees

Gottfrid Helnwein is an Austrian-Irish photographer born in Vienna in 1948. He was awarded the Master-Class Prize from the University of Visual Art in Vienna for his art. One of the first subjects Helnwein focused on was hyper-realistic watercolor paintings, where he used an airbrush and small brushes to work small details.When searching his photographs, it was difficult for me to tell whether it was a photograph or a painting. This technique is achieved from his past as a painter. At first glance, one sees these images as fashion photography, though Helnwein's work is a mocking of the social manipulations that come from the fashion world. Most of his images are digitally manipulated.

Helnwein uses the "mystical significance of the ideal child" as a theme beneath his paintings, which is then translated over to his photographical work. One other theme that he focuses on is psychological and sociological anxiety of children, as well as political topics, and historical issues. Helnwein is one of the most controversial artists that have come out of the post World War period, because of his depiction of children. He presents his work in gallery spaces where the images are blown up, as well as in public installations.

http://www.helnwein.com/

Jessica Aicholtz: Tam Tran

Tam Tran is a fine art photographer grew up in Memphis, TN and was born in South Vietnam.  She investigates identity and gender in her photographs. She focuses on self-definition through appearance.

My focus for shooting lately has been based off the words confrontation and objectify

Gene Kim: Mayerling Garcia

From Managua, Nicaragua, Mayerling Garcia works to tell the stories of places and people without having to use a single word, as the images speak for themselves.  Utilizing the scenery to emphasize the subjects within and vice versa, Garcia does not shoot many close-ups where the viewer can clearly see the subjects' faces, as they're simply part of the infrastructure that makes up the frame.

The lone rider on horseback in the first photo crosses the road, but the viewer isn't sure which direction he's taking, the mysticism even more amplified by the fog enveloping the road.  The rider plays a crucial role in setting the weight of the view in balance.  The girl in the second photo plays with her flowers as the light from the sky clouds her silhouette, putting her one with earth and creating a beautiful contrast between her and the background.  As the anonymous figure walks through below the architecture, the youths look onto Garcia's lens in solemn stares, with their varied clothes' colors and poses sets the view in one, like a puzzle.

http://www.behance.net/mayerlinggarcia

Michael Hanson- Allison Bills

Age 31, Michael Handson's appreciation towards nature has always driven him towards photographs that are similar to the ones exampled. He enjoys traveling and venturing off for interesting light sources and vertical natured shapes. I'm very much attracted to the symmetry of these photos, where as normally completely symmetrical photos can be bland, Handson's photographs show a sense of freedom. 

In regards to color, the warm hints of color within the neutral colored backgrounds bring viewers to study the subject as negative space. Also the geometrical shapes within the entirety of the photograph create an interesting way to bring about natural shapes within an otherwise "straight" shaped composure.

John Coplans- Charlotte Laurance

John Coplans, originally from London, moved to the United States. After his first move, he grew up spending time between London and South Africa. Post WWII, Coplans applied for an arts education grant and began painting. In 1957, his paintings were included in 'Metavisual, Tachiste and Abstract Art', which wass the first survey of Bristish post-war abstract art. In 1960, John Coplans had moved to San Fransisco, later he started teaching basic design at the University of California, Berkeley.


At the age of 60, Coplans started photographing his body from his toes up to the wrinkles of his skin, never revealing his face. These photographs have transformed how the viewer looks at the human body. The gestures become sculptural, the skin malleable, and details are monumental in nature.

Sarah Retchin: Diane Arbus

Last week, I wrote my blog post about Alec Soth, whose work is largely inspired by Diane Arbus, so now here I am exploring her work. Arbus was an American photographer and writer who was best known for her black and white photography of deviant and marginal people (like dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers, among others), or of people who, to most, seem ugly or surreal. She believed that a camera could be “a little bit cold, a little bit harsh” but that very harsh scrutiny revealed the truth; the difference between what people wanted others to see and what they really did see.

Her work has always been controversial and critiqued heavily by art critics and the general public for simply being “the photographer of freaks” and casting her subjects in a negative light, but she's clearly made her mark in photographic history for going outside the box. She once said that her favorite thing is to go where she's never been, and her photography reveals that she followed her curiosity. 

Alfonse Van Besten- Shannon Roulet

       

      Van Besten was a well known Belgian autochromist in the late 1800's. If your unsure what autochrome is: "Autochrome Lumière is an early color photography process patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers in France. Initially marketed in 1907, it was the first commercial photographic process capable of mechanically capturing the world’s colours before the advent of subtractive color film in the mid-1930s." Van Besten used this process to create vivid and amazingly composed photos of woman, children, etc, both in regular every-day life and glamorized and posed.  

      Van Besten was also a painter and I think his skills in that really bleed into his photography. He is able to use his knowledge of color to place things within the peice that he knows the eye will find aesthetically pleasing. He also uses his expertise on composition to make images that keep the viewer captivated and always looking around. I find his specific and careful use of color, and his attention to detail in his portraits incredibly inspiring.

Lexi Wilson- Robert Heinecken

Robert Heinecken was an American photographer, print maker, and conceptual artist. Although most known for his photographs, he rarely used a camera. Most of his work involved appropriating and reprocessing images from magazines, product packaging, or television. His methods of transformation ranged from lithography, etching, and camera-less direct exposure photograms and photo emulsions applied to canvas. These methods had a wide range of effects on his viewer, from delicately beautiful to deliberately jarring.

Heinecken uses these processes to portray his concepts or feelings about his subjects. In his image displayed at the VMFA, Untitled Newswoman (Jane Pauley), he held photo-sensitive paper to a paused, videotaped image of a popular newswoman. This image, indistinct and distorted is barely recognizable and contrasts with the drive for clear screen resolution of the time. This highlights the layers of mediation between the actor and the viewer.

Abbey Reddington- Andri Tambunan

If you're really into travel photography as I am, Andri Tambunan's work is a must see. At age ten he moved to the United States, and later quit his corporate job, throwing in the towel to travel the world and photograph the current issues, specifically in Indonesia. His amazing captures of life and color  are undeniable. Each portrait exhibits a story deeper than meets the eye. He allows the subject to stay in their natural habitat but learns intimate details first about their lives creating a sense of comfortability.

The intimate captures truly touch me not only on an emotional level, but an artistic one as well. After my meeting with Shane I realized that my portraits tend to be far too close to the subject and I'm losing a lot of story by forcing the picture in the viewers face. Tambunan has such a talent of capturing the essence of the person's story within the frame. Each image exhibiting a softness and attention to detail. The biggest attraction I have to Tambunan's work is the neutral's paired with soft pastels; just absolutely breathtaking.

Frank Ockenfels - Liesa Collins

Frank Ockenfels is an LA based photographer that photographs musicians, celebrities, corporate heads, and ordinary people for nearly three decades now. He has been featured on countless magazine covers all over the world as well as over 200 albums. He has a strong suit for portraits and knows how to capture an exact look that he wants from his subjects. He is successful in the way that he worked himself throughout the fashion/music/corporate industry to be able to take these types of portraits.
Frank Ockenfels is an extremely adaptable man and photographer when it comes to places he has to shoot and the people he has to shoot. I figure he kept with his success in portraits because photographing such important people really put his name out there in the art world. He is a strong believer in collaborations with other artists and business men and I think that to be a very smart move for his career.