Chris Veren & Anne Leibovitz

Fig 1. Chris Veren

Fig. 2 Anne Leibovitz

Fig. 1 Chris Verne- Verene has a strange aesthetic, a very surreal scene. He is a lot in like Dian Arbus in that he has shot freaks. The work itself seems more personal though in that he shot his family.

Freaks Freaks Freaks Freaks, We are Strange. "People are Strange when you're a Stranger". The Stranger Shoots a man on the beach. It is hot. Sweat. Blisters on my fingers.

Fig. 2 Anne Leibovitz- Leibovitz, a prominent commercial portrait photographer. She is the premiere Rolling Stone photographer. Her style doesn't "do it for me" but she is really good what she does.

Hello Mik

Hello Anne

Drop your pants Mik

Ok Anne

(camera flashes)

Okay, thanks Mik

Garry Winogrand and Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 1 Ralph Eugene Meatyard- Meatyard is possibly on of the oddest photographers of the 20th century. He was a dentist and the became a photographer until his death. Meatyard did odd work, he did a lot with his children in masks and he and his wife in masks. What does it all mean? What message was he trying to spread?

Fig. 2 Garry Winogrand- An ass hole with a camera is the first way i was described Winogrand. Most of his images are recognizable because in most of the images there is a slight maliciousness to the shots. In the picture above it seems as if the people will not get around the legless man as if he has the plague.

William Eggleston and Stephen Shore

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 1 Stephen Shore- In viewing stephen shore's work most of the images are very straight images. Such as his documentation of where he is from, Cape Cod. In this image i feel like i can really relate to this image especially most recently. The simple imagery that the Shore is known for or does most is in itself very powerful. The man above seems to be uncaring of the woman who is trying to get much more cozy with him. His staring into the camera also has him directly interacting with the audience which makes the woman the third wheel in the shot.

Just the simple way that the image is framed makes the place where the couch is located look very simple, like a vacation home. This would be along the lines as his Cape Cod project.

Fig. 2 William Eggleston- In this series Eggleston documented America at that time. There was never a time like that nor will there ever be another time like that. He took very slice of life images, but put in that context the images have a strong meaning. They are that time and they were the norm and every day of that time.

It would be nice if someone would actually do this project again. With our world making large changes every day in twenty years it will be completely unrecognizable and there will be no good record of this time, for the normal and average that is.

John Pfahl & Joel Meyerwitz.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 1 Joel Meyerwitz- In these set of images Meyerwitz has photographed a group of people which have no soul. In essence he has photographed those who are shells of humans and compiled them into a book. This could be a comment on how we humans are really all empty on the inside and just try to blend in to the crowd such as the red heads do when they try to blend in with those that have souls.

On the other hand the subject matter of documenting a subdivision/subsection of humans in general like people who can wiggle their ears or not, in this case red heads is very interesting.

When i look at some of these images i cant help but wonder if he might have been more attracted to red heads. Males (or at least most males i know) have a strong attraction to red heads. This could possibly be a comment on this as well.

Fig 2. John Pfahl- This image is part of a series he did on piles. The subject of piles themselves are intriguing. Automatically I am reminded of the movie close encounters by speilburg. Immediately i think that these are important for some reason under this context.

Piles. Heaps. Mounds. Hills. Lumps. Bumps. A quantity of something. More, more, more. More money, more trash, more people, more wounded. Things are builded and builded stacked and stacked heaped and heaped.

up up up up up up up towards the heavens. the carcases layed and piled on top of eachother. these are the bodies the fat man in the big suit has been using and then dumping to expand his back pocket. The refuse is now littering our space while the man in the suit pays no mind. Count your gold coin.

(poems/utterings ive used to describe the images ive seen)

Andreus Gursky and Muhammed Muheisen.

Fig. 1. Andreus Gursky

Fig. 2 Muhammed Muheisen

Fig. 1- Gursky's prints upon my first viewing were not all that wonderful and in some ways were mostly good enough for a computer wallpaper. It showed no real concept other than "it is pretty" (Bethny Barrett).

Upon further inspection though, and many hours of staring at the computer, his images are quite strong. They show a superior sense of design and an esthetic that is quite organized and uniform, with straight lines and like line. The images themselves seem to convey the mass uniformity of humanity; the way that we have made everything to look the same, even and uniform. This has a mass appeal as the images deal with the places we live and dwell, in essence the make up of all of us or in other words what makes us us.

The scale lends itself to the subject in that that the subject matter is quite massive in scale so the images in turn are also quite massive. I wonder what sort of message these images would have in the opposite way. In other words quite small, such as 2x2 which would be a direct contrast to the subject matter. This would make a completely different message for the images. A possible interpretation of a small print of a Gursky might convey how we humans cram ourselves in uniform spaces all trying to conform to an established norm which no person can accomplish as no one is "normal". We all (or most) want to be like one person or another and so on and so forth all eventually striving to be a standard, though unique in one way or another because we are all "special".

Fig 2 Muhammed Muheisen- Muheisen's images to me have immediate appeal. All Images i saw have individually tell a story such as fig. 2 depicting a balloon salesmen in Afghanistan. The image itself has a hopeful tone with an undercurrent of dread and general badness in the world. The image depicts children buying these balloons excitedly which on first glance there is nothing special about the scene till we discover that untill recently no one could buy a balloon in Afghanistan because Al Qaida simply would not allow it. This lends to a hopeful tone to the image until we peer into the background and see the factory spewing out harmful smog into the air. This can be a critique to America, first we go into an area and take it over to free the people from oppression i.e. Al Qaida. Then we "rape" the world in which they live by setting up all kinds of manufacturing businesses that harm the people of the area either by the toxins that the factories spit out because there are no regulations or very little there, or by the people there actually working in the factories in which they are given minimal pay with long hours in a job that is quite dangerous, sometimes hiring children.

This is of course just one example of his work, obviously; but on a more broad basis of his work as a whole we can see he intuitively has a strong sense of design and how to frame the shot. The misen sein of every shot is a strong one or in other words everything in frame is strong conveying the message in which he is trying to convey and the story he is covering.

1st critique

In first critique my photos were deemed awkwardly cropped and off colored. The idea behind my prints were the concept of yesterdays yellow, and the idea of abandonment in conjunction with a series I have been working on for a semester now based on the idea of abandonment and loss of identity. Croppings and color was off because I wanted to show that there was an oddness about the scene. All crops and color decisions were completely intentional.

It was interesting to try and not use the words like or dislike while during critique. It was a challenge because there were so many prints I disliked and thought were not good at all that had no concept at all behind them, the simple fulfillment of the assignment to get the colors.

I fully intend to reshoot this assignment to prove Im not a dummy.