Animated History of Cameras

When I was searching around for things to add in my scrapbook, I came across this fun video animation that artist Antonio Vicentini created. It's not completely accurate in terms of chronology because it's more of his own personal history with cameras, but I thought it was still neat to pick out which cameras I could identify. You can find the video with a short article here.

Fake/Real Sandy Photos

Questions about "moving the body" in our contemporary photoshopped world persist. See here.

Jaokim Olaussen

I happened upon a few of these interesting photographs by Jaokim Olaussen.  He does a lot of digital art and photo-manipulation and the results often play with light and darkness and with altering nature. The two images above greatly differ from each other in their style and execution, but in each of them here is a sort of gloomy undertone, which is also carried through most of his other images.  Here is a link to more of his work: http://joaking.net/27539/gallery

This blog...until the end of time/semester.

Hi everyone!
Let's go back to blogging whatever you come across that interests you and think might interest the rest of us re: photography and its history. From now until the end of the semester you should check in and read the blog regularly, as always. Write posts and show us photos and cameras and links and so forth that relate to the topics of the course and to your research on contemporary photography. You can post updates about your research project and you can even post about something you've done for your "scrapbook" that you think is creative or successful. (I'd particularly like to see some "scrapbook" sharing here--show everyone what you are doing to creatively engage with the material in your scrapbooks...) Really, anything goes.

I'll check in at 5pm every Sunday, as always, and record a point to those who have posted within the last week. As stated in the syllabus your goal is to post once per week during each of the 16 weeks of the semester. If you are curious about your progress in this vein just make an appointment with me and we can discuss your blogging grade. There's still much time to accrue points so keep up the good work. And remember, you can use the blog as a starting point for a more thorough discussion of a topic, which can then find its way into your scrapbook. So let these various aspects of our course work together to help you learn and document your learning.

See you soon!
Lara

“And Then…” is a collaborative photography project between photographer Jo Metson Scott and artist/set designer Nicola Yeoman. Each photograph depicts an open narrative set in a wooded scene, whether it be a ghostly horse drawn carriage or a downed hot air balloon — the series is ethereal, beautiful and thoughtful.

I really love the kind of fantastical feel these images give. They remind me a bit of the pictorialism photos we studied earlier. I love the juxtaposition of man-made and nature and the transient feel it has.

((Daniel Na))

Chris Jordan

For our contemporary photographer presentation and paper Tyler P. and I chose to do Chris Jordan.  The above video is a Ted talk that I plan on using as a source.  In this video Jordan talks about his exhibit Intolerable Beauty which features his series "Running The Numbers."
With his exhibit intolerable beauty, large scale portraits of mass consumption, he would cite statistics about how much of certain things like plastic cups, for example, that we throw away every day.
The numbers, though, didn’t really have the impact he wanted. So, Jordan began to figure out how to portray the numbers through his images. His exhibit, Running the Numbers, began to put it all into perspective in a visual way.  The large size scale of his works makes the statistics he emphasizes much more impactful.

Anderson, Chris, comp. "Chris Jordan: Turning powerful stats into art ." Ted Talk. TED, 28 2008. web. 28 Oct 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f09lQ8Q1iKE&feature=player_embedded>. 

Nan Goldin

List of sources for Nan Goldin research project:

Books:
Goldin, Nan. Couples and Loneliness. [Kyoto, Japan]: Korinsha, 1998. Print.

 Goldin, Nan, Jonathan Weinberg, and Joyce Henri. Robinson. Fantastic Tales: The Photography of Nan Goldin. University Park, Penn.: Palmer Museum of Art in Association with The Pennsylvania State UP, 2005. Print.

 Bussard, Katherine A. "Nan Goldin." So the Story Goes: Photographs by Tina Barney, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Nan Goldin, Sally Mann, and Larry Sultan. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago, 2006. N. pag. Print.

Lee Jeffries: Homeless Portraits

Homeless Black and White Portraits Lee Jeffries

Thinking back to the slavery daguerreotypes, a majority of our class agreed that the images were still found of portrait characteristics. After discovering Lee Jeffries' Homeless images, I couldn't help but feel an attachment between the controversial daguerreotypes we discussed and these portraits. I found it interesting that Lee Jeffries took the time to actually get to know these individuals before requesting them a subject matter of this series of photos.

Overall the contrast, detail, and lighting drew me into each image. The more time spent in study of the figure, my imagination grew as detailed as the figure's wrinkled and weathered skin. Would Jeffries' photos have been equally successful if the figures represented various class systems compared to the homeless series seen here? How does the use of black and white change the image rather than the use of full color?

http://www.yellowkorner.com/artistes/198/Lee%20Jeffries.aspx
http://thumbpress.com/25-incredibly-detailed-black-and-white-portraits-of-the-homeless-by-lee-jeffries/

Documentary on Gregory Crewdson

This week, I found a source that I will hopefully be able to use for my artist presentation, it is a documentary on the work that Gregory Crewdson does for his images.  Going behind the scenes and looking at the way in which Crewdson composes his scenes, Benjamin Shapiro directs this movie.  Here's a little preview:

Here is the movie website.

Dan Winters

For this blog post, I want to talk about an artist name Dan Winters.

He is born in 1962, known for the broad range of subject matter he is able to interpret, but he is mostly famous for his celebrity portraits.

Dan Winters has some of the most unique light set-up I have ever seen before. The way he lights the figure's face is really magnificent. His lighting style is amazing, and he has a way of pulling emotion out of his subjects that will leave you breathless.

Dan Winters' website

Holga Cameras

The Holga is called a toy camera because its made of all plastic. Yes even the lens is plastic! There really isn't any way to focus it and when you are looking through the view finder you're not even looking through the lens. Now while I'm kind of making the Holga sound like a horrible camera, it really isn't at all. It's full of chance and serendipity, because it's likely to have light leaks you never know what you're going to get on your roll of film. It's this cheap camera that can produce really detailed images.

I've been really interested in the different types of Holgas lately and came across a Holga 120 Twin Lens Reflex. It looks really neat but it's around $60 and needs special films. Maybe it'll be going on my Christmas list... haha.

Heres a link to a short demo video.

Salgado

This week for the blog I found another source for Sebastiao Salgado. It's a discussion on his work and it explains a lot about his photographs and what he's trying to evoke with them. One of my favorite quotes from this article is, "His photographs deliberately provoke and disrupt; they are not easy to look at because they are not supposed to be easy to look at."

Wolford, Wendy. "Making a Difference: Sebastiao Salgado and the Social Life of Mobilization." Sociological Forum 26 (June 2011): 444-450.

Herman Berry

I have recently "inherited" an old Leica M3 which was my great-grandfather's (I use quotation marks because it was not left to me, but my grandmother let me have it).  His name was Herman Berry.  If anyone is from the Lafayette area, you may be familiar with Berry's Camera Shop.  My great-grandfather opened that business when he was young (I'm not sure about the year) and it is still going strong today.  It isn't in the family anymore, but my grandmother worked there for most of her youth.

Herman was very into photography.  I'm not sure if it was his profession, but I do know that before everyone could eat at a family gathering, he had to take a photo.  He always had a camera around his neck.  I've seen some slides of his photos, and they're not bad.  I have little doubt that my love of photography was passed down from him.

The Leica that is now in my possession has been researched and was probably made in 1957.  My great-grandfather's name is engraved on the back, and his social security number is engraved on the top!  This was common as a form of protection, believe it or not.  If the camera was stolen, the SSN could be used to return it to the owner if found.  It's also on the light meter.

I haven't shot any photos with it yet, as I just got it over fall break, but I plan to do so very soon!  I may post the photos later if they turn out well.

Tina Barney

For this week, I found another source for my research about Tina Barney with Amanda. This source is an article about Tina Barney's subject matter. She typically photographs very privileged people. In the article, John Ash discusses how Barney likes to photograph these well-off people from a different viewpoint to show their vulnerability. I think covering why she chooses to show their vulnerability would be interesting to include in our presentation.

Ash, John. "Tina Barney." Artforum International 32, no.3 (November 1993): 108.

Uta Barth

Bri, Lacey, and I are excited about variety of resources we have found. Beyond the three books at Bracken, we have been able to find several articles online. One of which I plan to add to my bookmarks, XTRA: Contemporary Art Quarterly.

Audrey Mandelbaum, "Uta Barth: . . . to walk without destination and see only to see," X-tra: Contemporary Art Quarterly Winter 2010, Vol. 13 Issue 2: 46-52.

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.bsu.edu/ehost/detail?sid=17c9f561-dc47-4f84-bcc3-5fc8ebb598b1%40sessionmgr111&vid=4&hid=127&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aft&jid=8W4S

This week on the blog...

Hi all,
I'm seeing some great choices for your research projects on the blog this week. You should continue to build a bibliography for your paper and presentation. Unfortunately, few of you managed to write a correct Chicago Style citation. Thus, I spent time going in and commenting on all of your posts from last week and will give you the opportunity to revise those posts and citations this week on the blog in order to earn some credit and better understand the formatting requirements.

If you wrote a complete post, including the name of your partner, the name of your chosen photographer, a correct Chicago-style citation, and a few sentences about this first source that you have found, then congratulations! You've earned full credit for your blog post last week. You can feel free to take a week off on the blog, or you can post about anything you like in order to earn a bit of extra credit or to replace a week when you might not have posted on time.

If you did not complete all of those components of last week's blog assignment, you have a second chance. Go back and reread your post, and my comments, and edit accordingly. You can post a comment on your original post in order to revise or complete your original entry.

If you did not post anything last week, or if you did not include a bibliographic citation in your post last week, I did not comment on it, and you have much work to do to complete that assignment. You still have a second chance to earn some credit.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know. These new and improved posts will be due as always this coming Sunday by 5pm.

LK

Mitch Epstein

One of these days I'll actually remember to post before 5. And technically on Sunday.

Partner: Marissa Steward
Artist: Mitch Epstein
Source:
Smyth, Diane. 2010. "River Deep, Mountain High." British Journal Of Photography 157, 30-41. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed October 22, 2012).

Sebastiao Salgado - CLAIMED

Hello all,

Megan Gross and I will be conducting our research on Sebastiao Salgado. Our research process up to this point has been mainly attempting to get a feel of the the photographs that Salgado is most known for, and gathering basic reference articles on Salgado to see where we can find some deeper, more interesting places to go with our search.

One of the sources that we have come across is a book of photographs by Salgado himself, entitled, An Uncertain Grace. The photographs on the inside of the book are horrifically moving, with many pictures of starving people and children where every bone in their bodies is visible to the naked eye. It is so exciting to be investigating a photographer with such great social change in mind. The concern for people in Africa and other places makes the research much deeper and much more real.

Salgado, Sebastiao.  An Uncertain Grace. New York: Aperture Foundation, 1990.

-Ryan

Mitch Epstein CLAIMED

Partner:  Daniel Na
Photographer:  Mitch Epstein
Research:  We have researched basic biographical information, such as birthdate, birthplace, education, recognitions, etc.

Bibliographic Entry:  Epstein, Mitch.  Vietnam: A Book of Changes. New York: Center for Documentary Studies, 1997. Print.

Sorry it's not more thorough, but I did post this dangerously close to 5 o'clock...

Chris Jordan

Alyssa and I have chosen to research Chris Jordan. He is a Seattle based activist photographer  that focuses on American consumerism and natural disasters. On Thursday, we found that he has two published books that we will have for research. Also, after just an hour or two of research, we have found several articles through BSU's research tools and will continue to find more.




Here is a short article we found. APA format

DeVuono, F. (2009, April). Chris jordan at washington state university. Artweek, 40(3), 21-22. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft&AN=505403048&site=ehost-live

Gregory Crewdson

As Aubry posted earlier, we've chosen to research American photographer Gregory Crewdson for our project.  His grand, cinematic style of photography really caught our attention.

In looking for research materials, I've been focusing on finding books that could be useful.  One book I've come across is called Acting the part: photography as theater by Lori Pauli.  Pauli discusses the style of "staged" photography and the artists that produce these images (including Gregory Crewdson).  She writes about the history of this practice and the inspiration and themes behind these works.  I think this book will be helpful in understanding how Crewdson works and why he creates his photographs in the style that he does.

Pauli, Lori. Acting the part: photography as theatre. London: Merrell Publishers, 2006.

Sebastiao Salgado | Claimed

Ryan Noll and I are researching Sebastiao Salgado for this project. So far, we are familiarizing ourselves with his work so we can figure out what our individual papers might be about. We've also found multiple sources and articles about him. 

One article talks about Salgado being recognized for his photographs that delve into social issues. It names a few, but reminded me of The End of Polio: A Global Effort to End a Disease (2003) which documents the immunization of almost 12,000,000 kids in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This article also lists numerous other social issues that his photographs document. 

Carr, Deborah. "The Forum: Celebrating the Work of Sebastiao Salgado: A Social Lens on Salgado's Documentary Photography." Sociological Forum 24 (June 2011): 416-417. 

Jeff Wall

David and I have chosen Jeff Wall as our contemporary photographer. He is a very well known Canadian photographer. His images are often modern takes on the history of art. I am excited to learn more about him and share his works with the class. Along with the book that David posted about, we also have used this scholarly article:

Alexander Vasudeven, “The Photographer of Modern Life: Jeff Wall’s Photographic Materialism,” Cultural Geographies 14, no. 4 (October 2007): 563-588

Richard and Judith Lang Citation

Here is one of the sources that Emily and I have found for Richard and Judith Lang.

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=8255a180-3a53-4480-bd66-826fd43ba700%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=123&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aft&AN=504954320

Barbara Morris, "Disposable Truths at Gallery Route One," Artweek, August, 2001, 20-21.

Uta Barth

Uta Barth is Lacey, Lauren, and I's photographer of choice. Here is a citation from Gale Biography in Context giving a great description of her purpose in her work.

Sundell, Margaret. "Uta Barth." Gale Biography in Context. Last modified 2000. Accessed October 21, 2012. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/AcademicJournalsDetailsPage/AcademicJournalsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Journals&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&source=&sortBy=&displayGroups=&search_within_results=&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA59460641.

Uta Barth

Bri, Lauren and I have decided to research Uta Barth. We have found three book sources already and will be looking for more articles.

-Lacey Back

Gregory Crewdson

Shelby and I have chosen Gregory Crewdson. So far, we have mostly been trying to decide who we want to choose and looking up scholarly articles for different artists to find who will be supported with research.

Green, David, and Joanna Lowry. "Photography, Media, and Cinema as Social Practice." Visual Studies 24 (September 2009): 132-142.

I think that this articles relates really well to our study of Gregory Crewdson as a photographer because it focuses on analyzing his photography through the lens of his cinematic approach, which is a trademark of his work.  I think that his incorporation of cinema into his photography will play a crucial role in understanding and looking into his work so I think that the fact that this article is focusing on just that will be helpful in further our research on him.

Hiroshi Sugimoto Claimed

Tyler Gater and I plan to do our project on Hiroshi Sugimoto.  We chose him because we really enjoyed his work and the wide variety of subject he has captured. To this point we are doing research to familiarize ourselves with the artist.

I found an article from a periodical that is helpful to my research because it talks about how Sugimoto integrates ideas of time into his photographs. It also talks about multiple series of Sugimoto’s that I am interested in featuring in my research.

My source is:

John Yau. “Time Halted: The Photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto.” The American Poetry Review 33 (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2004): 11-16

Here is an image talked about in the article:

Judith and Richard Lang *CLAIMED*

Hivvy and I decided to do our group project on Judith and Richard Lang who are a married together. Their art and photography focuses on found plastic objects from the beach. They arrange them into sculpture pieces and then photograph it. One of their goals is also to raise awareness for ocean pollution!

Annie Leibovitz | CLAIMED!

For this project, I will be working with Daniel Eggert and we will be researching the photographer, Annie Leibovitz.  She has been an active photographer since 1970.  Daniel and I have been researching and have found some great sources.  We are going to interlibrary loan a few book sources, one of which Annie Leibovitz is a co-author.


Here is a source I found written about Leibovitz's traveling exhibit and her book based on the exhibit.  It also tells more about who she is and her life.

Pridmore-Brown, Michele. "Annie Leibovitz's Queer Consumption of Motherhood", Women's Studies 

                 Quarterly 37 (Winter 2009): 81-95.

Excerpt from Source

Tina Barney

 

Me and Amanda have decided to research Tina Barney. So far, we have started research by finding sources and putting together an outline of topics we want to cover. One of the sources I have found is below-

Chase, Alisia. "The Europeans: Photographs by Tina Barney." Afterimage 33 (March/April 2006): 53-54.

This source will go well with our research because it discusses The Europeans, which is a collection Tina Barney photographed that shows an intimate look at wealthy Europeans at home. The photo above is one of the photos from this collection.

Tina Barney CLAIMED

Claire and I are finally settling on Tina Barney for a research presentation!

Sally Mann (Claimed)

Group: Morgan Beard and Shani Horvath
Photographer: Sally Mann
Looking around online and through the list of photographers Laura posted on the blog, we decided Sally Mann seemed like the best choice. I had seen some of her photographs in the past, and the controversy over these images was very intriguing, so it will be interesting to learn more about that. Her images have been described as pornographic and exploiting child innocence. I'm not quite sure of my viewpoint on them yet, but I'm excited to see how my opinion forms through researching and learning more about these images. The source listed below is great for the beginning stages of this project because it provides a brief overview of her work and life.

Mary Chou. "Mann, Sally." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed October 17, 2012, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2021804.

Vik Muniz-CLAIMED

Group: Marlee and Christy

Photographer: Vik Muniz

We decided on Vik Muniz because of the different mediums(chocolate, thread, magazines cutouts) that he uses and photographs.  His work is light hearted and fun to view.  In the the article, "100th Anniversary of the Discovery of Machu Picchu", Muniz creates modern day paintings that are made of magazine collage cutouts then photographs them.  We think he is inventive and very creative and are excited to learn more about Mr. Muniz.  :)  

NA, "100th Anniversary of the Discovery of Machu Picchu." Americas Ojo! (Date NA): 2-3

Rasing the Flag at Ground Zero

This was one of the images that came up in my Google search during lecture today. I thought you all might enjoy it as well!

Jeff Wall - CLAIMED

Eric Conrad and I (David Deng) will be doing research on photographer Jeff Wall.

We have read a little bit about Jeff Wall's photography, and looked at a good amount of his photography in the book The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art).

Cotton, Charlotte. The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Thames & Hudson,
                   2009.

Uta Barth

Bri, Lacey, and I have started research on Uta Barth!

Looking forward to digging deep on this one!

Annie Leibovitz (Claimed)

Whitney Hamblin and I are going to be doing our project on Annie Leibovitz.  We have looked through some of the online library searches and have found a lot of interesting things to look at.  We have interlibrary loaned some books and found some good sources.  I'm excited to learn more about her and what she has done in her career.

Leibovitz, Annie. Annie Leibovitz at Work. New York: Random House, 2008.

This is going to be a good source for our project because it is a book about our photographer and her career and it is an autobiography as well.

Richard Misrach

Dean Mosier and I are going to write our paper on Richard Misrach.  We have done some research to this point and have found scholarly articles online that discuss his work and his biography. Of course we plan to do more and search for books sources.

One source we found is this: Deborah Bright, "The Machine in the Garden Revisited: American Environmentalism and Photographic Aesthetics," Art Journal 51, no. 2 (1992): 60-71, accessed October 14, 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/777397

Richard Misrach

Sarah Reynolds and I have decided upon Richard Misrach as our photogrpaher.  We have done some searches through the library for articles and journal entries.  These mostly cover his most known work Desert Cantos.  In one of the articles we found it says, "...he (Richard Misrach) camps out in what passes for the remote desert only to show our unexpected hand in it everywhere.  He's a specialist in transmitting drab, and finally ghastly, news from epic landscapes."

• Ghastly News from Epic Landscapes
• Max Kozloff
• American Art
• Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Winter - Spring, 1991) (pp. 108-131)
• Page Count: 24

Sally Mann - CLAIMED

Morgan Beard and I settled on Sally Mann for our research project.  So far, we have just started picking scholarly articles for background and career information, including her published works and some of the controversy behind her name.  One article discusses Mann's photographs of her own children, all under the age of ten.  Sexualizing Children: Thoughts on Sally Mann questions the intentional sensual tone given to her children in her work and what purpose/reaction she is trying to achieve both as a mother and as a photographer. The picture below is one of the less sexualized images.

Gordon, Mary. Sexualizing Children: Thoughts on Sally Mann. Salmagundi, No. 111 (Summer 1996), pp. 144-14. Skidmore College. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40535995>

 

 

Sally Mann

Sally Mann is a well known American photographer for her large format black and white prints. Her early work focused on close up portraits. She has also experimented with landscapes of nature and now her most recent work depicts death and decay with body forms. I find her work very interesting and intriguing, especially with the sharp contrast and abstractions she creates in her work.

Nan Goldin

Hello everyone!

Katie Major and I have decided on researching Nan Goldin. I am claiming her with this post and will follow up here in a couple days about our research and a source.

This week...making choices and doing research.

Hi all,
Now that we have a handle on pairs and groups of students, and you've had time to learn how to do library-based research, in addition to all of the very productive googling that goes into making this blog, it's time to post your final decisions on which photographer you plan to research, write about, and present on this semester. I know some of you have already announced your *final* decisions, but to me they remained tentative until today. So every single student should be writing a blog post this week, between now and 5pm next Sunday, October 21. Please include the following information:

1-The names of everyone in your pair/group
2-The name of the photographer, active since 1990, whom you plan to research
3-A discussion of your research process up to this point
4-At least one bibliographic entry for a scholarly source that relates to your topic. Please write the bibliographic entry according to the Chicago Style and include a few sentences about how this source relates to your photographer and why it will make a good source for a research paper. (Each group member should come up with a unique source. Do not post the same book/article.)

Remember, scholarly sources are printed sources, not websites. Use the resources that our kind librarians spoke of...look for books using WorldCat and CardCat; articles using Art Full Text, JSTOR, etc; and exhibition reviews using The New York Times database/archive.

Here's a link to the Chicago Style guide:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

And here are some common examples of bibliographic entries in Chicago Style:

Book with one author:

Tagg, John. The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories.   Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.

Book with multiple authors:

Robertson, Jean, and Craig McDaniel. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Chapter in a book with multiple authors:

Eldredge, Charles C. "Prairie Prodigal: John Steuart Curry and Kansas." In John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, edited by Patricia Junker, 90-109. New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with the Elvehjem Museum of Art, 1998.

Article in Journal/Magazine:

Smithson, Robert. “Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan.” Artforum 8 (September 1969): 28-33.

Chave, Anna C. “New Encounters with Les Demoiselles D’Avignon: Gender, Race, and the Origins of Cubism.” Art Bulletin 76, no. 4 (December 1994): 596-611.

Any questions? Let me know. I will mediate conflicts if multiple groups want the same photographer, but hopefully, if you've all been reading the blog, you'll have a sense of the wants/needs/interests of your fellow classmates and you've already adjusted accordingly.

See you Tuesday!

LK

Zwelethu Mthethwa

Mthethwa is a South African photographer who works in Cape Town, South Africa. Because of his work, South African Photography has made a place for itself on the world stage. His body of work mainly focuses on black South Africans, and their place in South African society. He often depicts them as defiant, strong individuals despite their stereotyped weakness and poverty. He has had 35 solo exhibitions worldwide, and is worth looking at.

Here is a review from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/arts/design/16views.html?_r=0

Jeff Wall

We've decided that we will do our presentation on Jeff Wall.
As I blogged about him last week, he is one of the most famous photographer and most talked in the contemporary art world.
Our goal is to cover his most popular photographs and some of his photographs that are not talked much.
Along with his photographs, we will also try to cover Jeff Wall's background history as much as possible and his working process as well.

Alfredo Jaar

I chose Alfredo Jaar for two reasons:

1. I am familiar with his outdoor installment at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  (It's pretty cool.  Go check it out if you haven't seen it.)
2. His name sounds like a delicious Italian entrée.

But let's just focus on that first reason.

He was born in Chile's capital city, Santiago, but like most other artists, eventually found his way to New York and is still there now.  He considers himself an artist, architect, and filmmaker.  He's known worldwide and has works in galleries all over the globe.  He earned his place as a Guggenheim Fellow in '85, and found himself with the honor of being a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.

His installment at the IMA is called "Park of the Laments".  It consists of a large, square mound surrounded by a wall made of stones contained in wire "baskets".  On one side of the mound is a tunnel entrance.  Viewers walk through it, go up some stairs, and find themselves on a flat lawn of considerable size.  Benches surrounding the central entrance area and very minimal gardening encourage visitors to stay awhile and sort out their thoughts.  Of course, on a scorching day, the tunnel is more inviting than the completely sun-exposed benches.

www.alfredojaar.net

Mitch Epstein (Official Declaration)

Daniel Na and I are researching Mitch Epstein.  He's got a lot of cool narrative images and they all just draw the viewer in to the photograph.

http://www.mitchepstein.net/work/index.html

Vik Muniz

This week I'm posting about Vik Muniz.  While looking through his website I found the Shadowgram photographs, Equivalent photographs, and photographs of Best of Life.  Some of his photographs are funny when looking at them with their given title name.  I enjoy viewing his series of works because they all seem to be photographs of things creating objects, like the thread creating scenic views.

Camera Obscura

Yesterday I was at Mississinewa re-enactments of 1812. I was surprised to see it there and so I took a picture to share with the class.  While Talbot was the first to make use of the Camera Obscura as a camera.  It has been around longer.  The box form of Camera Obscura was invented by Johann Zahn in 1685 and was just used for tracing and capturing a drawing of what the viewer would see through the lens.  It was pretty cool to see how this worked in real life.  Anyway, I figured I'd share.  

Gregory Crewdson

I know Gregor Crewdson has already been posted, but I just really enjoy his work.  His style is unique to me, but yet it seems to pull a little bit from Edward Hopper.  The length he will go to capture his narrative style and use of elaborate sets with a large crews is pretty amazing too. His photos are slightly disturbing and yet familiar too with the use of the standardized American family home/neighborhood.  He's definitely one of the more interesting and unique photographers for me.  Since there were links to his work on the last one I'm posting an interview.  He talks about his process of making photographs.  Interview

Frank Hurley

I was reading through a photography blog when I stumbled upon this very interesting article. The article is about a photographer by the name of Frank Hurley and Shackleton's Antarctic expedition (1914 - 1917). I enjoyed reading this and felt that it goes along with our class really well.  Not to mention his work is awesome! Hope you enjoy. Oh, and do not forget to watch the video. 

Article:

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/10/13/photog-documented-being-stranded-in-the-antarctic-nearly-100-years-ago/#more-79817

More of his work:

http://www.rallscollection.com/exhibits/hurley/gallery.html