#19. Can you think of anything that:

1) should not be photographed? Why? 

I think there are things that shouldn't be photographed and they would have to be photos that are an invasion of privacy. For example, I think the paparazzi are ridiculous. Yes, I know that we feed into it and people by the magazines and look at the blogs but I really think there has to be a line drawn. I realize that celebrities have put themselves out there and have given up some of their privacy but the way they are hounded is sad. Especially when it becomes not even the celebrities that are the focus but their children. I don't know I think it's just not necessary and all of the money that is put into those paparazzi pictures could be put to much better use.


2) cannot be photographed? why?

That's a hard one. I'm not sure there is anything that can't be photographed especially with all the technology we have today. I guess one thing that couldn't be photographed in unforeseen accidents or events. For example if there was a car accident on the street in front of your house, you couldn't take a photo of it happening at the exact moment it happened because you didn't know it was going to happen. You wouldn't sit there, camera in hand, everyday waiting for a car accident to happen. You could photograph the aftermath, but not the instant it happened.

3) you do not want to photograph? why?

I get light-headed and faint around blood so I wouldn't want to be a photo-journalist covering a war or a bombing or anything that involved people being severely injured or killed. I just don't think I could handle it physically or emotionally.

Work in Progress...

Recreation #3

For this Recreation I was trying to make this neighborhood look like a white picket neighborhood like a picture my Gramma has in the 1950's. I wanted it to look like it was in a dream. I used a tilt lens, my goal was to make the row of houses look slightly warped. I also tried to frame it with the trees and grass to feel like you are looking into this neighborhood and not actually a part of it. I am happy with the result.

Historical Photographer Research: Emile Zola

"I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation." - Emile Zola

EMILE ZOLA. A Restaurant, Taken from the First Floor or Staircase of the Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1900.
Gelatin silver print. Collection Dr. Francois Emile Zola, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.

 

 

 

Emile Zola was better known for being an author rather than a photographer. He was born in Paris and spent most of his childhood in southern France. He was a romantic novelist and later in life became a critic. He also thought that writers could shape the opinion of the public. He wrote many newspaper articles doing just that. 

For more information on him: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ezola.htm.

Contemporary Photographer Research: Richard Mosse

General Février, North Kivu, Eastern Congo, 2010 - Infra

Breach 

Richard Mosse is driven by an ambivalence toward photography and a desire to revisit and even rewrite traumatic cultural histories. His work seeks to explore and subvert photographic genres in order to unpack history and try to understand how the world is written. His work is located in the space between fiction and the real. 

Mosse was born in 1980 in rural Ireland and is now based in New York. He received Masters degrees from Yale, Goldsmiths and the London Consortium, but started out with a first class BA in English Literature from King's College London. Mosse has recently completed a two year Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing and Visual Arts. This major award helped him travel widely and deepen his photographic practice, with Gregory Crewdson as his fellowship tutor.

Mosse has exhibited work at Akademie der Kunst, Barbican Art Gallery, Fotofest Houston, MCA Chicago, Palais de Tokyo and Tate Modern. His work has been featured and reviewed in Artforum, Art In America, Art Review, Frieze and Modern Painters. He has been interviewed about his work by Jorg Colberg, Geoff Manaugh, and Aaron Schuman. His work is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. It has been featured in Time Magazine’s photos of the year for two years running. Mosse was nominated by Alec Soth for the Baum Award, to be announced in 2011.

-http://features.instituteartistmanagement.com/richardmosse.html

I am so glad that I have discovered Richard Mosse, his work is so fascinating to me. I love how he takes ordinary situations (well, ordinary for some) and makes them extraordinary. It photos don't seem real, but are some of the most relevant things that are happening in our world today. To see more go to: http://www.richardmosse.com/index.php.

 

#18. Respond: “I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” Duane Michals

I agree and disagree with statement because although I think there is magic in seeing people in new ways, and capturing that magic takes expertise. I also think there can be magic in capturing what you think you already know and then finding out you don't know it at all. It does take talent to capture someone without making it look like they know they are being captured.

#17. Respond: “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer—and often the supreme disappointment.” ~Ansel Adams

I think this is true as well because it is often so hard to see with lens what we see with our eye. When you are standing there, looking at a landscape that is so beautiful, how can you capture it? I think this is the test Adam's is talking about. How can you possibly capture what you see all around you? And even when you do it as well as he does, I'm sure the photo is nothing compared to actually being there and seeing it first hand.