Food/Still Life Photography

RESEARCH HERE

Narrative Research

Photography with a really good narrative element is something that gets me very excited. I've recently been more open to fashion for this very reason. I find an image that poses questions is much more interesting than one where the intent is obvious.

If it was up to me, I would just post the entire works of Los Angeles photographer Alex Prager. Her use of narrative in fashion is stellar to say the least. As a person who is heavily inspired by cinema, her work excites me like nothing else I've see to date. A photographer like Gregory Crewdson definitely has a cinematographic quality to his work, but I find the huge scale of the production behind it a bit of a turn off. He is more of a single frame film director. Prager, on the other hand, works on a much smaller scale but achieves similar results. Taking ideas from old films such as "Valley of the Dolls"and Hitchcock's "The Birds', Prager illustrates scenes that leave the viewer asking questions.

NARRATIVE EXAMPLES

She recently crossed from still frames to film in her short film "Despair"

MY WORK

Assignment 3 - Environmental Portraiture

The Bad

I was surprised at some of the finds I made on flickr. Many of these environmental portraits have corny smiles, backgrounds that give no idea of the environment, and awkward posing. Two of the photos that really don't do it for me are the one of the owner of the magazine stand and the girl on the beach. The cropping of the head in the later begs the question "Why was this considered a portrait?". I find the relationship between the subject and background in the photo of the girl with glasses and a braid really doesn't work. The cabinet makes her appear to be in some kind of lab and therefore really out of place.

&

The Good

These portraits are clearly superior to the others. I really like the simplicity of the first photo. The lighting works really well in complimenting the setting and the relationship between the subject and his surroundings makes for a successful environmental portrait. Krishnendu Saha's image of the little boy in a doorway uses a very small piece of the environment as a tool to invoke questions about the context. This makes the image stand out so much more than the image of the little boy in the bad section. Although I was not all that attracted to Jessica Yoakam's photo, I thought that the introduction of props into the environment worked really well in the creation of a story. It gives viewers ideas of what this girl is about and what she is concerned with. 

My Work

I find that even though the background is out of focus in my first portrait, there is enough information left to inform the viewer of what is going on. I like the relationship between her expression and the background populated with limbs and the bottle. The next three images are from a series I did at a 24 hour bakery. The photos are pretty standard in terms of environmental portraits. What I like about this set is that environment is full of interesting shapes and details. The subject does not take up very much room in the frame but is still clearly prominent.

Assignment 2 - Preliminary Research

"I work from awkwardness."

Born in 1923, native New Yorker Diane Arbus married young (18) and began her career as a fashion photographer.  Working alongside her husband, Arbus gained notoriety for her innovative work in magazines. In 1959, her work changed direction and became more artistic. She received two Guggenheim fellowships followed shortly thereafter by her first exhibit at the MOMA. Her momentous, promising career was tragically cut short by her suicide in 1971. The following year Arbus became the first American photographer to have her work shown at the Venice Biennale.

Arbus is very well known for her subject matter. Her work consists mostly of odd looking people she referred to as "freaks". She loved to capture the extraordinary. The majority of her photographs are lit with direct off camera flash creating high contrast situations and intense, defined shadows. In my opinion this enhances the roughness of the viewing experience.

Emulation-Diane Arbus

 

Though I very much enjoyed attempting to emulate the style of Diane Arbus, I found it very hard to get under her skin. I had done some other portraits of people who fit the "freak" description much better than the above subjects but the photographs just lacked the aura that is so apparent in Arbus' work. On the technical side, there's not much I can say. I used slightly off camera flash either on a bracket or handheld.

Aging Photos

Assignment 1

Diane Arbus & Edward Steichen

Arbus' portraits are usually lit with direct flash mounted just off camera. She tends to let the background go black or at least be underexposed. In many of her photos the background is of little importance giving much more visual impact and focus to her subjects. Unlike the stylized, surreal, and ideal portraits of Steichen, Arbus produces thought provoking, quirky, and sometimes eerie photographs. The harsh lighting works quite well with her choice of subjects. They are quite often eccentric or odd looking looking people involved in humorous or ambiguous situations. Arbus consistently places her subjects in the center of the frame (in the case of two subjects they are spaced evenly giving a feeling of symmetry) and has them look right at the camera. The use of props demonstrated below further enhance and reinforce the quirky, eccentric air of her photos. I think her portraits are great because they show a completely different side of the subjects. An example of this is the drab "king and queen", a traditional symbol of wealth and power reduced to a rather pitiful representation of a motley couple. I find her photography, as depressing as it can be, is much like the work of Elliot Erwitt in terms of encompassing  a great deal of humour in the frame.

Steichen's work, on the other hand, is extremely stylized. He uses very soft light in various patterns with the intention of beautification. I especially like use of side lighting. His subjects are mostly people who are famous or of some importance whereas Arbus' are unknown. The background in Steichen's photo's vary, though in many cases, unlike Arbus, they add an important element to the image. Like Arbus, Steichen frames his subjects mostly in the center, looking away from the lens. Rather than using props for humour, Steichen incorporates various items (such as the piano below) the enhance the composition and aesthetics. In the photograph below the curvature of the piano compliments the curvature of his subject while adding to the overall elegant tone of the image. His work is full of interesting use of shapes and space. I feel his photographs are successful as they instil a feeling of dreaminess with classic beauty and sophistication that just shouts "Hollywood". They are all quite surreal. They are very nice and easy to look at whereas Arbus' (equally great work) are more rough around the edges and have a completely different appeal.  

Richard Avedon & Yousuf Karsh

Avedon's portraits have a very distinct style. They all use extremely soft lighting, a lot of butterfly. The model is usually posed in the center of the frame and framed 3/4 or head & shoulders. I noticed that many of his subjects are either very pale or have an abundance of freckles. This gives a nice visual quality. The background is pure white and of little importance as I feel like Avedon wanted to focus on the person and their story (fact or fiction). He fills most of his frames with the subject. One very apparent thing about Avedon's portraits is the use of a border. He shows the edges of the slide or film holder which is very nice as it contains the large white spaces. The photos are very bright and full of highlights while still containing a lot of nice detail. The strong contrast of blacks and whites gives his photos great visual impact. I like his use of props in some images very much as they provoke thought. Upon seeing the below image, I have to wonder "Who is this boy and why is he holding a rattlesnake? What does he do?"

Yousuf Karsh is famous for very classic portraiture of important people. Unlike Avedon's vogue approach to portraiture, Karsh captures his subjects within their environment. Props are often tools of their trade or an item that makes a statement about the person (Warhol & Picasso). The looks captured on the faces of his subjects say so much about them. The images are very sharp and detailed. The lighting varies throughout his portraits though it is consistently strong, giving defined shadows (the complete opposite of Avedon) I especially enjoy the pattern created in using two lights over the shoulders (Warhol). The framing varies from portrait to portrait depending on he environment and if any props are used. There are though, many headshots. I find Karsh's photos very successful as they really capture the essence of the subject. 

Annie Leibovitz

In my research I found that a device used by Annie Leibovitz is similar to that which shows up in the work Diane Arbus. Her lighting technique is quite similar. She will often use direct, on or slightly off camera flash. Like Arbus, she underexposes the background by a couple of stops intentionally, though she does not let it fade to black. The background remains an apparent/important element affecting the mood of the photograph. Another similarity between the two photographers is that Leibovitz's work is also quite quirky (though it contains a high concentration of celebrities).