Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was an amateur street photographer who left behind over 100,000 negatives when she died in 2009. She never showed her work to anyone, and it was by chance that someone discovered her work in a box at an auction after her death. Even though she never spoke to anyone about her photos, I think she photographed in a way that her opinions of the people and situations are present in the final image. Her photographs are thematically similar in that she chose to take very honest, narrative, unbiased portraits, freezing her subjects in the black and white square format from her TLR. I enjoy how her work explores the relationships between her and her subject, whether they were complete strangers, or one of her nanny charges that she looked after for years. Her website: http://www.vivianmaier.com/          

  

 

Oleksandr Hnatenko

Oleksandr's photography has similarities in many different areas. All of his photographs have a similar aesthetic quality to them. The color photos are very bold, with intense colors. All of his photos (color and B&W) have intense contrast, though it is well done. Nearly all of his photos are surreal in some way, the ones that aren't were usually shot for magazines or something like that. He often takes the human body and distorts it in some way. This is his website.

Rineke Dijkstra

The Dutch photographer began to produce photographs and videos when most of us were just a twinkle in someone's eye. Her work consists of deadpan portraits of people: clubbers who had just stopped dancing, swimmers who had just climbed out of the ocean, bullfighters in need of bandages...

 Self-Portrait

 Amy

Vila Franca de Xira

I enjoy her work because of her intention to capture a person's true mood-of-the-moment, when the subject is left to stand instead of posing with a poker face on. Where has she been all my life and why does her name/work seem so familiar to me??

Dijkstra did a series of videos and photographs (taken using a 4x5 film camera) of club-goers at a few popular clubs in Europe. The short clip is an example of what Dijkstra was looking for.

Examples of some of her work, as well as a summary of her projects, can be found on the Guggenheim website. A link to photos of the installation in the NY Guggenheim can be found here (it's nice to see the projects displayed as a whole).

Andy Goldsworthy

"At its most successful, my "touch" looks into the heart of nature; most days I don't even get close. These things are all part of a transient process that I cannot understand unless my touch is also transient; only in this way can the cycle remain unbroken and the process be complete. "

-Andy Goldsworthy 

Like I said before about being alone on issues not feeling like I belong, so I started to enjoy characters in books, drawing, painting, nature. I found a connection in the environment when I had no one else to turn to. That connection with an unknown force. Being out in nature and coexisting with everything around me, was very meditative. Andy Goldsworthy truly, in my opinion, represents what its like to just go with the flow, connecting to nature and just making "love" with it. By taking what nature offers and putting his own unique touch of creativity he designed beautiful sculptural patterns, which basically look like a nature installation. Afterwards he would document his experience by taking a photo. Look at the beauty of what nature and man can make with nothing but what each provides to the other. His work inspires me to not exactly do the same, but go in nature with really nothing find what is immersed and make art, to see what me and nature can do. By connecting with not only nature but once finished to show others by maybe leaving it there overtime for people to see and enjoy; that you are never really alone, you always have something or someone to turn to.

http://www.ucblueash.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html

Benoit Paillé

I just found this photographer while looking through the Machine Factory website, and I really loved his work!

These are from Paillé's series "Alternative Landscapes" in which he wanted to photograph landscapes in a new way, using a 1x1 square of light which he installs in the middle of the photograph. I am not typically a fan of landscape photography (in fact, I usually find it tedious and boring). These seem almost alien, like they came from some fantastic place or out of someone's imagination, though. I am still not sure how he has installed the light without any suspension being visible, so if any of you have ideas, I really want to know.

His website: http://www.benoitp.com/

Craig L. Walker

First off, like I promised, here's the C-41 Processing kit that I mentioned that is cheap and will save you lots of money if you want to do film like me, in our concepts class. If you have any questions regarding it, I would suggest asking Georgi about it. He has since moved to Chicago, but his e-mail should still be up and running. He taught the summer Alternative Processing and Techniques class how to use the C-41 Jobo Press Kit. It is $20.99 before S&H on this website:

http://www.calumetphoto.com/eng/product/jobo_c_41_press_kit_1_liter_/jb4103

and on b&h, i found this, which is a tad cheaper:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/109267-REG/Tetenal_T109306_C_41_Press_Kit_for.html

Alright, as for photographer. I wanted to find a new photographer that related to the work I hope to do in this class: I mentioned something about finding justice and my interest in it, especially for people, like my mother, who suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from living in a war zone, alongside living through near-death natural disasters. She shows obvious signs of it, but tries to pretend like her personality is normal.

I looked around for a bit and found photographer Craig L. Walker, who just won the Pulitzer Prize for his Photo story on soldier Brian Scott Ostrom, who returned from his second deployment in Iraq, and who suffers obvious PTSD. The photos are telling and honest. They are disturbing, but powerful. For the full photo story, make sure to check out the link that I provided.http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2012-Feature-Photography#

 
 

Arthur Elgort

http://arthurelgort.com/

Arthur Elgort was one of the first photographers I became really interested in. Most of his work is fashion oriented and I'm most intrigued by his portraiture.  It's really clear in all of his works that he has a certain style of shooting that he sticks with and often times even uses the same kind of lighting.  He excels equally in both color and black & white.