Brittany Emery - Weekly Post 11/04/2013

Lars Tunbjork

Tunbjork is a Swedish photographer who now resides in Germany, and a majority of his photographs have been called "weird" and "depressing"; despite this, they carry a raw, emotional quality that many viewers who have experienced such desolation can relate to with ease. My favorite of his collections is of his portrayal of the lonely, tedious lifestyle that a cubicle worker endures every day; it has a long name, but its shorthand name is simply "Office". Its cluttered and often bleak images of the various work-spaces and the people who inhabit them are strikingly ordinary, but nicely composed. I particularly liked the image below of the woman with the headset and the overlapped flower and plant; if you don't look too closely, she almost appears to be hooked up to a machine, like some kind of cyborg. This would, of course, poke at the robotic nature of cubicle lifestyle.

Michael Watts Weekly post #11

Michael Paul Smith

Michael Paul Smith was born in 1950 and is a photographer from the town of Winchester Massachusetts.  He has a background in model making and used to create small scale replicas for museums and textbooks.  He now photographs small scale scenes that depict 1950's America.  He employs the use of detailed model cars and buildings that he creates himself and then places them in front of real life backgrounds.  The blend of these real and replicated elements make for an interesting and surprisingly convincing composition.  All of the scenes that Smith creates exist in the fictional town that he has created called Elgin Park.  He uses this town to recreate memories from his childhood while growing up during this period and to share everything that he loves about the mid 20th century. 

Christianne Harmon weekly post #11

Arno Rafael Minkkinen is a Finnish American photographer noted for his unmanipulated nude self-portraits in the landscape. Born in Helsinki in 1945, he moved with his family to America in 1951. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, he later attended Wagner College on Staten Island, majoring in English. After five years in the advertising business as a Madison Avenue copywriter, he discovered photography working on the Minolta camera account. “What happens inside your mind can happen inside a camera,” was the turning-point headline he wrote in 1970. A year later, studying with John Benson at the Apeiron Workshops in Millerton, New York, he began his self-portrait work.

He received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Currently he is Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is also docent and visiting professor at the University of Art & Design Helsinki and École d’Art Appliqués in Vevey, Switzerland.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen used himself for many of his portraits because a lot of the photographs were difficult to make and even dangerous. He became a photographer before photoshop and therefore continues to create amazing photographs by using the camera and not manipulating the image later. He contorts peoples body parts and puts them in nature to create very interesting photographs. He has an entire collection of photographs of him and his son from the time his son was born in 1979 through 1998 where they are nude or partially nude.

http://www.arno-rafael-minkkinen.com

1992 • Self-portrait with Maija-Kaarina • Sysmä, Finland

2002 • Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, England

2002 • Self-portrait with Selva: Morning • Gozo, Malta<

1993 • Self-portrait with Dan (his son) • Fosters Pond

1970 • First self-portrait in New York City

2012 • Self-Portrait with Andrea • Independence Pass, Colorado

Alexis Bernard Weekly Blog Post

Karl Schmolz 

This week's blog post is dedicated to famous German architectural photographer Karl Schmolz. He was born in Weissenhorn in 1917. His father was also an architectural photographer an from a young age he was very interested in making his own photos. During the second World War he put photography aside to serve in the Army. After the war he was able to take pictures of the damaged buildings. Soon after, he began to make a portfolio documenting the next 30 years of his stay in Germany. He married another photographer, Walde Huth and they soon opened a studio together which focused on fashion and portrait photography. 

I chose this photographer because he inspires me with the photos he takes. I admire he eye for detail especially involving lines and shape. For my next project, I will be using some of his photos for inspiration. Above are a few of his photos I found very interesting. Be sure to leave some feedback if you like this photos as well.  

Ashly Mollienido's Weekly Blog Post #11

David LaChapelle

I chose to do David LaChapelle this week, because of his known work with modern celebrities, labels, magazines, and other famous artists. I found it incredibly interesting that for his first job he was actually hired by the Andy Warhol. If that is not starting off on the right foot then, I don't know what is. His skillful hand with a camera got his work shown in high top magazines such as Italian and French Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Rolling Stone. He also shows off his talent through many exhibitions. His website exclaims, 

"David LaChapelle is known internationally for his exceptional talent in combining a unique hyper-realistic aesthetic with profound social messages."

In an interview, I even learned the hardships of this artist and how he learned how to say to no to the jobs that did not serve him happiness and/or benefited him. On that journey to that lesson, he even managed to fire the well known Madonna. I Began looking through his artwork, and I particularly love his portraits. He has worked with so many singers, actors, actresses, and even politicians, like Hilary Clinton. He uses a lot of surrealism in his portraits, which make them so interesting. The color, the scale of the subjects as opposed to the objects surrounding the subject and taking up the setting of the images, are all perfectly chosen and well-placed. David LaChapelle still to this day, continues to do great work, still showing his work through exhibitions internationally.

 

     

Catherine Meadows Weekly Post #11

Robert Glenn Ketchum

          Robert Glenn Ketchum was born December 1st, 1947.  He went to UCLA to study design.  He later received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1974.  After he graduated he became friends with another photographer named Elliot Porter, who helped him learn more about photography.  Robert is a landscape photographer.  While I was searching through his photos I really enjoyed the beauty of each one.  He takes very excellent pictures.  He finds places that have lots of color and depth to them.  He has taken his landscape pictures mainly in Alaska and the Arctic, and even some in California.  I really love the clarity in each of his pictures too.  The pictures are sharp from top to bottom.  Robert is very into nature and the importance of how to keep our environment clean.  He has been named as one of the top conservation photographers and was given the Ansel Adams award for Conservation Photography.

Aimee Bruce Weekly Post 11#

Wolf Ademeit

 

          Wolf Ademeit was born in 1954. Despite the fact that he owns an advertising agency and a photo studio, Wolf would rather call himself a hobbyist instead of a photographer. Most of his photographic series involves taking images of zoo animals rather than animals in their natural habitats. When examining the photo shown above, one would say that this has a good depth of field. This image also gives off the feeling of being frozen in time. When taking into consideration that these zoo animals tend to move around quite frequently, Wolf must have used a fast shutter speed such as 1/500th of a second to capture these creatures with precision. Although, in order to obtain a decent exposure, his aperture would need to be as low as F2. So one could arrive at the idea of him using special lighting and/or a lens that is much better than the average "stock" lens. When looking at these images, the viewer should also know that it took 5 years for Wolf to finish his highly acclaimed animal series.

 

             Wolf Ademeit made the decision of making photographs of animals in zoos instead of animals in their respective environments. One would easily jump to the assumption that animals are easier to photograph in enclosed spaces because (eventually) they're going to repeat certain actions. Others might say that theres a deeper meaning behind these images. For instance, Wolf's animal series primarily focuses on the emotion/attitude/expression these animals make. Its almost as if he's giving them a sort of personification that anyone could relate to. Maybe Wolf Ademeit could be questioning the morality of keeping these thinking/feeling beings caged for the sole purpose of our (the mass populations') enjoyment. There could also be another message. Maybe these animals obtained these varying expressions only after being introduced into these zoos based on the expressions displayed by their viewers.