Kat Hennessy Weekly Post [Week 9]

Alexi Hobbs

Alexi Hobbs works out of Montreal, and has a focus on the use of color and light in his photography. He uses dramatic lighting, low light, and the reflection/refraction of light to highlight his subjects- creating a visual interest on things that may otherwise seem ordinary. Many of his photos have a very focused subject without distraction or abstraction from its surroundings.

Hobbs allows the subject to be simple, often viewing them from unusual perspectives, and uses a strong bold colors or lighting to place emotion in and around said subject. A sense of wonder and interest is felt when viewing, leaving the observer curious to know more, but feeling strangely satisfied at what is there. This may be to allow the viewer to insert their own sort of meaning to the image or invoke a memory or thought for them based on personal experiences and observations.

Amelia Wood

Nir Arieli

Nir Arieli started out as a military photographer before he recived a schorlship at New York's School of Visual Arts to prusue a more formal aspect to his work in the art field.  Arieli's main fields of photography are now in the aspect of Portraiture and the dancing field.

What draws me in to this work and artist is the motion and how he captures light and movement in his photographs.  The top photo Arieli seems to be using a light that is direct above the subject have this hard casted light come down on his subject.  In the middle photo the way he captured the blue of the mans eyes to even the dark shades of blues and purples in the background have them complement each other.  The last photo is my favorite of his.  Nir has this way of layering photos of his dancers on top of one another creating this beautiful photographs of light, movement, and contrast.

Mary Morris' Weekly Blog Post

Jane Olin

Jane Olin has been working as a photographer for over 25 years. She uses the darkroom as her way to add her creative input. She adds special toners to add her specific coloring to her images. One thing in her artist statement that stood out to me was the fact that she isn't afraid to take risks. She isn't afraid to crop in irregular dimensions or keep her photos unfocused. Her compositions are simplistic and soothing.

Olin is known for her nude photos of the female body and landscapes. These photographs are from her series "Quiet Landscapes 1." Olin uses an almost sepia coloring to these photographs to add interest. Her photographs have a spiritual atmosphere.

O Zhang is a female Chinese Photogapher based out of New York.  She is most famously known for taking photos depicting Chinese Youth and making short films and installations.  The following three photos are from her exhibition titled The World is Yours.  It was her first American solo exhibition and it basically showed Chinese youth wearing t-shirts with English text depicting her message of Chinglish.

These pictures I feel are very powerful because it shows how western culture has a very strong influence on other countries, especially China.  It shows the crisis that youth are facing today with trying to find their identity within themselves.   I also enjoy how the images are raw and show now alterations to the children shown on the pictures.  The children are just regular kids.  This almost relates to me on how western culture has greatly influenced myself.  I feel like I should be on one of the images!

Emily Miah-Weekly Post #9

Alec Soth

Alec Soth is an American photographer from Minnesota. He is well know for making "large scale" photographs as well as taking photos with strangers, but also forming a bond with them as the same time. In 2004, he also became the nominee for the Magnum Photos agency and finally became a full member in 2008. He is also known to self-print his photos out into books. 

He usually takes photos normally, but rather plain. Most of the people he is photographing are standing straight up, and looking directly at the camera. Although they are plain pictures, they somehow draw you in by their unappealing ways and the chances that these are all strangers he has met is rather high. 

Brandon Hamlet Weekly Post

Justin Wilkes

     Justin Wilkes did a project called the Cario Diary where he recorded a complete governmental shift in Egypt. He recorded things such as riots, everyday life and gruesome events such as dead people and animals. All of his pictures are made to give you insight into how life in Egypt during this time was. They showed the suffering along with the healing of people pressing on with there everyday lives. This photographer captured great images to show his viewer what life in Egypt really was like.

   This collection of pictures was to show people how different societies live in this case particularly Egypt. Some of these images are picked to make viewers feel some type of emotion that the majority of this society was feeling. Other images in this collection show everyday life of the Egyptian people which gives the audience a connection to the work. This connection is there because the audience can relate to the different people within these portraits.

    

Robert Lamb weekly post #9

     Arnau Blanch is a Spanish photographer, who has studied at the Institut d’Estudis Fotografics de Catalunya as well as the New York International Center of Photography. Although he does not make a living off of photography it has not stopped him from making amazing photos. He stated that he saves up money for his projects this way it allows him complete creative freedom over what he is doing and how he wants to do it. Also explained in an interview he stated that he uses his projects as a way to challenge his self and face some of his fears. “I use my camera as a way to approach reality and how to deal with it” (Quoted from the interview). As for his camera equipment he uses both film and digital, one camera is the 5D mark II and the second is the Olympus Miju I.

     In the three images above one can definitely relate what he says to the pictures he takes. For the three images they are from two different projects, “Fantasmas” and “Veneno” both done in black and white. For me I don’t expect much from black and white images, yet Blanch has done very well in capturing a great amount of emotion especially fear. Throughout both projects Blanch plays with lighting and other elements sometimes giving the images a bent or distorted look on reality. Possibly a small glimpse into the way he views the world. I would love to be able to create images that have the same intense level of emotion meaning and story with in it.