Carra Roots - Weekly Blog Post

Sheila Pree Bright

From a young child, we have been brainwashed with how beauty looked. For a girl, that thing has been a barbie doll. They body comes ready made and the size can not changed, but then as a girl you find out that your body is changing. Looking at these images spoke so much because I’ve never physically compared the two. You start to think who did they really have in mind when creating the doll. 

Sheila Pree Bright so simply and specifically, changed different parts of the  doll body and blended it with the natural body parts of women. Not only speaking as a photographer but also talking on body image. Bright is known as a “‘social cultural anthropologist’ portraying large-scale works that combine a wide range of contemporary culture.” She thought about skin tone, symmetry, and composition. Also, she had to take in mind what parts we really look at or think about. This series breaks barriers not only in reality but also in the mind, that it is okay that women don’t fit into this perfect body image that they have placed in our head. 

For me first, photo manipulation is something more that I want to know more about and the length that she went to get these images in so flawless is something beautiful. I also think back on other post that I have made and how I can correlate them into my work as my project grows. Society has been brainwashed to see this only form of beauty that even I, myself has a hard time trying to look into the mirror. Viewing this made me want to push more.

Christian Moll Weekly Artist Post

Patrick Rochon

Patrick Rochon is well renowned light painting photographer. Rochon started light painting in Montreal in 1992. He has done many ad campaigns for major car companies, magazines and other big companies like Red Bull. Rochon also does multi-media light painting shows for festivals and other similar events. His collabration with Red Bull and Snap!, mixing art-technology and wake boarding, is an excellent example of exploring new grounds of light painting and Rochon does a phenomenal job with his projects.
I was really inspired by Rochon work especially with how it relates to my final project. Light painting is an amazing art form. It really enhances your imagination, wakes up your intuition and mirrors who you are through the photos. I plan to use my final project to do just that. I really want to exploit the wonders of the abstract forms of everyday light you see with simplistic touches of light painting.

Diana Macaraeg -Weekly Post

Patrick Sundqvist

      Patrick Sundqvist is a Swedish photographer and owner of his own advertising agency. He uses a large format camera for his works. This series of photos called "Ordinary Spaces" are all cropped to a 1:1 ratio, square format.

   

      His choices of color highly support his theme. His theme is to elaborate on landscapes and it's ironic relationships with the people around. Such as lively bright flowers with a background of an industrial apartment or building complex, and a playground that's placed in the middle of concrete. 

      Patrick Sundqvist is probably one of the photographer I can see myself appropriating from here on. He finds the quirky ironic things around that most people seem to just pass by. I am most effected by his title choice because I never have noticed how much of an effect that his title had on his work.

Brandon Mabrouk- Artist Post 4/18/2016

Mark Gilligan

        Landscape images with two dimensional features  that photographers have to transform into images with  dimension and depth. Mark Gilligan is one of the best landscape photographers in this era. His ability to capture the scene's story while balancing spot on exposure is quite the feat. His landscapes are eye popping due to the balance of light to composition. It makes you really question did you visit the image in real life also. The thing I find the most difficult about shooting landscape photography is absorbing what really needs to be compelled through the image. Its one thing to take a wide perspective upon the landscape you're shooting, its also balancing details within the image. 

The thing Mark excels in with his landscape is how he inspires me to look beyond the obvious points of interest within the frame. I have learned how the angle really changes the perspective of the mood of the image. I believe personal feelings intervening with the subject can really make a difference in how a photo will turn out. Caring for the subject can also show how the photo looks in my opinion. I haven't studied Mark Gilligan's work but he is one of the many photographers that has a distinguished style to long exposure landscapes. I become inspired by seeing other people's processes, you learn from them and this can sometimes improve your processes as a photographer. 

       

Hailey Porth Weekly Post

Rebecca Rutten

http://www.featureshoot.com/2016/03/sex-drugs-and-heartache-at-a-hostel-in-nicaragua/


Rebecca Rutten is from Germany but hates to stay in one place. She is constantly traveling and exploring. And her nomadic lifestyle is definitely portrayed in her photographs. What caught my eye was the article listed above about the Nicaraguan Hostel that she documented, however when looking more into her site that is when I found her series People that I Know. 







The thing that first catches me when I look at these photographs is the diversity of them. Not just with the type of people but with the poses and the colors, and the lighting. It all varies a lot. I feel like each photograph is able to capture the person and their personality in a way that is deeply personal. I feel like I am in their space. almost infringing on it.











For my project I want to make sure that I am not getting in a rut and that I am changing up the way people are posing. Looking at the camera and not. I just want to make sure people do not feel as if they are looking at the same thing over and over again. Also looking into black and white instead of just all color and seeing if it flows well.

Catherine Meadows Weekly Post 13

Theron Humphrey

Why We Rescue - USA

I wish I had discovered this series before I started the final for this class. This series includes a look into the home of a woman who's rescued a dog from an animal shelter. Theron has done photoshoots for dozens of other families, but I chose this one because it was one of my favorites. I really enjoy how Theron took photos of things inside the house that this family lived in, rather than just photos of the people/animals. The environment they live in adds to the emotional part of the series I think.

Theron Humphrey does a pretty wide variety of things photography-wise, but I originally discovered him from his series, "Maddie on Things", which he posts on his instagram. This series involves his dog, Maddie the Coonhound, on a variety of random objects. It's a pretty hilarious yet adorable series so I highly suggest checking it out. I believe he's published a book featuring photos from the series also.

When I look at photos from Theron's Why We Rescue series, I notice a wide variety of colors included in his shots of still life. In his posed portraits of the animals and people, he tends to find a plain background that helps the subject stand out a bit, which I love. He also has portrait shots that look like they could be either candid or posed, it's hard for me to tell with some of them. Theron really thinks about light when making these photographs. Especially with the still life shots, the light creates a nice shadow on the objects. I love not only the quality of the photographs in this series, but also the subject matter behind it. It's nice to see animals who had no home be taken in by a nice family.

Rachel Trautmann's Weekly Blog Post 4/18/16

Henry Hargreaves

For those who are not familiar with his work, I strongly suggest checking it out. He has a wide range of series, mostly surrounding staged food. He blends pop culture into his work with his Band Riders series. He created maps of countries around the world with the foods that are most popular there with his Food Maps series. He even has a series where he deep fried electronic gadgets; conveniently titled Deep Fried Gadgets. He often titles his work with the same food he is using throughout the series. The work I came across that originally drew me into his work is his No Seconds series. Henry stages the last meals requested by death row inmates, many of which are very well-known serial killers. I have always been fascinated with serial killers; basically everything about them. So, naturally, when I originally came across No Seconds a couple of years ago, I was immediately enthralled. 

Hargreaves, who is originally from New Zealand, became interested in the idea of the "last meal" because in many countries around the world, the death penalty does not exist. After Texas decided against the special last meals in 2011, Hargreaves decided to start on this series. 

He credits his knowledge and skill of photography with his career in modeling. He worked as a high fashion model for four years before starting his photography career. Although most of his work is of food, he uses the lighting techniques he observed while modeling. His work is always staged and very well thought out and researched. Most of the work he recreates has to do with an individual's past choices or documented food selections. Although this series can be disturbing and uncomfortable to some, the majority of his work is very colorful and cheerful.

Kerry Kilburn Weekly Artist Post 4/18/2016

Claudia Heinermann

Claudia Heinermann

From "The Death Camps"

From "Resistance Fighters"

From "Remembering Srebrenica"

From "Wolfskinder"

Claudia Heinermann is a freelance photographer born in Germany in 1967 and currently living and working in Rijswijk, the Netherlands. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Enschede from 1986-1991, then later became interested in documentary photography and proceeded to study at the Fotoacademie Amsterdam from 2004-2006. She is now a free-lance photographer who specializes in long-term documentary projects that emphasize 20th century history, particularly war and its aftermath around the world. She has participated in solo and group exhibits throughout the Netherlands and has published five of her projects as photobooks.

One of her best-known projects is Wolfskinder ("Wolf Children"), which earned her the Kaunas Photography Gallery Residency Award in 2014 (read more about the project here). The Wolfskinder were children who fled Eastern Prussia during WWII, many of whom wound up living wild in the forests. Her series includes portraits of living Wolf Children, their homes and the regions where they live, and landscape photographs of the forests where they live, taken during different seasons of the year. This general approach - combining portraits, images that provide a sense of events, and landscapes that provide a sense of place - characterizes all of her series, which range from coverage of various topics from WWII to topics from the war in Bosnia-Herzegovnia to the Rwandan genocide.

While each of Ms. Heinermann's photographs stands on its own, her particular strength is in the way she puts series together. I was nearly in tears the whole time I was perusing her website, both because of the power of her individual images, and also because of the synergy she achieves by combining seemingly disparate images into potent wholes. Her portraits are full of feeling, which she achieves by getting to know her subjects, and she builds startling contrasts between appalling scenes such as mortuaries full of decaying bodies and seemingly serene landscapes (that are really the sites of mass graves). I can't recommend her work highly enough!

victoria Garnett, weekly post, 04/18/2016

Matika Wilbur

                 

                                     

After researching, Native American photographers, I came across Matika Wilbur! She is of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes in Washington. I feel her photography is VERY important, especially in this day and time. I've heard and read absolutely absurd stories of people ignorantly stated "I thought Indians were extincted"... how ignorant can one be right?? beside the ignorance of people who are unware of what is going on in their own country, Matika also wants to bury the stereotypical photographs that people are use to making and seeing. She wants to capture her people in the here and now.... Any who....

What is great about Matika Wilbur is that, she has started a documentary project that is dedicated to traveling all over the United States to photograph individuals from every tribe.  The project is called Project 562, of course for the 562 federally recognized tribes in the US. She states that, "My goal is to represent Native people of every tribe. By exposing the astonishing variety of the Indian presence and reality at this juncture, we will build cultural bridges, abandon stereotypes, and renew and inspire our national legacy.” 

Where and how she places her subject in the photographs, show how important this project is to her and her people.  Her choice in not making a lot of her photographs so saturated really gives us the chance to actually appreciate WHO is in the photo and have us not so distracted by what else is going on in the photos. Her project and her photography is the best, in my opinion, that I have posted all semester. check out more of her work its AMAZING.

Carra Roots - Weekly Artist Post

Polly Penrose

The fact that I am focusing on body image and body form, I was truly drawn to Polly Penrose and her series “Body of Work.” Polly is one who has always taken self-portraits but this was the first time that other people have been able to see this work. For this series, she felt the freedom of being to create her own vision instead of instructing a model. Walking into a space alone and unaware she tried different positions and areas of the room. Sometimes she would have to redo a pose 50-60 times just to see if there was anything that she needed to change. 

In her photography, you can see the use of line, shape, color, texture, and composition. She first had to recognize things about herself before composing the image. Her skin tone reacted with the image in a certain way. As well as her emotions, and the state of her body i.e pregnant. How did she want to fit into the space she had chosen and also how much of that space that was going to be shown. I also appreciate how her face is not seen in any of the photographs.

This series inspired me because now that I know an area in which I like or want to focus on, I want to expand what I can do with that. She still works with body form, yet backs away and uses the surrounding space. Although appearing to be a task easy to recreate, it will be a struggle for me to back up. 

Brandon Mabrouk- Artist Post 4/11/2016

Ray Collins

Ray Collins is coined as the worlds best water photographer as he has captured some of the most amazing photos of waves. In this series "Seastills" he has made images of ocean waves at their highest peak. The huge mountains of water with the beautiful sky in the background is what makes this series so dramatic. Collins began making photos of his friends surfing, then became fascinated with the variations of waves and how they can be captured at certain times with different textures. Every photo is captured at the perfect time, for the viewer to see the wave in action. He has received a great amount of recognition from National Geographic, Forbes, and the Huffington Post. Each and every photo that is apart of the "Seastill" series is beautiful. Im curious as to what exactly his editing process is because they almost look unreal on certain photos. 

I chose Collins work because of my choice of shooting water is an extremely difficult task and I applaud him for making it look so easy. Time is an affective tool when capturing water. Daylight can alter how the water would look against the textures of the waves and so can the lighting in the evening. It is definitely inspiring and can give me more ideas to help me move forward with my final series.