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. 

Catherine Meadows Weekly Post 12

Andrew Knapp

Avoid Highways

Okay so I absolutely love everything about this series. I was initially interested in looking at this series because I was curious of the title Avoid Highways.

So basically this series contains shots of sights that he saw while taking a road trip. When using his GPS, he chose the option "avoid highways" so that he had to take back roads to get to where he was going. By taking less common roads, he stumbled upon all these strange yet beautiful things.

Andrew Knapp is more commonly known for his "Find Momo" series, which is how I discovered him in the first place. In the Find Momo series, he travels all around the world with his dog, Momo, and takes beautiful photos with his dog hidden somewhere in it. Since starting this series, he's published two Find Momo books that are similar to the Where's Waldo books.

I chose the Avoid Highways series for my blog post because I loved the variety and oddness that it contained. It has a great concept behind it- the concept being to photograph what he saw when traveling on roads that are not commonly driven on. And the photographs themselves are beautiful in my opinion. With his portraits, he chooses to place the subject directly in the middle, which normally bugs me, but doesn't with this series. His inclusion of still lives and various landscape shots add to the oddity that I get from it. We would never see anything like a row of colored horse statues on any normal mapped out route, and that's really what I love most about this. I'd love to try this project over the summer sometime and photograph whatever I stumble upon.

Hailey Porth Weekly Post

Stefan Ruiz

Stefan Ruiz is a master at portrait photography he is able to capture incredible images of people that keeps the eye continuously stuck on the subject itself. The picture below to the left is a great example of that because of the simple background it moves me immediately to the subject and because the background is also light blue and then her shorts are a darker shade of blue it again brings my eyes to her because the contrast between her and everything else is so brilliant and then her start is absolutely astounding I feel like she is looking right at me and I am with her right now, it also reminds me of the "mom look" and connects her to my mother. However, because of her pink bows it gives me this idea that she is still living in the days of her youth which she had to miss out on. But this is just one example of the many pictures that Ruiz has shot.










His eye for color reminds me a lot of Saul Leiter's work. The picture below to be exact brought his photograph to mind. (The top is Ruiz the Bottom is Leiters) I think its the way they are both able to single out color and still capture impressive colors and still make it about the person being photograph blows my mind. They both are very simple in their work, and when I say that to the viewer it seems incredibly simple then when you start to look at the photograph you can see the intentionality and the purposeful decisions made.

      

Ruiz work is what I want to be working towards. After Our final critique I feel like I have found my groove of making portraits. After looking at his work I want to make sure that I am focusing on the simplistic aspect of my photographs as well as color. For a really long time I have had a problem with making a portrait and being like oh yeah that's what I want to do, I felt like I wanted to do something more, I know its dumb, but I am in this season where I really like making portraits and I am going to work really hard on them because it's something that I enjoy and I know wI can put a lot of effort into them right and learn so much!

Rachel Trautmann's Weekly Post 04/11/16

Ricardo Oliveira Alves

 Ricardo is a professional photographer that solely works in architectural photography. He discovered his love for photography at a young age but decided to attend school for architecture. After working national and international as an architect for 10 years, he decided to focus his energy on photographing the buildings he loved. In 2010 he launched his photography company, Ricardo Oliveira Alves Photography. He currently photographs very high-end and unusual properties created by some of the most respected architectural studios in the world.

Since I do a lot of property photography with my company, I thought including a photographer that has most of their focus on property photography would be interesting to do. Ricardo was an easy selection for me because of his wonderful collection of work. Beyond his wonderful framing and use of the angles created within these properties, I was drawn to his use of people within some of the properties he has photographed. I have never come across a architectural photographer that actually wants people in their shot.

Clearly, the man does amazing work. He uses the angles of the unique properties to his advantage. He also likes to photograph areas of the house that people may not experience otherwise; the sense of looking directly up at ceiling details, for example. The most unusual accent to his work is the use of people without his shots. The people add an interesting and more editorial feel to the images. It also creates images for people who may not be interested in architecture but are more drawn to an interesting image. The people within his frames are sometimes shown with motion blur but they can also be seen in very realistic setup for how the space would be used. However, like the image above, he also likes to use them for a bizarre twist on an image.