parkerw1515-blog

[parkerw1515-blog]

In the past couple weeks I have been trying to figure out how I can create a good portfolio with abstract photos. I have had a few success’s and failures. The thing I struggled the most with is finding natural light in my house due to the unfair weather conditions this past week. I even tried going outside a few times when the sun would come out for a brief period. I was successful in capturing my front garden with the light shining down on the watered plants. I captured the sun glazing on the wet plants which made the water droplets stand out even more.  The artist I have put most of my research into is an abstract photographer by the name of Adam Fuss. I am really inspired in how he captures his color and the movement and flow in his pictures. His work captures my eye especially on his flowers and that is why I have been taking pictures the sun shinning on flowers where the colors stand out the most. My best bet is to just stay focused and patient with myself being stuck in a house and having little to work with. 

http://www.artnet.com/artists/adam-fuss/

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For my final portraiture I have decided to focus on landscapes or images with out people. I felt that I have had a struggle all semester with photo shooting people because I couldn't figure out the main context of what I wanted to get out of it. I felt that taking pictures of landscapes was in my  expertise because its easier for me to find ways to capture these kinds of images with a emotion and underlying theme. I am going to take advantage of being close to a popular city with taking pictures of sky scrapers, buildings, rivers, and other landscapes whether they are focused in night or day, so I can express my vision towards this final portraiture. I am going to edit them with out the use black or white because I feel that the use of color would better illustrate my piece. I am going to expand my creativity by taking more pictures during this time of quarantine of landscapes. I feel that I could also take advantage of not as many people walking in the city, which would create a rare photo itself. The struggle I had with my last assignment was the mere fact of staying on topic with my vision. I had a few pictures on my photo essay that didn't correlate with others. I am going to focus on this more by making sure all my photos with landscapes will correlate with each other to make a perfect final portraiture.

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Since starting my photo essay, I have been really interested in peoples reactions around our society that have been infected with COVID-19. Therefor, I have been focused on taking pictures of people wearing masks walking around outside doing necessary things. I have been taking pictures of people of all ages instead of focusing on younger people or older people. After observing my surroundings and taking pictures of people wearing masks, the only reoccurring thing on my mind is if wearing a mask will be the norm for months or even up to a year. It has been hard getting use to seeing this because even though it could be a sunny spring day, seeing people wearing masks brings back the thought of a society doing its best to beat a deadly pandemic. It feels scary and somewhat depressing knowing that this might have to be normal for longer that what we all thought. That's why I have been focusing on taking images of all people of race, ethnicity, and gender wearing masks so it can betray these emotions to my audience. 

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This past week I have been taking photographs of empty buildings, arenas, and parks due to the weird time our society has been going through with COVID-19. I think it is very surreal that the pictures I am taking are the reality of the situation right now. There is one photographer that I admire through this process and that is Andrew Morell where he took a picture of an empty seat section in a stadium called “Done for the Season”.

 This relates to what my goal is, which is to captive an audience about the reality of how impactful this pandemic has been around the world. The patterns in this photo really caught my eye because there could be a hundred seats all bunch together in a popular stadium that are empty. I would like my audience to be just as captivated as I am when I take pictures of stadiums and buildings. 

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After reflecting on some possible stories lines I have decided that I wanted my story to be for my photo essay. My story is going to be to make awareness of our economy when it comes to small-businesses. I have take photos in Manayunk, PA where there quite a few of them that have been struggling lately. We are in a time right now with COVID-19 has affected small family-run businesses such as restaurants, merchant stores, and convenient store to shut down periodically to stop the spread of the virus. This has put many businesses to go completely out of business due to the fact that they couldn't survive without being in business for no longer than a month. Even though the government has tried to come in with a relief bill, it still hasn't fixed the situation with some of these businesses. My overall goal is to make awareness to this fact where local communities can step up and provide care to businesses that have been serving them for so many years.

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I have decided to look into three photographers in the Philadelphia area that catch my eye with their work. The first photographer that I found his work was extremely interesting is Kristen Jae Bethel. He produces mostly environmental portraits of people in big cities such as Philadelphia and Rome. The best photo that I believe he has taken so far is Borugh market. This is a setting where he found two middle east men that look like store owners trying to unlock their store under a bridge that is extremely shaded. The portrait brings out a lot of loneliness because it seems as though they don't consume a lot of customers. The shaded area portrays this loneliness because you can only see the two men in a triangular for of light trying to get into the market while there is no one around them because it is shaded out. 

https://www.kjbethel.com/index

The second photographer that I found interesting was is Meg Brock who is an award winning documentary photographer in Philadelphia. He best work is around weddings and newborns. While looking at her work I have realized she highlights the  reality of her settings instead of then being staged. My favorite work is of a couple crying while looking over their newborn baby. It seems like any other newborn picture but this one stood out to me the most because it wasn't in a hospital. The couple decided to have a water birth in a plastic pool which was very interesting. The expressions on their faces holding their innocent baby is priceless because it brings out the reality of the situation. In my work I hope to highlight the facial expressions as Meg Brock did in this piece. I have a struggle centering them making it harder for viewers to see them. If I focus my camera just enough and have the patience then I believe I can be successful in this.

https://www.megbrock.com/

 The third and final photographer that I want to address is Katie Mcmenamin who is very successful with environmental portraits of families and weddings. I think her work is extremely insightful because she brings out the joy in the meaning of family. My favorite picture is of a baby sitting in a baby chair looking over the counter where it seems the dad has prepared pancakes. The interesting thing about this photo is the baby's facial expression. You can tell the baby is extremely jealousy and angry because he or she cant have the pancakes that dad is making since its not safe to eat. As I said before I have a hard time finding the right time to capture a moment like this where I can highlight the facial expression even if it isn't in the forefront of the photo. I believe that I just need to have more patience instead of trying to hop back in forth from place to place.

https://www.kmcmenamin.com/pp_gallery/family-2/

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One of the photographers that I would like to discuss is Hilary Swift who is currently covering the 2020 presidential campaign. She has been taking really expressive pictures of the candidates for the presidential campaign. One of my favorites is when looking at a New York Times article focusing on Super Tuesday where Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden were the top candidates for the Democratic party. The photo that I thought was really interesting in this article was Bernie waving to his supporters while a fan puts her arm out trying to reach him in a congratulatory maner. I like this photo because it focuses on our new assignment portraiture. You can tell Bernie and his surroundings are very positive and give off a sense of pride due to the environment around him such as the fans reaching out to touch him like he is a movie star. The second photographer that I admire is Francesca Donner who wrote a piece called “Life Inside an Afgan Women’s Prison”. The photo on top of the article relates to our assignment as well, portraiture, because it shows a woman in a natural state that is cleaning the inside of her cell that she shares with other women. The environment around this picture is completely opposite of Bernie Sander’s because the idea of being in a prison in a poor country would be awful let alone being a woman in a Muslim State. The third photographer is completely different from the first two after viewing one of his pieces “A Shot Before Last Call” by Kasimu Harris. His photo in this article does not include portraiture because it does not involve a person in their natural state, but it involves a lonely distilled bar. The point behind this photo is to show the public how black bars are vanishing in New Orleans. This is sad knowing that New Orleans has a majority of black people that are lively and with energetic personalities. I think all three of these photographers wanted to convey a message of the main theme they want their viewers to see revolving around their article. I hope when I am working on this next assignment of portraiture, that I can convey the same message to my viewers.

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There are three photographers that I want to talk about that I find interesting due to their work on different cultures. The first photographer that I think has great work revolving around cultures around the world is Mitchel Kanashkevich. Kananshkevich’s work has been included all around the world focusing on different cultures in Europe, Asia, and Africa. You can tell when looking at some of his photographs that he tends to focus on ancient traditions and cultures that are still alive today. By doing this he focuses on tribes and ancient religious cultures that are still evolving today. When looking at some of his work in Africa, I was very interested in how he conveyed what it was actually like to be apart of that tribe. I mean that he uses not only the subjects in the Image but the surrounding setting that creates a mere image of what it's like to be in a third world.  The second photographer that I want to talk about has a very interesting piece called 7 Days of Garbage by Gregg Segal. This image tells a very interesting story of it seems like a wealthy family laying down in grass full of garbage around them. I find it as a way that Segal is trying to tell his audience that even a high end family with strong cultural ties can still cause increasing waste problems around the world. The trash could be their own which would make sense coming from an environmentalist perspective. The third photographer that I want to talk about is Mark Laita. I find Laita’s rare and interesting because most of his work is about comparisons of cultures using the same people. His piece called Created Equal is an image of two teenagers that are dressed in Amish clothes and typical 90’s punk clothes. I like how he wants his audience to understand how someone should be considered equal no matter what they wear. These two different styles of clothes is a really good example to get his point across, that no matter what culture you are in, you should not be considered any less or more than another person. I want my photography around human cultures to tell a story but as well as to give a theme for the audience to understand. Being patient in taking photos is the best way to captive your own work in the long run.

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There are three European Photographers that I really admire. The first photographer that I admire is Laurent Baheaux, who is a French photographer that focuses on work in natural life in black and white. I am inspired by someone who takes risks and travels throughout the wilderness taking live photos of animals and their traits. When looking at some of his work, you can tell the amount of passion he has in capturing the right moment of an animal in their natural habitat. He articulates the beauty of wild life without human distraction or error. One of his most famous pieces is his work in Africa where he captures a pack of Lions. His focus on the head alfa Lion is brilliant. The way Baheaux found the right moment to capture a dangerous animal up close is extremely amazing. When looking at those pictures, I dont just see natural beauty in the Lion but I also see the animals personality. Baheaux articulated the Lions facial features and by looking at the photo, I can tell the Lion gives off a sense of courage and bravery by the tone. All of his work is meant to be monumental as this and that is why I am inspired by him. 

https://www.laurentbaheux.com/en/-/galleries/wild-africa/panthera-leo/-/medias/c24a06dc-e389-496c-8558-a422c2ad4e0e

    The second European photographer that I admire is Alicia Moneva. Moneva is a very different photographer from Baheaux. A Lot of her work looks very disturbing and blunt, especially her most famous pieces, the Human Delusion. Moneva captured a woman in a bathtub that is red which could articulate blood but then next to it is another woman in a bathtub full of black water. These photos create a very dramatic scene as you can tell from the expressions on the women's face. Most if not all of her work is staged, meaning that she created these photos to imitate a reality of some sort. In this photograph her focus was to investigate the intimate side of a human being. She changed the color of the water in the bathtub by stating “Colored water represents our impulses which will later turn into hidden desires that will manipulate and readjust our maps of reality”. I find it very intriguing how she uses real humans in this piece which focuses on their fragil facial expressions as if they went through something that was very traumatic. 

https://www.aliciamoneva.com/aliciamoneva-videoarte

    The third European photographer that I admire is Deborah Roffel. I admire this photographer because of the way she finds her own perception of a depiction of reality. When looking at her work, I can find and articulate the distortion and friction in her photos which makes me even more intrigued.  One of my favorite photos that she took was of a man playing the guitar with his back resting on a horse's leg while the horse knelt behind him. Staging a photo that complex is extremely intriguing because I couldn't imagine what focus she must have had and patience to create a photo out of it. Having a huge animal and figure in her photo that gives off a peaceful tone while also looking at a well dressed man playing the guitar is quite extravagant. All I wanted to know after seeing that photo was what song the man was playing. Roffel’s sense of perception influences me to have a mindset just as she does. If I want a picture to look a certain way, I have to be patient with myself to create the right one.

https://www.deborahroffel.com/media

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Since taking digital photography I have had a challenge of creating a tone in my work. This photo is a great example of what I want my work to involve. This photo gives off a dramatic tone. The road and thick brush around the road gives the audience a comfort feeling. But seeing the dark clouds and the rain following makes this photo seem more ominous and taunting. It seems that the photographer wanted to focus on a grim tone since he got the road fading into the distance of dark mountains and a wall of rain. The reason why I posted this picture is because I want my work to tell a story. I want to have a purpose in taking a picture by having a blunt tone for my audience to see. 

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This past week I have been experimenting with night photography. It has been a challenge from the start trying to find the right location and determining the right camera settings for assignment 2. I have been doing some research on some other  photographers' work especially at nighttime and how they used their light meter to control the quality of light in each of their photos. 

I picked this photo because I am also focusing on roads and highways in the night time. I like to challenge myself by creating a photo where my shutter speed is extremely low so I can capture the streak of light from the passing cars. I think that it is extremely helpful to look at other work such as this so I can give myself a goal to achieve by  experimenting with my camera 

    In this week's blog I also want to recognize three female photographers that have caught my eye with their work. The first photographer that I want to recognize is Sally Mann. Sally uses an 8 x 10 view camera that captures fine detail around her subjects. She uses photos of children as they mimic and act out like they are playing or doing other social things. She also has images of her naturalistic landscape of the area near her home in Virginia. When you look at some of her work it takes you back in time and makes you feel like you are looking at a picture in the early 20th century when in reality the photo is more recent.  When looking at some of her work it is clear that she makes her photos seem darker and gloomy. For instance, her work on landscapes are called battlefields on her website and create a lot of emotion for the viewers' eyes. Her work on death and bodies startled me when I visited her “Body Farm” page. It shows what kind of photographer she is from taking gloomy pictures of landscapes and children to the goriness of death in the body field.

https://www.sallymann.com/body-farm

    The second photographer I would like to recognize is Lorna Simpson. Lorna focused on conceptual photography after her time at San Diego University. She dove into the conventual views of gender, culture, and identity into her work. When I look at her photos I see a photographer that has a huge passion for the African American community and their culture during segregation. She wanted to captivate the culture that others in the community did not see such as the vibrance of their faces and positive attitudes during those times. When people take photographs of that time period, you usually expect the emotion to be negative . But Lorna focuses on the opposite and captivates the positive side of the African American culture such as into their fashion. Most of her photos are comprised of whole figures that are usually staged and put into place in order for it to stand out. The reason why her work is considered representative and how it questions memory is because she is taking pictures that seem like they are being taken during the time of segregation. That is why she stages her work to create a mere image of that time but also raises questions for her audience whether or not those pictures were taken at that time instead of more recent. 

https://lsimpsonstudio.com/bio

The third photographer that I want to recognize is Susan Meiselas. I am very intrigued by Susan's work because it tells a story and it makes me want to see more. Her photos consist of settings around the lower social class around Latin America, New York, and southern communities. It is evident that she is a freelance photographer because she doesn't focus on one location or community. She focuses on women's rights, by giving her audience captivating work that expresses the truth and darkside of the issue that society usually doesn't see. For example, she explored Mali and found that women were expected to be uneducated and do chores while the men do their best to be educated and provide for their families. She took a picture of a woman with a child on her back while fetching water for her family. It makes me wonder why she can't be educated and treated equally. I like Susan’s work because I want my work to tell a story and want my audience to want more while looking at my photographs. I do not want to have something too explosive but detailed enough for my audience to want more like Susan does.

http://www.susanmeiselas.com/stories/human-rights/mali-village-education/

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As a new photographer I enjoy looking at Jack Brauer’s work on mountainscapes  especially this one in Norway. I find it very intriguing how he got the reflection of the mountain on the lake in this composition. I am inspired by Brauer’s work because I hope to have the same experience to find great reflections in my upcoming work even if they aren't as big as a whole mountain. 

I have recently photographed a water fountain that got a reflection of the bridge that was above it but it was not as clear as this reflection right here. As a new photographer, I am starting to realize that I need to be more patient with finding the right picture in the right moment so I can have the opportunity to photograph a similar composition like this one.