Derek Ridgers

View more here

Lee Price

http://www.leepricestudio.com/index.html

woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah

These were all taken by Steve McCurry (famous for the 'afghan girl' portrait)
What's awesome about these photographs are that they were the last to come off the assembly line when Kodak initially decided to discontinue Kodachrome. These images survived two x-ray airport scans and had to be developed in Kansas, at the only lab on EARTH that still developed Kodachrome.

Read more Here!
or Here!
or Here!

Just kidding they all link to the same page. check it out anyways though.

Frances Benjamin Johnston

      While I was rummaging through my pile of photo magazines I ran into a Smithsonian magazine and I remembered it had an article about Frances Benjamin Johnston. She was a photographer in the 1890s; an unusual occupation for a female during that time. In the article, biographer Bettina Berch discusses her life and work. The photographs chosen to accompany the article are two self-portraits.; one depicting the quintessential Victorian lady and the other, perhaps, a jezebel. She earned a living with her photojournalism and photographed notable people of the time such a Susan B. Anthony. Oddly, considering the subject matter her self-portraits explore, she was not a suffragist herself. She’s an interesting and generally unknown photographer. The link to the article is below.


Frances Benjamin Johnston - Smithsonian Magazine Article

check out

giantartists.com

Nobuyoshi Araki

I came across Nobuyoshi Araki when I was doing research recently. His fetish photos are so well composed, really understands how light interacts with the female figure, including hair. 

Kishin Shinoyama

I am absolutely in love with this work. Kishin Shinoyama is a photographer from Japan who's been criticized for his nudes and even investigated by his government. These images are super saturated with surrealistic displays of sexuality. Enthralling.

alissa everett

I just really love this photographer, thought I'd share her website!

http://www.alissaeverett.com/

THIS is applicable to your work people!!!

Sounds familiar?! humum

Know Your Rights

Many of you have asked questions regarding your rights as photographers. Check out THIS LINK for a succinct, easy to read explanation.

Justine Kurland

Shane told me to look up Justine Kurland while we were discussing my work today in our teacher-student conference. Her work involves a lot of landscapes which I've recently been trying to photograph seriously for the first time in my life. I've always shied away from it because I felt it's all been done and seen before. However, since we were supposed to challenge ourselves for our final project, I decided I wanted to do something I disliked/hadn't experimented with yet.
I never liked landscape photography because I felt like it wasn't the photographer making the picture, it was the earth's magnificence desensitized by a lens and pasted on paper...as if you couldn't feel the environment. Yes, I know that was really dumb of me to say. I know that now that I have proven myself wrong during the hours laboring over our dodging and burning assignment, and my six hour long hikes through the mountains. I spent a lot of time reflecting about myself, art, spirituality, and other things during the last two weeks while we've been preparing for our final assignment.
As photographers we have the chance to gift the world with our perspectives, experiences, surroundings, and sharing our visions. This isn't something everyone get's the chance to do. Others save lives while we put ours out there and hope that the world will reciprocate. . . . ANYWAY
Back to what this is really about....
The majority of Justine Kurland's work that I found consists of really picaresque depictions of groups of teens standing in a landscape. It looks like an organized group most of the time; either dressed or posed in similar ways. I'm definitely going to reference her work a lot during my final project. She works with color more than black and white, so it was hard for me to find example images for you. I don't think I will be echoing any of her poses or concepts, but I do enjoy the way she positions her subjects together. There's a parallel between the people and the landscape that speaks for itself to the viewer. Kurland was born in the late 60's and lives/works in NYC. Here's a quote from an article that I think explains the emotion of her work accurately: "Her landscapes and her figures are analogies of each other, in-between spaces where identity and function have not yet been fixed or have begun to slip ambiguously into freedom. Recent work considers community more generally, focusing on present-day communes and people united by a choice to live "off-the-grid." "

Wood Song 2002 toned silver gelatin print 14.25 x 18inches

The Piper 2004 toned silver gelatin print 22.75 x 17.75 inches

The Fencer 2004 toned silver gelatin print 22.75 x 17.75 inches

check out these photographers/links

http://willsteacy.com/
http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/
http://www.artnet.com/artists/duane-michals/
http://www.egglestontrust.com/
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2009/robert-frank
http://keegangibbs.com/
http://www.willrobsonscott.co.uk/
http://alecsoth.com/photography/
http://tarynsimon.com/
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pieces-of-city-are-forming-like-islands.html

Here's a Link to Some "Long Lost Photos",

There's some great shots in here:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/captain-scott-s-lost-photographs-1319136979-slideshow/1-photo-1319135365.html

...Albert Hastings...

Paul Graham - Definitely Read

Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult

It’s so easy it's ridiculous. It’s so easy that I can’t even begin – I just don’t know where to start. After all, it’s just looking at things. We all do that. It’s simply a way of recording what you see – point the camera at it, and press a button. How hard is that? And what's more, in this digital age, its free - doesn't even cost you the price of film. It’s so simple and basic, it's laughable.

It’s so difficult because it’s everywhere, every place, all the time, even right now. It's the view of this pen in my hand as I write this, it's an image of you reading now. Drift your consciousness up and out of this text and see: it's right there, across the room - there... and there. Then it’s gone. You didn’t photograph it, because you didn’t think it was worth it. And now it’s too late, that moment has evaporated. But another one has arrived, instantly. Now. Because life is flowing through and around us, rushing onwards and outwards, in every direction.

But if it's everywhere and all the time, and so easy to make, then what’s of value? which pictures matter? Is it the hard won photograph, knowing, controlled, previsualised? Yes. Or are those contrived, dry and belabored? Sometimes. Is it the offhand snapshot made on a whim. For sure. Or is that just a lucky observation, some random moment caught by chance? Maybe. Is it an intuitive expression of liquid intelligence? Exactly. Or the distillation of years of looking seeing thinking photography. Definitely.

"Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can admit to in a lifetime, and stay sane" 
- Thomas Pynchon, V

Ok, so how do I make sense of that never ending flow, the fog that covers life here and now. How do I see through that, how do I cross that boundary? Do I walk down the street and make pictures of strangers, do I make a drama-tableaux with my friends, do I only photograph my beloved, my family, myself? Or maybe I should just photograph the land, the rocks and trees – they don't move or complain or push back. The old houses? The new houses? Do I go to a war zone on the other side of the world, or just to the corner store, or not leave my room at all?

Yes and yes and yes. That's the choice you are spoiled for, just don't let it stop you. Be aware of it, but don't get stuck – relax, it’s everything and everywhere. You will find it, and it will find you, just start, somehow, anyhow, but: start.

Okay, but shouldn’t I have a clear coherent theme, surely I have to know what I’m doing first? That would be nice, but I doubt Robert Frank knew what it all meant when he started, or for that matter Cindy Sherman or Robert Mapplethorpe or Atget or... so you shouldn’t expect it. The more preplanned it is the less room for surprise, for the world to talk back, for the idea to find itself, allowing ambivalence and ambiguity to seep in, and sometimes those are more important than certainty and clarity. The work often says more than the artist intended.

But my photography doesn't always fit into neat, coherent series, so maybe I need to roll freeform around this world, unfettered, able to photograph whatever and whenever: the sky, my feet, the coffee in my cup, the flowers I just noticed, my friends and lovers, and, because it's all my life, surely it will make sense? Perhaps. Sometimes that works, sometimes it’s indulgent, but really it’s your choice, because you are also free to not make 'sense'.

"so finally even this story is absurd, which is an important part of the point, if any, since that it should have none whatsoever seems part of the point too" 
- Malcolm Lowry, Ghostkeeper.

Ok, so I need time to think about this. To allow myself that freedom for a short time. A couple of years. Maybe I won't find my answer, but I will be around others who understand this question, who have reached a similar point. Maybe I’ll start on the wrong road, or for the wrong reasons – because I liked cameras, because I thought photography was an easy option, but if I’m forced to try, then perhaps I’ll stumble on some little thing, that makes a piece of sense to me, or simply just feels right. If I concentrate on that, then maybe it grows, and in its modest ineffable way, begins to matter. Like photographing Arab-Americans in the USA as human beings with lives and hopes, families and feelings, straight, gay, young, old, with all the humanity that Hollywood never grants them. Or the black community of New Haven, doing inexplicable joyous, ridiculous theatrical-charades that explode my preconceptions into a thousand pieces. Or funny-disturbing-sad echoes of a snapshot of my old boyfriend. Or the anonymous suburban landscape of upstate in a way that defies the spectacular images we're addicted to. Or... how we women use our bodies to display who we believe we should be, Or...

"A Novel? No, I don't have the endurance any more. To write a novel, you have to be like Atlas, holding up the whole world on your shoulders, and supporting it there for months and years, while its affairs work themselves out..." 
- J. M. Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year.

And hopefully I will carry on, and develop it, because it is worthwhile. Carry on because it matters when other things don't seem to matter so much: the money job, the editorial assignment, the fashion shoot. Then one day it will be complete enough to believe it is finished. Made. Existing. Done. And in its own way: a contribution, and all that effort and frustration and time and money will fall away. It was worth it, because it is something real, that didn't exist before you made it exist: a sentient work of art and power and sensitivity, that speaks of this world and your fellow human beings place within it. Isn't that beautiful?

Yale MFA Photography Graduation, February 2009.

Rahi Rezvani

Aneta Kowalczyk

Aneta is a contemporary photographer that specializes in portraiture. I really like how sleek her style is; has a sophisticated rock star feel to it. I was surprised to see that a majority of her photographs are in black and white. Seeing as digital color is so easy to manipulate and play with until you get exactly what you want, it seems like monochromatic imagery would be less appealing to some. Then it occurred to me that it might just make more sense to take portraits in black and white. If you want to take away certain distractions, such as color, it leaves more room for the person's true self to overtake the image. Granted most of her photographs are of models, but still I feel like after looking at her website she likes to get them to feel comfortable around her a little.

Oh hey.

Random Artist

Hey guys!  I just stumbled on this website, i'm pretty sure it is mostly digital but they are still cool images.  Here ya go!
http://www.f45.com/html/mainfram.html

Ideas and Inspirations

Trends: I've discovered lately in this class that I am reassessing things I once dismissed as to boring to photograph. I have had a strong want to just explore simple still lifes and landscapes. I like how this class has really made me step back and master the basics more than I once would. 

Ideas: Some ideas that have been showing through for me lately seems to be loneliness or maybe to sound less depressing "separation".  I have done alot of my shooting away from people. Unless I am shooting portraits I am rarely photographing people. I have just been focusing on close up scenes around the city and in my house completely alone. I want to get back to having people in my shoots in a natural way. I want to have that added depth of the subjects emotion in my photos.

Final Work: Ive thought alot lately about the idea of focus in photography. I want to explore the photographers mental focus and how it relates to the actual focus in the image. I have long thought about in my head about how getting something in focus is such a focus of the photographers thinking that it may sometimes take away from something else the image could be saying. From this i have thought about doing a serious of images that are what many would call out of focus. I want to see if I can have success with an image where the photo being in focus has nothing to do with its success.

Inspirational Images

Trends and Ideas

Initially, I noticed large diversity between my subject: one roll of my friend in drag, the next week a roll of close up and almost abstract water and algae shots. I can't say that I follow a particular subject matter or have a preferred theme. It's a struggle for me to produce a full roll of images that work because I like to shoot in lighting situations that are less than ideal so I can really explore how to best capture a frame that isn’t necessarily easy to capture. Attention, or slight lack thereof, to light, shadow, and reflection is a trend in my free choice rolls. I also really enjoy close-up and extreme close up, often to create some kind of abstraction. My perspectives are also often tilt shots from above or below.  I sometimes will get excited about a shot and continue shooting on a similar path, but not fully commit to a shot for an entire roll. Basically, I enjoy variety. Diversity is of greater value than repetition of similar shots.

Ideas in my work include trying to instill beauty into my shots whenever possible. When I shot my free choice roll of my friend Tyler in drag, I noticed that I tried very hard to make them candid, in order to capture not only his natural beauty as a human form, but the beauty of him having the confidence to dress up for me specifically, seeing as drag is not a general hobby of his. In my other rolls where the specific subject at hand is more ambiguous, I've noticed that most images still strive to capture to beauty, primarily through textures. It causes me to consider how a texture may make a viewer feel; wether it's creating a sense of tranquility through a shot of flowing and bubbling water, or  creating a feeling of confinement by portraying tightly packaged food products until droning neon lights. My work is either of the subject and the entire environment around it, or a close up free of a distinct setting or place. But in some cases I may have a close-up and the location will be quite obvious, yet, my goal is to not specifically let it be known or unknown. 

I would love to play more with revealing/concealing details or signs of locations and how by doing this I can strengthen my work and take it in a specific direction. This could be attained through my use of zoom/ macro by continuing to explore on a smaller scale and capture how things naturally, or unnaturally, fall into place.

I constantly return to my drag roll, it was not only a lot of fun, but a window for me to see into my gay friend's ideas about what "becoming" a woman may be like for him, considering that this was sort of campy drag rather than a serious costume shoot. I grew up with constant exposure to the gay community, and I have quite a few gay in friends in many locations at home and at school. I would be thrilled to do a series of LGBTQ community here in Richmond and try to address as many facets of the LGBTQ community as possible; present a diversity men and women who are out and proud of their sexuality. Furthermore, I'd love to get to know each subject and do my best to capture what it is exactly that being LGBTQ means to them, and then figure out how it could best be demonstrated through photographs. I would like to avoid just shooting portraits, but that may be a good place to start in order to generate more specific ideas.

Inspirational Photographers:

Mark Morrisroe

Nan Goldin 

Leland Bobbe 

            

Tito's self assessment.

Through analyzing my unassigned contact sheets over the past couple weeks, I've noticed that I've tended to rely on prominent sources of light; huge street lamp, sun, etc. As I have been in the past, I still seem to be leaning towards ideas of natural, in the moment type photography, somewhat unconsciously staying away from staged photo shoots. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm trying to experiment. I've been planning a lot of documental work outside of class and I'm slowly taking advantage of opportunities that have been presented, but I'm still working on expanding my photography sweep, as we are all.
 If I had until december 15th to work on something around the area of richmond, It would be a series of pictures based around the back-stage lives of strippers at a gentlemen's club. I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time, but I'm not sure how this would work out. Regardless, I want to eventually try and talk to a club owner/dancers. Another Idea I had was to document different auto mechanic shops. Here are some inspirations:
                                                                 Diane Arbus

Sebastiao Salgado

                                                           

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Midterm Work Review - Noelani

1) Identify Trends

I seem to be pretty conscious of light, but I don’t always handle it well. Looking at the contact sheet of my portraits of Hayley I most often see what I meant to do, but didn’t actually accomplish. Also, I think my approach to portraits is pretty constant. I seem to like ¾ shots. Some photos look like snapshots and I’m not really sure how I feel about those. Part of me thinks they’re cute, but they’re also pretty mediocre photographs.

The photos I regard as “snapshot-ish” sort of make me think I should be more documentary. If I want something to be a posed portrait that’s what it should be and if I want to document something that’s what I should do. These snapshot things seem like I couldn’t decide between the two.

I know that generally I photograph people. Sometimes the photograph is about them, sometimes I ask them to play a role, and other times I’m just looking for a general mood. It also seems like when I get tired of shooting people I approach the inanimate and usually do close-ups.

2) Ideas

I noticed my still life of glasses and oranges remind me of renaissance paintings. I don’t say this to flatter myself, but as I looked at the composition I kept thinking, “These would make good paintings.” I think that’s because I was very conscious of how arranged the shapes in the frame, and I tried to include different textures. I sort of get a half-formed idea from these; maybe they show emotion through lighting since the subject matter is inanimate (I don’t think I’m explaining this very well).

Comparing my abstractions and graffiti, I’m very much interested in approaching graffiti in an abstract way. The first five minutes of shooting my graffiti roll I was really frustrated and thought, “This is exactly why I didn’t want to mess with graffiti; I have no idea what to do with it.” Then I saw one graffiti piece that was very abstract in and of itself and I thought that’s how I should approach it and sure enough I’m pretty happy with some of my shots and want to shoot graffiti again. Then I wonder if I could incorporate graffiti into my portraits in an interesting way.

3) One Idea for Final Body of Work

My instant thought was I want to shoot Shenora’s hair. It’s a subject I’m hesitant to explore because I’m very aware that the reason I’m interested in her hair is because she’s African American. Having been raised with one very racist parent figure it’s quite nice to learn about something I’ve always been told BS about. I’d like my photographs to reflect my learning process; I don’t presume to teach viewers about a subject matter I’m not intimate with. As suitemates, socially speaking, we’re only so close, so I wonder how intimate a look into her relationship with her hair I could get. I also wonder if her hair I just a piece of a larger cultural puzzle I’m interested in. Would this be a good subject matter at all or am I being self-indulgent about a simple interest I have? In short, it’s an idea that interests me, but I’m very unsure about it.

4) 3 Images I turn to for Inspiration

Heather West: Inspiration and what I see in my photography.

After looking through all of my contact sheets and negatives, I find it interesting to see a timeline of myself and what I find interesting. The different people I use in my rolls show the different relationships I've developed throughout this year, and different places show what I've discovered in Richmond. The main trend I find is that I've gotten really interested in different textures, especially sharp ones. Most of my images started with soft flow objects and I've started to come back to sharp, hard objects. I've also noticed that when it comes to people, I do not photograph the faces often. Usually I look at the areas that people may not see a lot. The texture of a flowing hair or the way her tight shirt hangs on her collarbone. It's all about seeing the lights play on textures. Kind of like drawing, when it comes straight down to it you don't really need lines at all. You just look at the shades and that forms the object by it's self. I guess what I'm trying to say is that looking through all my prints, my contact sheets and just thinking about what I look for every time I look through a view finder, it's not the objects but the parts of the objects. How it interacts with the lights around it, the idea of how your fingers tingle with the texture it might make if you were to really touch it. The details. That's what I've become interested in through this journey and I think that's a trend that shows up a lot in my photos.
I'm a little indecisive when it comes to a final project. For a part of me, I want to be able to photograph faces but in a way that makes them more then a face you see on the street. Maybe ask about the hardships of their life or tell them to trust me with their secret. I want to figure out how I can see people's faces and not get board of them. I want to make myself stronger in photographing people emotionally, which I think is an important part of portraiture. Another project I was thinking of maybe doing is something with the human skin. I finally have my hands on a macro lens and I want to use it to capture different textures of skin. I find skin to be such an amazing organ of the human body. Not only in the way is stretches, but in the way how you can sometimes see right through it. Blood pumping through the veins of the neck, rib bones poking through your chest, bruises swirling grey and purple. I find it so beautiful and interesting that I would love to capture it.



Three Photos I look for inspiration :

Misha Gordin.
I've always loved his work. It's so conceptual and beautiful. This one is particular does such a great balance of emotion and texture. 

Eileen Cowin

You can feel it, can't you? The way the skins sticks out the viens trickling blood to his brain. I love getting that feeling when I see a photograph.

Anders Peterson. The contrast he uses is so amazing. The skin tone shows so much emotion and the flowers help keep you eyes busy but calm.