My favourites from the People shoot. 

I have to continue with Newman. This image for me represents everything that I love about photography. The incredible use of light to tell a story and the dramatic, expressionist almost theatrical lighting speaks volumes about the great painter Bacon. This picture simply has the atmosphere of on of his paintings and produces a unique look at an artist in his environment and how one is shaped by it. This is a picture about the photographer and his intentions representing the subject. A perfect mix to make a masterful image.

Henry Peach Robinson

An extremely influential pioneer in the history of photography. Henry Peach Robinson was a  pictorialist photographer in the late 1800's. His significance is vast as well as incredibly fascinating. At the time he had profoundly innovative processing techniques which lead to the beginnings of the photo montage. Today he is seen as conventional yet aesthetically very significant. He worked and lived in England and used the limited technology of the time to produce important and artistically refined works of photographic art. He is one of the reasons why photography can be called an art form. 


This particular image represents a unique time and place and is a seminal image for Robinson. This picture is influenced by works from pre-Raphaelites. It is a haunting ghostly image that emotes a feeling of extreme loss and pain. The composition is very sophisticated for the time and extremely painterly. 

This Portrait by the famous and acclaimed Arnold Newman is of composer Igor Stravinsky. The Brilliance of Arnold Newman was his sense of incorporation, attention and his uncanny compositions. This pictures stunning composition is unbelievable. This has always been one of my favourite photographs. Newman was one of the only environmental Portrait photographs to beautifully incorporate the subjects profession as part of the portrait. Here the piano dominates Stravinsky, and thus it becomes very clear when seeing this for the first time what the man's occupation must be. If you were to ask Stravinsky who he was he would probably answer "music." Newman began by studying drawing and painting, and became deeply influenced by modernism. You can see very clearly in this image the skill of modernist design. The attention to line and high contrast as well as geometric shapes within the frame. Newman's skill brought him to a level few photographers can reach, and his prolific career  makes him just as relevant today (if not more so) then when he began. A true genius.

Nadar

This photograph is from the famous Nadar. His pictures from the 1800s of famous artists and musicians came before the “superstar,” and before the “celebrity.” His pictures perfectly captured the times. The new medium of the photograph became a tool used by artists and documentarians, Gaspard-Félix Tournachon could be considered both.  This self-portrait is especially interesting because it expresses his first love of ballooning. The photo also has a caricature element coming from his days as a cartoonist. Both whimsical and revealing. 

Facebook photo match

 

These two pictures are of Reilly Blakely (Scrape Jackson) and me. We are in the photography studio at NBCCD and we are trying on prop wigs for a laugh. We completed the day with laughter. It had been a long and strenuous day at school and everybody was totally exhausted, so we decided along with a few others to put on a wig and be silly for a few moments. It can’t all be just seriousness all the time, laughter helps fuel/propel creativity. Reilly is very fond as am I of off colour humor so when we looked at the photos together we cracked up. Good day.