Richard Avedon:

This post is suppose to be about Richard Avedon Talking about his father in an interview but I don't have the article any more so I'm going to have to write most of it out of memory. I also wanted to add some stuff about Richard Avedon that I wish we went over.

We read this article that was an interview on Richard Avedon about how he takes portraits and who he shoots. At first when I read the article I thought that he was just another fine art nut job trying to make things seem more artistly complex then they actually are, however when i looked him up online a little more I found out that the article did not do him much justice. In the article he was basically talking about how taking portraits is like directing a stage that every thing is place some where for a reason. I know I am suppose to write about him and his father but it is just not memorable to me........wait hold that thought I just remembered the name of the article, its called "Borrowed Dogs" and I found it online so I'm going to read it again real quick.

Ok I just read the article again, now that I have refreshed my memory. Richard Avedon is trying to say that you might be able to take a good photo that captures some one looking good, but its not a really beautiful photograph unless you capture the true soul and essence of the person who they really are. For example he said that they had a portrait of his dad smiling sitting next to a piano, he said him and his family use to call the portrait "smilin' Jack Avedon" because thats not who his father actually was he wasn't that smiling guy sitting next to the piano, Richard Avedon said about his father "You are angry and hungry and alive.". Richard Avedon is in fact saying that you cant just take a picture of your subject but you have to take a picture of who they actually are not who they are portraying to be.

It's funny that I am writing a response on this because I just wrote a response on Belinsky writings in the 19th century writings on realism and naturalism art. Belinsky says that your art isn't true unless you capture the truth and beauty of the subject, not to just record what you see or make a copy of the subject. I wanna put up some other stuff I found on Richard Avedon some stuff I really wish we went over in class.



This video is a Charlie Rose interview with Richard Avedon, and I think that he did a incredible just at describing what it takes to be a photographer.

Family

The Family:

I was shooting the family over break and I was going to put up pictures for this blog post with them but i just found out that the photos that I edited for print did not save what I edited because I edited them on the lab computers so i to re-edited them and put them up. the only problem with that is it not going to look exactly like how I displayed them. shooting family was something easy for me because I have always shoot around family now I had a excuse to so i got to take more pictures without have to put up with so much whining I really like the shooting them it was like a break from the hard stuff in a way that its easy for me to get the photo I'm looking for because I'm so comfortable with them. It is also really nice to go home so the over all atmosphere is really good and up beat. When shooting family there is really no excuse for having an image that is distant you should be able to connect with your subject and get the emotion of the image.

I also wanted to put up images of my friend that I consider family that just didn't make it into my final cut. I'll put up the images for this blog post later tonight and then post a new one about photographing friends later tonight as well.

Me and Another Guy (roomate?)

Narrative Project:

Theses are a some images from a original set of 7 photo's i had to do for photo class, there are two more images then in the original narrative set. although the idea of this story is the life of me and my roommate, at Rochester its just stuff that is over looked about college the down time. the story is pretty loose and basic. you can interpret it any way you want i would actually prefer it. oh and the tittle is from the comments that my professor made on the images online "From the set, it feels like 7 pictures of you and another guy (roomate?)" i thought it was funny and would be an appropriate tittle.

Defining Family Post

Chris Verene:

Chris Verene's work with family is pretty amazing because he really takes the word family in a broad sense of the word. I wish I had more images by him but i cant find them one the web, so I'll just have to stick with this one. The image above isn't the full image for most of his photo's he adds text in the margins. for example this image just not as intense, you don't really know whats going on in this image you just see a man and assume his daughter with him. but with the text "My cousin Steve with one of his daughters. His wife had just left them" the image turns in to a completely different story with a completely different mood. The image with the text turns it to a image with emotion, where as with out the text you can safely assume that it is just family snap shot.

When Chris Verene shoots family he doesn't only shoot just siblings, parents, relatives, etc etc. Verene shoots his entire town, because to him his town is his family and i share that feeling with him that's probably why I love his images so much. His images are also very truthful they show the natural mood of the moment. I don't know i just get a natural feel about it. maybe just eh exposure and the light makes it feel like it should be in a family photo album. Not all of his images have that seldom feel to them like the one above has some of his photos have a jolly goofy feel i love it.

Like I said I wish i had more images of his to put up here but I don't so just check out his site Chris Verene

Sarah Maingot

Browsing The Interwebs

so i was just stumbling across the internet the other day and i found a site that catalogs a bunch of photographers, and after looking through some of the i found a few i liked. the site is called "Art Department" after reading more into it i found that the site is an agency site for signed artist. Because i know for the assignment we have to choose an artist and write a blog on them i might just make two blog post because i cant jut choose one i like. so i'm going to start with:

Sarah Maingot

There isnt much to i could Find on Sarah Maingot, all i know is she takes fantastic fashion photo's that bridge the gap between fashions photography. she is also a pro at ordering her photos and juxtaposition. the photos above are in sequence and i think that they go amazing together the way the hair mimics those things sticking out of the building, not to mention that both the images are beautiful images. he work has something about it that represents rural to me. its high fashion but at the same time its not what you would expect from high fashion.



the site i link in here name is her agency site but i found a better site that show the her images in a better format you should definitely check them out here serlinassociates. Maingot's work keeps me hopeful see that some one can do what they like and still be successful.

Narrative Photography

Narrative Photo Shoots:
Jason Lee Parry:
Getaway

In my search for narrative photography i found a very cool site that had a list of very good narrative fashion photography collections. The site thecoolist had several photographers that i was found of like the p hotograph above from Jason Lee Parry's narrative collection titled "The Getaway" these images invoke the feeling of being on the run. The image below is a really good example of being on the run they are in the car flying down the road, and the tit le of the collection is kinda a give away to the sense of r unning away or "getting away"

i really recommend checking out some of Jason Lee Parry's work at his site.

Greg Will iams :
Scandal

Greg Williams a famous fashion photographers and one of my favorite photographers did a narrative shoot with Olga Kurylenko, about a woman f rom the 60's involved in a political "scandal". William's does a great ob with this shoot the story is really laid out and easy to follow. the image show that she is in public attention but at the same time you f eel as if she is alone a lot of the pictures it's just her in the image and when there are other people in the image they are not close to her.

this specific image above is my favorite image out of the set because it really ties everything together you can assume that the man with the newspaper is the husband of the woman who committed the scandal and he is confronting her about it. this set of images are just some of Greg William's work, check out his site to see more.

Some other artist i wanna mentions is Steven Meisel for his "Make Love, Not War" collection is a fantastic narrative collection. also i would like to mention Steven Klein for his collection of Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie called "Domestic Bliss" which is a narrative about family life, but it has almost of vintage feel to it.

These works will highly influence my work for the narrative assignment. It will be hard to do but i'm going to think of something good to do. I will need to take out a new camera because my in camera light meter on my horrible Nikon D40x is broken, so i am hoping i will only have to check out a new camera once and get this shoot done is one day. i will have to carefully plan everything out.