Irving Penn, “On Assignment”
In Penn’s exhibition there were mostly portraits of people. The beginning was mainly black and white portraits or group portraits. The end was more colorful but it was zoomed in on people’s facial features. Irving’s subject matter was on beauty and expression. Penn worked for Vogue magazine and has taken many pictures of models. He has pictures of people with different expressions. He has a book of head shoots of models that he had to collect and send to the company. The lighting for his photos are not bright and sharp. The back of the gallery he has these photographs that are very interesting. They are the close up pictures of lips, eyes and faces. Using black and white as a graphic element really brings out his message. If it was colored, it probably would have a different feel to some of the portraits. He shoots the subjects very detailed and you can see the hair, iris and skin making it have a emotional impact on viewers.
Didier Massard, ” L’Atlas Imaginaire”
All of the photos in this exhibit are made in studio with props. He has photographs of animals, buildings, scenery. The subject matter is that even hand made scenery can be interesting like actual scene. His pictures looks so amazing and your eyes cannot leave it. You can tell that the scene look kind of non real, but the fact that he made this in a studio just makes you say wow. It would be hard to guess that some of them are made in studio if we did not read the press release. He uses soft lighting and it pleases the eye. He uses many colors in his photograph which I think is great graphic element. It makes you to look at its colors and the other photos. This gives you an emotional impact because knowing he can take these wonderful pictures in studio is just unbelievable.
Phillip Lorca DiCorsia, “Hustler”
All of the photographs in the gallery are portraits of guys. Some of them have a light shining on their face, while others have even lighting around them. The subject matter was to show the life of male prostitutes in LA. At first I thought it was just pictures of males posing. Next I saw a few photos of what seems to be a male but looks like a woman. I was confused at that time, I thought they were cross dressing males who the photographer thought was interesting. The pictures also gives you a feeling of 1990’s LA and their lifestyles. Some of the lighting is harsh on the face, while others are not harsh at all. Lighting is the graphic element that he used to catch my eye. The harsh lighting on some of the faces makes me look closely at the photos. All of the pictures have a some what gloomy feeling to it. These photos gives an emotional impact of how you can see the live their lives. You can kind of put yourself in to their shoes and see.
