Adv 2340 Digital Photography 2 Fall 2014

Ashley Gilbertson’s work is displayed as part of the New York Times Magazine Photographs gallery at the Aperture Foundation. Her photographs are black and white still-life images depicting the bedrooms of what one would assume to be small children. There are a row of four of these pictures side to side on the wall. Without reading the press release, the pictures don’t seem to hold much meaning aside from a few details suggesting that the owners of the room served in the army. However, upon reading, they become far more somber as it becomes clear these rooms depicted are the Bedrooms of the Fallen; soldiers who died in battle and had their childhood rooms preserved by their heartbroken families. The observer is then able to sympathize with the reality of loss and internalize the real consequences that wars have on those involved. Gilbertson seems to prefer soft diffused light that comes into the room primarily through windows. In her photos, she strives to take a picture of the beds, showing how undisturbed the sheets are, in addition to the objects around the beds, such as toys and posters, giving character to each of the fallen soldiers that used to live in their rooms.

Ansel Adams’ Classic Images display photographs of nature, also in black and white. His photographs range from bare trees and cliff-sides to pictures of the moon above landscapes. In all, they appear to be records of the beauty nature offers, as Adams was an environmentalist before he passed away. Adams uses a variety of lighting types depending on the image being viewed. Some have diffused lighting distributed across the whole image, while others have hard, direct light in some parts and more even tones in other places. Regardless of the lighting though, the features of the scene are always the most prominent part of his imagery. Rivers create leading lines meandering across the photo and mountain peaks create focal points that the eye gravitates to. All in all, Adams’ work conveys a feeling of awe, both towards the subject of his photographs and his technique in which he captured his images.

Finally, Stephen Shore’s work encompasses photographs taken in Israel and the Ukraine. In both locations, Shore took pictures of landscapes, buildings and people, giving insight to the life that is to be had in them. These photos, unlike the previous two photographers’ work, are in color and have full tones from highlights to shadows. Shore’s work here is to document the survivors of the Holocaust in his photographs, something that is not too apparent by simply looking at his pictures. One would naturally be inclined to connect them to the conflicts that both Israel and the Ukraine are involved in. Stephen Shore puts emphasis on culturally defining images, for example, the sands and clay buildings in Israel and the forested areas in the Ukraine and Russian hallmarks such as a bust of Stalin and Soviet medals. In all, his work is pleasant to look at, but like Gilbertson, it gets a deeper meaning with context.

Today was a different day, we as a class got to know different expressions of photography. This is really helpful and help us more to comprehend about current photographers and how their work is relevant and engaging.

First, the exhibition from the New York Times Magazine. This had a lot of different photographs and concepts and some classic shots of famous events. They had the layouts for their magazine and really stunning photographs. As a whole you look them as one theme related, which is a photo to a related article. However, Ashley Gilbertson photographs have a different idea behind the shot, an idea that brings emotion and make the whole photo-story concept really strong. His work was about rooms, empty rooms that belonged to deceased soldiers. These soldiers where young and brave, but their rooms is what they left intact when they left. These rooms are the ones where they are not coming bad. In my opinion this is one strong piece of work, even when there is not a lot of though into the actual production, the story is what make these pieces stand out from the rest of the work. Comparing this to Ansel Adams’ images they have one theme in common which is to create serious photographs. Adam’s style is different as he concentrated more into nature. I feel like he is trying to find beauty in each shot. This as he is more interested into the bringing texture and emotion of an image which also includes a strong composition. Lastly, the Stephen Shore exhibition. These image where compose in two different locations in the world. Prof. Michals called him a pioneer into serious color photography, this because as a standard people think black and white are the standard for serious photography. Once again Shore has more than anything else a strong idea and story behind each shot. These as we lear that he photographed Holocaust Survivors from Ukraine and Israel. There might be some of technical uniqueness to each photograph, but again I think that what make it a strong image is the whole story for each photograph.

When making this studio, I had many problems to face; ranging from how I will afford a stance for my backdrop to choosing  my substitute for lightening. The area I live doesnt have the resources I would need for this studio.  I was looking around my house trying to find something for lighting, until I came across my father’s lanterns; he keeps them just in case of a blackout.  I taped two transparent papers on the lanterns because the lanterns had transparent lines around it. Another source of lightening is my phone’s flashlight.  I used my cats cardboard box, and taped white printing paper around the box. My tripod for now is a stack of books until I can afford a small tripod sometime this week. I have a small mirror in my kitchen that will also help me with reflection. This took me about an hour to fix together. I took a few pictures with my camera to see how it would look, and this is one of the shots.

My mom helped me with the lightening that is shining down the object. I feel like this is a good example of the studio work. This studio didn’t cost anything, I used most of my items at home.