ARTH1100 History of Photography

It is astonishing that the actual person of the year is not a person. It’s a bevy of different kinds of people all over the world fighting for what’s right to them. What strikes me most is that the cover of time magazine for the person of the year is the synthesis of a Zuccoti park protester and a muslim protester from Egypt and Tunisia. It’s true what they say, slowly this world is falling into the hands of the people and not their government.

My friend told me about these photos taken around wall street early in the morning of people in new york city and i thought it sound boring but when she send me the link i was very entertained by the photos. I love these photographs because they really do promote the well known saying of “the city that never sleeps” these shots aren’t like other photographs you see they are regular shots with no special lighting but i don’t think it needs it it makes it look more realistic. Someone who hasn’t been to NY would love to come here even more if they were to see these photos.

The Sleepless City.

For those who are familiar with parts of Brooklyn, I came across this website with images of Brooklyn (and parts of Manhattan) from early 1900s and on. I look at the pictures and begin to wonder what it would be like to live during those times. It’s interesting to see how that area has changed completely especially if you live in that area. Some of the buildings images of my neighborhood are still standing today.

http://brooklynpix.com/index.php

Carriage Trade has created an exhibition base on cell phone photography entitled “Social Photography II.” Most of these photographs look just like snapshots but the exhibition embraces the use of cell phone cameras for its casual use. It goes to show how many of the early movements in photography that were not considered artistic were eventually considered art. The person who took the photograph may see the aesthetics of the photograph where someone else may not see any.

Information about the exhibition and cell phone images can be seen here: http://www.carriagetrade.org/Social-Photography-II

I came across this photography website of a man named Fredrik Odman. Fredrik’s work is pretty weird but weird in a good way he does A LOT of retouching in photoshop. I love his website because right off the back ou get a sense of what his work is like the music and the images creeped me out a little and when i saw his images it made sense. His “composed animals” section was incredible to me and very creative i would love to know how exactly his mind works. The quality of his images are great they look so real and abstract. I think photography is great but i love coming across photographers who do a lot of editing work is that much more creative.

fredrikodman

Some may agree to long exposure photography to be the “coolest technique of photography”, because they are just breathtaking and remarkable. The photos produced with this technique, long shutter speeds, are very bright in color, unique to one eyes, more like if you are looking at another world dimension. It is recommended to use this technique at night time or darker visions so that the effects are produced within the shots. But, can this be call art? Yes it can, but I personally don’t like this time of art. To my eyes, it just looks too fake and not creative at all. Though, this is just my opinion of it. What do you think about this technique?

http://www.smashingtips.com/long-exposure-photography-shots

What is your Disney Dream Portrait? Do you see yourself as that Disney character? Or, can you see others transformed into the role of famous Disney Characters? Well, we may not be the lucky ones chosen and transformed into the role of famous Disney characters presented in the Disney Dream Portrait series. But well-known celebrities, like Penelope Cruz and Jeff Bridges as “Beauty and the Beast”, were selected for one of many outstanding images photographed by the world famous photographer Annie Liebovitz.  Liebovitz was recruited by Disney for the Year of a Million Dreams Campaign to promote Disneyland and Walt Disney World with the Disney Dream Portrait series. She is well known for her portraits of actors, athletes, and political and business figures, like Michelle Obama photo shoot for Vogue magazine, and many others.

What do you think of her Disney Campaign work? And, if you were selected to play the role of a Disney character, what character would that be?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/03/annie-leibovitz-disney_n_831080.html#s248686

http://blog.lelaluxe.com/2009/02/michelle-obama-on-cover-of-vogue.html

I started looking at David Lachapelle type of work, and yes, I’ll have to agree that his images are a bit of extreme, yet in his own unique way. I think that what makes his work unique are his bright usage of colors and his surrealist humor. He is well known for creating pop art, “art for the population”, as he states in the David Lachapelle Short Documentary clip. However, whether we refer to it as pop art, pop surrealism, or “lowbrow art”, it is still being critique and excluded as in relation to the fine art world. Yet, I think that he is an artist like any “real” one, he shows originality and creativity in his work. I can say that what really counts to be called an artist is for the viewer to admire and follow your work, and he has lots of them.

David Lachapelle Short Documentary clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kMuHZNSbgM

http://idiommag.com/2010/07/whos-bad-the-kitsch-pop-surrealism-of-david-lachapelle/

I have notice that in the course of our entire semester we haven’t touch upon the subject of Nature Photography. I am personally a huge fan of nature photography and the best part of it is it consists of many different ranges of photography within it. There are many subgenres that nature photography has to offer from plant photography, wildlife photography and also landscape photography. In each of these fields there are a large variety of things to take the opportunity to photograph, from a beautiful lake to a loin looking for it next meal. One of my favorite nature photographers is Ansel Easton Adams who was an American environmentalist and also a photographer who became famous because of his black and white nature photos. Nature photography offers many different subjects to take a photograph of it just a matter of what you are interested in.

Ansel Easton Adams Gallery: http://www.anseladams.com/category_s/71.htm

When we think of Fashion Photography what come to
mind? Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle just to name a couple of magazines that display fashion photography at its finest in modern day society. But fashion photography has existed for as long as the camera may it first appearance in 1830s using the earliest technique called daguerreotype. But when we think of fashion photography we immediately
think of magazine but it has not always been that way in fact magazine have just started to put fashion photos in their magazines, early 20^th century. The first fashion photos to be published in a magazine were in French magazines.
For example the French magazine “La mode practique”. But what started it all to give fashion photography its own name in photography and respected by the photography community was in 1909 when Condé Nast became the director of Vogue magazine. She gave fashion photography the push it needed to come what it is today.
Early Fashion Photography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pierson_castiglione.jpg