Photographer: Robert Polidori
Exhibit: Fra Angelico/ Opus Operantis
The subject matter of these photos are doors and how the photographer took the shots, Probably if he moved, the photo won’t be as good as it is. He used the idea of having a frame in a frame and what made the photo interested is you can see for example a christian frame in the right and a door on the fight, it’s open so we can actually see what’s inside. It’s making the audience curious to see what’s inside this room. Also some of the photos has a door and inside door, That’s why i think the main idea he used in his photographs are doors. One of the Photos has a circle in the front and inside it a picture of Jesus so he also used the idea of a frame inside a frame.
Photographer: Taysir Batniji
Exhibit: Home away From Home
The subject matter of these photos are homes, People at work or daily life, Families, Mostly in Gaza , and some drawing. what made me interested in these photographs because it is kind of personal and it has some details of people’s daily life. this exhibit also has books and one of the books i kept staring at because it was in a different language (Arabic). Basically the cover says it all what the book is about. It has a girl in the cover with some handwriting all over the cover with an unordered lines. The sentences are from the girl on the cover and she says that she doesn’t like taking photos because of what the people will say from her country and that the photographer wants to take photos of her at home. People in her country may say that she has a bad attitude when she pose. Probably after looking at this book i can say that he’s curious to know what people do in their daily life and he prefers taking photos of home and people in their daily life or work.
Photographer: Stan Douglas
Exhibit: Scenes from the Blackout
The subject matter of these photos are they all set up / fabricated photographs. Most of them are dark , color , and the photographer mostly liked to shoot in the street. Some of the photos you can really tell it’s set up like the one in the elevator and the guy is the playing cards. There is another one where the people are stealing from a store and he is shooting from the back where they are all leaving the store and the store is all mess. My favorite photo is the one with a guy holding jewelry / maybe steeling and the glass is broken that made a circle. It reminds me of the photographer Robert Polidori. The idea of frame inside a frame, so it made the broken glass as the outside frame and the hand of the guy holding the jewelry the inside frame.
As you state, Robert Polidori is interested in framing and composition. These images are very formal-meaning that they are primarily about composition and not a theme like Christianity or Hunger in America. And they are breathtakingly beautiful.
The interest in the exhibit Home away From Home is more in the idea of all these people in exile from their country. the individual photos show people leading ordinary lives-except then you remember that they have been displaced from their country.
Interesting that the Stan Douglas photos remind you of Robert Polidori. On the surface, they are very different but I can see similarities in their scale and ambition. Also, both emphasize composition and in their photographs the frame is carefully planned.