While taking a look at Michael Paul Smith I was amazed of how detailed his work is. Michael mostly take pictures of classic 1950s to 1960s cars in a natural environment. The process of photo retouching must be endless as the realistic quality is seamless.There was plenty of his works that caught my attention because he was able to set the mood with lighting on the makeshift environment he hand made himself, but the two works that is displayed below are the one’s that tells a mysterious story without actually trying to figure out the whole scenario. As you can see it sets a very moody vibe that can only work during the night which he capture so well. 

For my final project, I wanted to do something different, fresh, vibrant and unusual with my pieces. My foundation as an artist led me to be a graphic designer transitioning into advertising and design. I wanted to pay homage to my first love which is art. I conducted some research to see what I wanted to do with the idea of art and came across an article that has 20 modern remakes of famous paintings. From this, it sparked an idea of “Art redefined in your image today.” This means that I’ll gather subjects to reenact how these famous subjects would pose today in 2018 using my subject’s personality of how they pose. Below I will include some visual inspiration that I will include in my shoot day1-day3.

The famous paintings I’ll use.

The color’s I’ll use on my subjects which is bold and vivid and will be lighted with gel fills will an already colored background.

The last thing that I would want to do is to make my subject draw doodles of images and words that describe who they’re as a person. this will be placed behind the subjects once I’ve digitalized it.

Here are some examples:

This photo at the Jack Shainman gallery caught my attention because it showed MLK at his prime. The was be geared towards him at his strongest without him even knowing. the black and white photo is what makes it clear that it’s only him that carries out the message of honored power amongst people who want equal right and to be treated as humans.

At this exhibit it didn’t interest me at all when I first, took a glimpse at it.That’s until the guy actually explained what was happening in this photo. the church itself was composed of thousands of pictures to create such vivid details in this photograph. It slightly got me intrigued by the other exhibit photo after hearing the background story of what i’m seeing.

Take me to church

This photo immediately caught my attention when I walked into the exhibit. I had originally thought that this piece was a painting. when i gazed at it, it took me back the major black out of 2003 in NYC. It was hot dark, the crime rate was high, but in the end it somewhat what brought us closer together as a city that never sleeps. This photograph embodies camaraderie and survival.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia is a photographer that take these honest shots of men expressing themselves in true light . The style of photography that he shoots is  honest and is some what cinematic for some images taken .One of the photos from Phillip-Lorca diCorcia that captured my attention was the image of the man sitting down on the motel hallway with his chin and hands placed against the railing of  the top floor complex. What also got my attention was the calm color contrast between the greenish- blue street lights in the back ground and the warm red/ brown  tone in the foreground of the building wall. For some reason this picture represents isolation amongst the rest of the world which i believe Dicorcia was trying to convey.

Richard Avedon style is of course the infamous black and white photograph. He try’s to push these concepts of free human behavior in his photographs as well as fashion. Avedon, captures these weird moments of expression on his subjects they stare into the camera. Everything seems to be about the eyes and then, the motion.

Jonathan Mannion  was inspired by  style to Avedon by  contrast with black and white . his style of using  natural background. Mannion has adopted the ways from most of Avedon’s work; which he then uses the idea of how an influence can make one mimic someones work. In the portrait of JayZ, he borrowed Avedon’s black  background and most likely one more addition  I would love to try out both techniques high and low key lighting to see which one has a better outcome.

Yousef Karsh, was a Canadian photographer best known for his portraits of famous individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century. Karsh lived in Ottawa and opened his first studio in 1932 named Karsh of Ottawa. During his time there his taste in how he envision his composition of these models are dramatized and sets the scene for his models. One photograph that immediately caught my attention is the one he took of Betty Low, 1936 the reason why is because it’s black and white and i’m a huge fan of it. The second, reason why it caught my attention is because of how here face is composed in the most simple way, just by looking at it you’ll see that her eyes are wondering off into the distance which give us the viewer the curiosity of what she’s looking at. Karsh, has a way of telling a story in his photos in such a cinematic style and I want to emulate how the cloth around her head carries the eyes down onto the subject neck. Form follows function.

Nadav Kandar, was born in Israel on December 1st 1961. When he was 13 Kandar, started taking pictures on a Pentax camera that he had bought with own money from his Bar Mitzvah. He, began to look deeply at the work of Strand, Stieglitz, Weston and Atget, all of which the feeling that each artist was exploring their respective lives. So being that him and his family came along way to start a new path with photography the influences that he gained rubbed off on him and made him form his own style today. As I was looking through his work I stumbled across two of his work that made me feel excited to emulated I couldn’t pick one of his work so maybe ill try to combine it somehow. The first photo that  Kandar, produced was named Sadiq Khan, 2017 even though this picture is recent it still gives you that nostalgic black and white movie feel to it and he invoked it really well. What I admire what he did was bring attention just only on the subjects eyes. the light source is coming the right of the picture. The movie theme photo might be a theme for me. The second piece was the double expose photo of Eddie redmayne and nature  taken in 2016. The reason why it draws my attention is because it has the mysterious emotion going on with the mixture of blue and green, but now that i think about it I realized that the double exposer photo isn’t what it seems. It’s a photo project on the subject face to make it seem like it.