Tenosique, Tabasco, 2007
During my visit to Aperture to see the Alex Webb exhibit was truly amazing!My familiarity with Aperture in the past ensured me that they were capable of getting Alex Webbs photography pieces. The exhibit was taken place in the Aperture building on the 4th floor it was called “La Calle”.Our journey before that was pretty long as we ventured out on to the Highline and captured a couple of pictures on that beautiful day. Now getting back to the exhibit Webbs, pieces took place in Mexico. Each piece that he took told a story during his time there whether it was sad, happy,or dramatic. I can say for starters that all of his photos gets very deep and raw into these people’s life. From my observation certain photographs were placed behind a specific color which was red to pick up a sense of danger or a dramatic event or Yellow and white to calm us down and actually take notice at the displayed photograph.But, besides all of that majority of the photos he has taken communicated well with emotion and sense of rich culture that happens in Mexico.
Alex Webb is a man with a vision that can be well executed in one photoshot. He was born in San Francisco and raised in New England. His ideas have strong emotion that can make you happy or sad and, For that he received many awards in terms of awareness of his surroundings and culture that he takes a snap of with his camera everyday. His use of vibrant colors, theme of street photography and complex composition shaped the way for him to become well known in the photography world between the year 1978 and 2007.
The photograph Alex Webb took that spoke to me the most out of the exhibit was name “Tenosique, Tabasco, 2007″ in this photograph here that you see above you can see that there is a lot of pain involved in this composition. You ever heard of the phrase” a picture is worth a thousand words” well, from looking at this broke the ultimate record! What I got from this photo was grief of family members over someone who had died in the middle of the road. The composition tells the story it self with the overwhelming expressions on everyone’s face especially with the woman leaning towards the left side to touch either her son or any type of relations she has with the deceased man. Also taking a look at the man holding the woman so that she wouldn’t completely lose it. It is true that Alex Webb certainly has a Gift of capturing right moment at the right time. I’m sadden by looking at this photo has it Carries out a strong message of grief. I am truly inspired by his work and will to incorporate his ideas in my work as well.
I know that you are committed to black and white photography but you might be interested in listening to Webb talk about deciding to shoot in color:
The photo that you selected is very raw in the context of Webb’s work. the composition is complex in the way the family surrounds the victim. the moment is very extreme. So many of his other photos use deep shadows and juxtaposition to make ordinary scenes memorable. The color in his work adds emotion like the shot of the dog in front of the bar with the green and pink light. there is nothing much happening here. But there is something about the way the perspective leads our eye out into the dark and the vividness of the color that is ominous.