Alex Webb’s exhibition – LA CALLE – was great experience to me. It was held at Aperture Foundation which is kind of spacious gallery in Chelsea. When I got into the gallery, it was really quiet and clean that I almost forgot about construction was going on the outside. There were many books go photography right next to where the Alex Webb’s photographies were displayed and they all look sophisticated. Beautiful typography and colors stick out the atmosphere of the gallery and they compliment each other well. There were about 30 photos broken into three section on the different colors of the wall. They are taken between the year 1978-2007 in Mexico.
Apparently, those pictures are taken in the area where people in poor class live. Almost no one in the picture smiles, but they seemed suffering and have a full plate. I get the sense that they don’t care about each other but always think about tomorrow and how to live there. I think He really fit in with the place where he took the photos. People in photos looked very natural and he always captured “offbeat moment” that makes the photos memorable.
What I thought interesting was the colors of his pictures. They are taken with a film camera and it creates the bright colors, but then he captures shadows so it looks great contrast between dark and bright. In all pictures, I like this picture because of the contrast of the color and shadow. It seems it depicts the feeling of the people that feel insecure or scared about something. I also noticed this has a rule oh thirds. The shadows of adults and kids are placed in the points and the yellow wall is also on the line of rule of thirds.
Your observation about the importance of color in Web’s work is a good one. He started photographing in black and white and then when he went to Haiti for the first time felt that the intense color there was important to capture. After that he just shot in color. The photo you selected to write about is really interesting in that it uses one primary color-yellow and the rest of the photo is about the contrast of light and dark. The shadows that cover the kids faces but reveal so much about the adults are the heart of this photo. As you note, all the images in the show are shot with film. Webb since 2010 shoots digitally.