Alex Webb’s Exhibition

Alex Webb Exhibition

Samuel Acosta

COMD 2330

On 09/22/16 I and some of my classmates from the class Digital Photography had the opportunity to see Alex Webb’s Photo Exhibition name “La Calle: Photographs from Mexico”. The Exhibition room was really big and wide there were many photos from Mexico. In the exhibition La Calle the photos were from 1975 to 2007 the photos are in color and in black and white. There were around like 20 – 30 photographs this is a wild guess because I did not count them but there were a lot of photos. Some photos had mystery in them some others had something fun to look at or to laugh at and others were somewhat sad or nostalgic. The kinds of photos that I saw were some portraits, pattern, depth of field and some perspective. In his exhibition Alex Webb showed us some of Mexico’s best areas to hang out, some parks and even churches. When it came to indecisive moments Webb show us some of his skills to take the photo on the right time.

Some of the things that I saw were a church, a park, bars, places where prostitutes go to have businesses, small business that sell candy, monuments and statues over all most of the photograph if not all were out door. On his photographs Webb capture kids, women, men, drunks, dogs, corpses. Some of the things I did not see in his photograph were rich people or their mansions nor even fancy cars or anything like that. I believe that what Alex Webb was trying to achieve with that was that he wanted to show the humble, friendly and playful part of Mexico and I believe this because of the areas he choose to photographs the people and even thought there were some photos that were not playful you can still see people who are either helping make things better or at least trying. I believe he wanted to show what Mexico looks like when the media is not only showing people selling drugs or people crossing the border.

One of the photographs I really like from this exhibition was the one named “Kika’s Blue Room”. What called my attention to this photograph was that at first I thought this was a place for kids because of the colors, the type phase and the name for some reason Kika’s Blue Room to me sounds like the equivalent to Chucky E Cheese. After paying attention and examining the photo I realize that this wasn’t a place for kids at all it was a place for man to

MEXICO. Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (Border). 1978. Prostitute outside nightclub.

go and get prostitutes because right in front of the place there is a prostitute reading a book. Mr. Webb uses the rule of thirds in this photo and if I may I believe he did a fantastic work doing it because he focuses the two most important things in the photo one the prostitute and door into the place. The reason why I love it is because of the way he used the rule of thirds also because of the name and the confusion I had when I first saw the photo. Over all I think Alex Webb did a fantastic job show us how the humble side of Mexico looks like with all the kids playing, the prostitutes reading, the candy, and parks he photograph something different.