Photographer – Alex Webb

Alex Webb was was born in San Francisco, California in 1952. He great an interest in photography during his high school years. Alex majored in history and literature at Harvard University and studied photography at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. In 1974, Alex Webb began working as a professional photojournalist. His work began to appear in a number of publications such as the New York Times Magazine, Life, Geo. Webb later joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1976 and became a full member in 1979. Alex Webb is best known for his complex and vibrant color photographs of serendipitous or enigmatic moments, often in places with socio-political tensions. Over the past 45 years, Webb has worked in places as varied as the U.S.-Mexico border, Haiti, Istanbul, and, most recently, a number of U.S. cities. Along with traveling and capturing bright images Alex Webb has also published 16 photography books including, The Suffering of Light, a survey of 30 years of his color photographs, and Memory City (with poet and photographer Rebecca Norris Webb, his wife and creative partner) and more. He has also received recognition and been awarded numerous awards and grants including a Hasselblad Foundation Grant in 1998, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1990, and the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2000.

The reason why I chose this photographer was because out of most of the photographers on the list he matched my photography style the most. Alex Webb enjoys testing the limit of the load bearing ability in his images. He describes it as total chaos and finding ways to add more to an image while keeping the chaos short. Many of his pictures captures real life moments and he uses street photography to make sense of the world.

The theme behind the photo is light. Alex Webb practices the study of light, community and culture by weaving together photographs that capture vibrant and layered composition. The Suffering of Light is the first comprehensive monograph charting the career of Alex Webb. The monograph  has most of his iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth. The photo I chose specifically shines light on Baseball fans in Cuba. Alex Webb did a great job of capturing a gradient sunset without taking attention from the people in the photograph. There are a number of elements without the image that add to the chao balance Webb likes to do. Webb also kept each Baseball fan of centered which open ups the photo. Furthermore, Alex has a great ability to distill gesture, color, and contrasting cultural tensions into single, beguiling frames results in evocative images that convey a sense of enigma, irony, and humor.


Resources –

https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/alex-webb?all/all/all/all/0

https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/alex-webb-the-suffering-of-light/