(1) LaToya Ruby Frazier:
LaToya Ruby Frazier is an American photographer from Braddock PA which is a town outside of the main city of Pittsburgh. She is well known for photography that tells a story and focuses on the ideas of social justice, cultural change, the inequality in America and just the overall American experience. She uses her photography as a way to address topics important to her such as industrialism, human rights, communal history and according to the video she speaks specifically on the steel industry, the environment and the healthcare system can affect communities and humans specifically. She wants to bring awareness to important topics like these and she does it throughout Straight/documentary photography. Earlier in this class we watched a video about different art movements and one of the art movements was straight photography. Straight photography wanted to show what was really there and what was true and do what painting could not. Out of straight photography came documentary style photography and American straight photographers who photographed American life exactly the way they saw it. This is what LaToya Ruby Frazier is doing with her photographs, she is capturing exactly what she sees going on within the country and illuminating the injustice, pain and difficulty that many Americans face. In the TED talk video Frazier talks about her first photography book called "The Notion of Family '' which talks about her and her families experience in Braddock, PA with the steel industry, environmental racism and the health and overall wellbeing of the community there. In order to produce these images and share her beliefs Frazier has used a couple of different strategies such as still life, landscape and aerial view photographs to send a message.
The image below I chose is one of Frazier's images from her work photographing Braddock. This image below consists of two images side by side with the one on the left being a portrait photo of a man's back and the one on the right being a landscape photo of deteriorating buildings. Frazier's main objective through these photos was to highlight how men such as her great grandfather who worked for the Carnegie Mills had worked in harsh conditions and how the community looks now after the deterioration of the steel industry. These photos played with Tone as they were in black and white. The person's back is a deeper tone compared to her nightgown and the hospital bed while the landscape image had deeper tones and lighter tones demonstrating a contrast in light and showing overall desolation. The viewpoint of the portrait photo is from behind the back so there is an emphasis on showing the open nightgown and the wires going around the person's back. This angle allows for greater vulnerability to allow Fraxier to demonstrate to us the viewers that there has been great pain created from the harsh environment of working in the mills. The landscape photo has a viewpoint that is slightly from a downward angle pointing up looking at the decaying buildings. I believe this was meant to emulate a human looking up at these buildings from the floor. The main subject for the portrait would have to be the human and the wires. My eyes are drawn to this human that has a hunched over position almost with a wire running across their back. Frazier wanted to draw attention to the people of color in her community and how the environment affected them. In this photo your eyes are immediately shifted to this person of color with a hunched over back indicating defeat/pain or hardship. The landscape photo has less of an emphasized specific factor to look for but the image overall captures your attention as every corner you look at there is destruction and an eerie sense of defeat. Both these images evoke a feeling of sadness and almost pure distraught. The elements that cause this reaction is the choice of Tone over color as color may distract from the eerie story these images are trying to tell. In addition the photographer's choice of viewpoint allows you to see and begin to feel an emotion of sadness by the choice of these angles. The photographer is trying to tell us that issues that are going on in this country have gone unnoticed for too long as we have not been exposed to them and meant to feel this discomfort. These images make you feel uncomfortable and she encapsulated that perfectly.
(2) Rinko Kawauchi:
Rino Kawauchi is a Japanese photogrpaher born in Shinga Japan in 1972. She is not a self taugh photogrpaher as she attended Seian University of Art and Design where she studied photography and graphic design. Kawauchi relased her own work in 3 different books called Utatane, Hanabi and Hanoko which were released in 2001. She is well known for her images depicting everyday life in a seemingly soft palatte tone. Her work has since been displayed in many reputable places such as the Foundation Cariter in Paris and the Photographer's Gallaery in London. In addition, she has also won many awards for her work including the 27th Ihei Kimura photography award and the International Center of Photography Infinity Award (Lapis Press). Kawauchi said it herslef that she loves light in her photography as she associates Light with life and she claims she is interested in life and photgraphing the life we an see so a lot if her images center around light. Due to her focus on light, her photos are described as "pale" or "pastel" which she feels is fitting as she feels her photos can only represent part of what life really is. There is so much more than meets the eye. A famous quote by Kawauchi is " It's not enough that [the photograph] is beautiful. If it doesn't move my heart, it won't move anyone else's heart". She sees the beauty in the world and wants us to see the beauty and feel something off of her images.
The photo below is one done by Kawauchi and one that immidelty drew my attention and I wanted to analyze. This photograph can be caragtorized as a conceptual photo as it is not focusing on a person as in a portrait nor is it a landscape photo. This photo is conceptual because there is a lot that can be interpreted from it as the center of the photo is focusing on light. This photos light is hard and high lighting as the light is a stong straight line down the center of the image and the focal point seems to be beggining from the top of the stairs or the high angle of the image. This method that the photogrpaher chooses to do almost depicts to me that the light is coming from another place such as heavan. I grew up Catholic and I stronlgy beleive in Jesus so when I first saw this image of a light sourcing from the top of the stairs I immidielty thought of it as the stair way to heavn. The light is coming from the gates that are opneing to heaven. Kawauchi uses the composition elements of lines and texture here to create an image that is centered around the light and gives an airy almost floating type of feeling. The photographer does this because the image was taken on a stairway so each new step creates a vsial line which draws your attention to the perpendicular line of light coming down the middle of the stairway. The image does nto feel clear there feels to be a smokey texture over the photo giving it this airy look and feel. My eyes were directly drawn to this perpendicualr light line down the middle due to the lines composition as well as the brightness of the light. It was not a dull light it is as if the photogrpaher took this image with the light as the center of focus. The surrindings parts of the image which are the poepl and the stiars are a secondary look to the light and once you do notice them you notice that the people are heading towrds the source of the light up the stairs once again drawing your attention back to the light. The emotional impact that this photo left on me was one of hope, faith and a sesne of peace. Once again, as I stated above I grew up Catholic and I have a strong beleif in christ and overall I have strong faith in a higher power. When I saw this photo I felt calm and at peace as it made me think that thois light was leading towrds to heavan and the people were making there way towrds it. The light, the airy feel, the almost dancing feeling the people take as they walk up the stairs all contributed to this feeling of faith, peace and hope that one day I can experience what this photo made me feel and think. Kawauchi has stated how she love s light as she associated it with life but an image does not even begin to cpature the whole story.
This image I feel perfectly represented her beleifs as this image shows people living a life but there is more past it, where is this light leading? Why are these people going towrds it? What is out there than what meets our eyes? Immidietly I felt so connected to this image and as I analayzed its composition, read about Kawauchi's beliefs and methods I began to appreciate and see the photograph from a deeper lens and thus my emotions grew stronger from it.
Laura Letinsky is a Photogrpaher from Winnipeg, Canada who was born in 1962. She recieved her BFA from the University of Manitoba and then her MFA from Yale Univerity. Her work has been included at Mumbai Photography Fesitval, The Photograph's Gallery in London and the Getty Museum in LA just to name a few. She has also recived many awards for her art work including the Guggenheim Fellowship award and the Richard Driehaus award to name a few. Letinsky's work focuses on capturing reminants of a meal, party or in genral signs that a human life was there. She works mainily in the form of still life and almost excuisevly working with objects not people themselvess. In her own words she said how " Photography is drawing with light" and she likes to see ow photogrpahy can show and represent the imperfections.
The Photo below was taken by Letinsky in her series Form and Void. Hearing Letinsky's interview on why she liked photography she stated how there is an imposibility to create the illusion of perfection in photos and she wanted to recognize and be ok with that. In her photos she wanted to empashizr the imperfectionsits in the photos. In addition, she wanted to create a tangibleness to her still life where the viewer not only sees the imperfections but feels that they could physcially interact with the photo. This photo below is a Still life photo where the photogrpaher used innatimate objects to create a powerful image. There is front facing or direct light in this photo as there is no attention to specificsllly ligt. THe white background also diffised the light to illumiate the objects and bring attention to only those and not lighting. As the viewer your eyes are drawn to the edge of the table as it appears the content such as the plates, the food and the utensils are falling off the table. This creates that feeling of tangibility as you want to go into the image and chatch the falling objects. The photo looks unsteady and imperfect. There is that akwardness created tht Letisnky talked about liking to create because it shows us how photogrpahy can capture the imperfections. There is not an intense empotion that is evoked from this photo for me except one of curiooity as thta feeling of tangibility begins to make you take a deeper look at the photo and begins to make you aonder how these everyday innatimate objects cn create an expressive, akward and depicitive photo.
Comments
Post a Comment