Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer and photojournalist. His photography captures an intimate, satirical look at aspects of modern life. Parr's aesthetic is close-up and saturated with color. Martin Parr has a large body of work with many projects. I personally enjoy his food series as well as the Home Sweet Home series. His most recent work is an interesting look at tourism, I think some of it is boring but he pays close attention to light and composition still.

Post #8 of 15

by Vanessa Riojas

Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha, born in 1937, is an American photographer who became a recognized pop artist in the 1960s. His work is said to be a record of the shifts of American life. Ruscha has taken inspiration from America's popular culture. He has a deep interest of the graphic arts, which is clear through his use of incorporating text with urban and Western landscapes. I saw a show at the Art Institute a few years ago on Ruscha's work, and I really enjoyed the 1960s pop art style. I enjoy the subject matter of Ruscha's work and how he somehow makes even a gas station interesting to look at. I like that his subject matter brings light on commercial culture and urban life, and I enjoy his simplicity.

http://www.edruscha.com/ 

Post #12 - Sarah Jarad

Paul Strand

Paul Strand, 1890-1976, was an American photographer who was interested in using the camera as a tool for social reform. Strand developed an alternative to the classic portrait photograph of glamour and power. He wanted to make "portraits of people such as you see in the New York parks and places, sitting around, without their being conscious of being photographed...these people within an environment which they themselves had chosen to be in, or were in anyway." Strand would hide his camera lens and capture people unknowingly. Strand also enjoyed capturing the movement of a city. I enjoy Strand's portraits because I feel they capture people being themselves. I think an important part of a portrait is to have the person captured as who they are, so you can get a bit of an understanding of them just by looking at the photograph. I feel he also captured the feel of a city very well in his other photographs.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pstd/hd_pstd.htm

Post #11 - Sarah Jarad

                                        

#9 Steve McCurry

Hong Kong, China

  Born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; McCurry studied film at Pennsylvania State University, before going on to work for a local newspaper. After several years of freelance work, McCurry made his first of what would become many trips to India. Traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, he made his way across the subcontinent, exploring the country with his camera.

Kabul, Afghanistan

  His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled areas of Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes. Those images, which were published around the world, were among the first to show the conflict. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise.

Afghanistan

 McCurry took his most recognized portrait, "Afghan Girl", in a refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. This image itself was named as "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the National Geographic magazine and her face became famous as the cover photograph on the June 1985. The photo has been widely used on Amnesty International brochures, posters, and calendars. The identity of the "Afghan Girl" remained unknown for over 17 years until McCurry and a National Geographic team located the woman, Sharbat Gula, in 2002. He said, “Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is as striking as she was all those years ago.”

Ahmadi Oil Fields, Kuwait

Beruit, Lebanon

“What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling.”