Gustave Le Gray

I wrote a paper on Le Gray for my 19th Century European Art class this month and felt like I should share some info on him because our art history classes don't really cover any photography. So, Gustave Le Gray started off as a painter and studied under the painter Delaroche. He might have been the one who introduced him to photography. His innovations helped photography advance during his time and believed that paper was the future in photography (since they used to use glass plates and silver-plated copper sheets). He invented a process called the wax paper process/method where one was able to create an even coat of chemicals that produced clearer images. He also began printing with two separate negatives on a single proof to get well exposed photographs of seascapes. The sky was usually always overexposed because cameras and the chemicals weren't capable of exposing sea and sky together properly. Le Gray became creative with his images and began experimenting with color by toning his prints with different hues. He was the first to believe that photography would be considered a fine art in the future and not just a science used only for replication. Many did not believe him..... but he was right after all :)

Susan Burnstine

Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago. She is now located in Los Angeles and is represented in many galleries across the world. Susan photographs her dreams in camera rather than in post-processing manipulations. In order to create her dream-like photos she has made over 21 cameras using found materials, lens and parts from old cameras.

Ottomar Anschutz

Ottomar Anschutz was a photographer and inventor of chronophotography, a practiced that involved capturing movement of several frames of print. His custom made fast shutters gave in the ability to photograph subjects at 1/1000th of a second. Year later in his career, he went on to invent the electrotachyscope which was an invention that displayed the illusions of movement of transparent serial photographs.  Ottomar's work for me creates open-ended stories that will keep me forever interested in his work and his invented style of photography. 

Moises Saman

Moises Saman is a photographer and photojournalist. Earlier in the start of his career, he photographed the aftermath of the last Balkan War. In his work, he uses photography to capture the moments of traits shared by humans during conflicts like in war. In situations, people can share the same hope, faith and passionate strength in something we truly believe in. Saman's work as a photojournalist continues to grow and the common tendencies he finds human is shared in his work worldwide.

#12 Albert Renger-Patzsch

Stairwell, View from Below, 1929

Albert Renger-Patzsch (1987 - 1966) is a German photographer whose cool, detached images formed the photographic component of the Neue Sachlichkeit (“New Objectivity”) movement.

Shoemaking Irons, 1928

In 1925 Renger-Patzsch began to pursue photography as a full-time career as a freelance documentary and press photographer. He rejected both Pictorialism, which was in imitation of painting, and the experimentation of photographers who relied on startling techniques. In his photographs, he recorded the exact, detailed appearance of objects, reflecting his early pursuit of science. He felt that the underlying structure of his subjects did not require any enhancement by the photographer. In his book Die Welt ist schön (1928; “The World Is Beautiful”), he showed images from both nature and industry, all treated in his clear, transparent style. Such images were closely related to the paintings of the Neue Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity) movement of painters, who created detached and literal renderings of reality that were so extreme that they produced an eerie effect.

Parasol Mushroom, 1930s

In its sharply focused and matter-of-fact style his work exemplifies the aesthetic of The New Objectivity that flourished in the arts in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Like Edward Weston in the United States, Renger-Patzsch believed that the value of photography was in its ability to reproduce the texture of reality, and to represent the essence of an object. He wrote: "The secret of a good photograph—which, like a work of art, can have esthetic qualities—is its realism (...) Let us therefore leave art to artists and endeavor to create, with the means peculiar to photography and without borrowing from art, photographs which will last because of their photographic qualities."

Norway Oslofjord, chalk tubers, 1960

In the early 1930s, Renger-Patzsch taught photography. From the 1940s until his death, he focused on his own projects, working as a freelance photographer and publishing his photographs. His later subjects included natural landscapes, industrial landscapes (Eisen und Stahl, 1930), trees (Bäume, 1962), and stones (Gestein, 1966).

Spinning machines, 1950s

#11 Joseph Szabo

Priscilla, 1969

Joseph Szabo (born 1944 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American photographer, teacher, and author. He taught photography at Malverne High School in Long Island from 1972-1999 and at the International Center of Photography in New York since 1978. As a high school teacher he used photography as a tool to reach out to and connect with his students, giving him access to the world of teenagers adults rarely see. Szabo’s images depict the importance of peer acceptance, the significance of the right pair of jeans, cars, cigarettes, friendships and first love. These photographs are a poignant reminder of what being a teenager is all about, a time we can all relate to; the fears, joys and insecurities of being “almost grown-up”. These photographs also capture and preserve a particular time in American Culture, the fashion style and the mood of the 70’s and early 80’s.

Girl in the Mirror, 1981

Jesse at Jones Beach, 1983

As Cornell Capa says in his foreward, "Szabo's camera is sharp, incisive, and young, matching his subjects. One can use many adjectives: revealing, tender, raucous, sexy, showy... in Szabo's hands, the camera is magically there, the light is always available, the moment is perceived, seen, and caught."

Lifeguard's Dream,, 1972

In 1978, his book on adolescence Almost Grown was published by Harmony Books and acclaimed by the American Library Association and placed on its "Best Books of the Year" listing. In 1984, he received a Photography fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennial, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Brooklyn Museum among others. His work has been collected by many institutions including the Bibliotheque National in Paris, France, The George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, New York, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Tête-à-Tête, 1981

josephszabophotos.com

#10 Jacques Henri Lartigue

Zissou, Rouzat, 1911

Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) was born at Courbevoie, France, and he grew up in Paris. He took his first photographs at the age of six, using his father’s camera, and started keeping what would become a lifelong diary. In 1904 he began making photographs and drawings of family games and childhood experiences, also capturing the beginnings of aviation and cars and the smart women of the Bois de Boulogne as well as society and sporting events such as the Coupe Gordon Bennett and the French Grand Prix, early flights of aviation pioneers.

My Brother, Zissou, Gets His Glider Airbourne, 1908

Drag-racing Day at the Auteuil Races, Paris, 1911

he sold a few photographs to sporting magazines during his middle-ages he concentrated on painting which also was his source of income and living. However, he continued taking photographs and maintained written journals about them throughout his life. At age of 69 his boyhood photographs were 'discovered' by Charles Rado of the Rapho agency who introduced Lartigue to John Szarkowski, curator of the Museum of Modern Art, who arranged an exhibition of his work at the museum. Life magazine published the photos in 1963.

Zissou contre le vent de l'helice d'Amerigo, Buc, 1911

Sala, at the Rocher de la Vierge, Biarritz, 1927

Aquarium (France, 1929)

Although best known as a photographer, Lartigue was also a good painter. He often showed-up in the official salons in Paris and in the south of France from 1922.

‘Rushmore’ by Wes Anderson (1998) @00:01:37
Four photos by Jacques Henri Lartigue are visible on the wall behind Max

American director Wes Anderson is a fan of Lartigue's work, and has referenced it in his films. (His film is great, especially in the aesthetic and visual aspects) A shot in Rushmore is based on one of his photographs, and Lartigue's likeness was the basis for the portrait of Lord Mandrake in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (#)

Gregory Crewdson

 

Gregory Crewdson (American, b.1962) is best known for his photographs, which feature elaborately staged, surreal tableaus of suburban life. Born in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, Crewdson played in a punk rock band as a teenager, before attending the State University of New York at Purchase, where he earned his BFA. After completing his MFA at Yale University in 1988, Crewdson began working on the first of his many lengthy photographic series, Natural Wonder, depicting highly constructed scenes showing the grotesque narratives of paranoia, lust, and fantasy that are played out in suburbia. 

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.”