Multiple Subjects Post - 10.26.2015

Aperture Review - 10.14.2015

Aperture Review 

The article that definitely caught my eye was title "Excerpt from Mary Ellen Mark on the Portrait and the Moment." Her photos were all very powerful to me and the excerpt left me so hungry for more of her work, I actually spent several hours googling and reading articles on Mark and her projects.  For one, she tells her subjects not to smile in order to make it seem more real. Also, she really gets to know her subjects on a personal level and sticks with that one subject for quite sometime. She believes that in her photos that "less is more" and preaches the idea to her students that one should never be without their equipment because you never know when you'll find the perfect shot right in front of you. The photo that really caught my attention was the photo of a nine year old girl, Amanda from Valdese, North Carolina, standing in the pool with her cousin and smoking a cigarette. Her photo's really capture the strangeness of reality and tangible subjects without making the photo too surreal, much like the photo of the two young boys who were "macho beyond their years." 

Amanda and Her Cousin Amy, Valdese, North Carolina, 1990 © Mary Ellen Mark

http://www.aperture.org/blog/mary-ellen-mark-portrait-moment/

Exposure Night Photography Project - 10.12.2015

AmericanSuburbX Review - 10.08.2015

AmericanSuburbX Review

When I looked into AmericanSuburbX, the first interview I saw was titled "An Interview with Goran Bertok: Dead Meat, Bright Lights." The interview features much of his work and that was what caught my attention because Bertok photographs the dead. He explains in the interview that he sometimes feels as though he is a corpse or has a dead companion alongside him. The read was very interesting because he posed the question of whether or not he could learn anything from the dead. He states that when he photographs the cadavers, he can tell by looking at their face if they suffered while dying or if they were in peace and that he feels he can also tell things like whether or not the person held a high social standing. When asked about his process of taking the photos, he tell the interviewer that he treats the dead much as he would his living models - with much respect and a silent, mutual respect in the studio. Bertok ends the interviews by telling the readers that we must enjoy life while we have it, because we will have death forever.

(Photo by Goran Bertok of a cadaver)

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2015/10/an-interview-with-goran-bartok-dead-meat-bright-lights.html

Conscientious Review - 10.02.2015

Conscientious Review 

I really enjoyed the article The Ethics of Street Photography by Joerg Colberg. In the article, he describes how some photographers believe that photographing people on the street and posting without their consent is perfectly fine and okay whereas he believes photographers ought to respect their subjects. The "photo" stating "A photo of a man downtown that he asked me to delete. I did." drew me very quickly to the article and the article itself was intensely interesting to read because I touched on a subject that not many people think about.

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/the_ethics_of_street_photography/