The deadpan aesthetic consists of either portraits or landscapes absent of any obvious emotion, presenting the subject and places purely how they are in the everyday world, generating questions and therefore providing a non-bias relationship between the viewers and the image. The use of deadpan photography became prominent in the 1990s particularly with the hallmark appearance of landscape and architectural subject matter, which has, therefore, become a major part of conceptual photography today. I aim at portraying the deadpan aesthetic within my project through extra research into photographers such as Stephen Shore, Mark Power and many more explored in this essay. Towards the end of my first project, I developed my work into looking at the …show more content…
These pictures may engage us with emotive subjects, but our sense of what the photographers’ emotions might be is not the obvious guide to understanding the meaning of the images’. This can be seen in many of the images from Stephen Shore’s series ‘Uncommon places’, an American Photographer working predominantly in Amarillo, Texas in 1969 and onwards with ‘Uncommon Places’ in the works. Shore’s main priority was to document intersections and roadsides throughout America; however this eventually spanned to landscapes, buildings, portraits and still-life’s. He became instantly connected with the place and surrounding areas of Texas and said ‘It was exotic, but familiar too. I didn’t love it like a tourist; I got into it. I would go there for a month at a time. I thought of myself as an explorer.’ Throughout Shore’s work you can identify his journey through non-places and areas of Texas, photographing the surroundings, people he meets and landscapes. Even his portraits accommodate the deadpan aesthetic shown here in ‘Main street, Forth Worth, Texas, June 17, 1976’ with the subject centred in the frame and looking directly into the lens accompanied with a neutral expression diminishing all context and emotion from the image. There is an obvious contemporary link and influence for Alec Soth’s work ‘Sleeping …show more content…
97, Oregon, July 21, 1973’. Shore’s acute positioning of the billboard in the centre of the frame allows it to merge into the landscape behind making it part of the surroundings. Throughout the series Shore used a large format 8-by-10 camera (common with many deadpan photographers) allowing him to gain more detail and sharpness in his image and total control over the final outcome; mastering the skills of exposure, composition, framing, focus and timing. His systematic approach and technique meant that the image of a three dimensional form is effectively turned into two, transforming it almost into the aesthetic of a painting along with the use of muted tones and blue
For my museum selection I decided to attend Texas State University’s Wittliff Collection. When I arrived, there was no one else there besides me and the librarian. To be honest, I probably would have never gone to an art museum if my teacher didn’t require me to. This was my first time attending the Wittliff Collection, thus I asked the librarian, “Is there any other artwork besides Southwestern and Mexican photography?” She answered, “No, the Wittliff is known only for Southwestern and Mexican photography.” I smiled with a sense of embarrassment and continued to view the different photos. As I walked through Wittliff, I became overwhelmed with all of the different types of photography. There were so many amazing pieces that it became difficult to select which one to write about. However, I finally managed to choose three unique photography pieces by Alinka Echeverria, Geoff Winningham, and Keith Carter.
From the film, “Documenting the Face of America: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers”, we, the viewer, are able to gain an understanding about all that the photographers witnessed and how they handled each of the situations they saw. Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Edwin and Louise Rosskam, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott, Esther Bubly, Russell Lee, John Collier Jr., Edwin Locke, and Walker Evans are the famous photographers that are discussed in this particular documentary. Almost all of the things that photographers witnessed while working on this project were things that people who lived in the city would never have seen unless they have visited or were originally from the country.
Johnson, Brooks. Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their Art.” New York: Aperture Foundation Inc., 2004. Print.
In society we are surrounded by images, immersed in a visual world with symbols and meaning created through traditional literary devices, but augmented with the influence of graphics, words, positioning and colour. The images of Peter Goldsworthy’s novel, Maestro (1989) move within these diameters and in many ways the visions of Ivan Sen’s film Beneath Clouds (2002) linger in the same way. Both these texts explore themes of appearance versus reality and influence of setting, by evoking emotion in the responder through their distinctively visual elements.
Curtis’s work represents the ideological construction of foreign cultures in the 'way of seeing' that is suitable for the audience of the photograph and the photographer. This illustrates the highly political motives of photograph, carrying multiple meanings in order to craft certain imaginations of the subject (Berger, 1972). As a result of the power that the photographer has on its subjects, certain messages and ‘way of seeing’ are depicted through photographs. For instance, expected gender roles are played out in photographs of the Indian subjects, portraying the expectation of Curtis and his audience of the masculine and feminine behaviour by the subjects conforming to such gender standards (Jackson, 1992). Indian men are captured in what Jackson (1992) describes as ‘active poses’, such as fishing or dancing, juxtaposed with the ‘passive poses’ of female subjects, photographed in more decorative postured of waiting and watching. Though it can be argued that the manipulation and selection of images by Curtis as an artist’s ‘creative manipulation’ of their work, Curtis’ photography was used as a scientific measure, and hence should be devoid of such influences (Jackson,
Florian Maier-Aichen is a landscape photographer and drawer.With the computer he is able to alter photographs and make them a piece of artwork that not only pleases his thoughts, but also makes a statement.Since he takes real life images of a landscape and then constructs them in different modes that satisfy him , those images aren’t reality anymore.In Blum & Poe you can observe the strange colors he added to enrich myth-making.He fantasizes landscapes, making them open ended
It’s his compassion for his subjects and his commitment to them that surpasses the act of making a pretty picture. Spending days with his subjects in the slums of Harlem or the hardly developed mountains of West Virginia, he immerses himself into the frequently bitter life of his next award-winning photo. Often including word for word text of testimonials recorded by junkies and destitute farmers, Richards is able to provide an unbiased portrayal. All he has done is to select and make us look at the faces of the ignored, opinions and reactions left to be made by the viewer. Have you ever been at the beach safely shielded by a dark pair of sunglasses and just watched?
In the word of Gordon Parks, “I feel it is the heart, not the eyes that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye see is its own what the heart can perceive is a very different matter” (qtd. in “Picture quotes”). Most viewer only views the images throw their eyes and they thought they could get the meaning of it. However, some photographs cannot be understood just by visual. For instance, Ice cream parlor, Blind River, Ontario captured in 1955by Parks. This photograph required the heart to be understood the narrative, messages, surprise and significant of the photograph. Parks’s photo should be
Art causes people to look a little closer. To look closer at the social issues, at other people and their emotions, at the environment that surrounded them, and the everyday objects and life forms around them. It helps them see what is there but not easily perceived. The artist brings out that which cannot be seen or felt easily. Art is usually about self-expression because the artist feels strongly enough about what they are doing to try and put it into a form that they, and others, can come to terms with. Landscape is a statement. Somehow the artist is trying to communicate an idea, an emotion, or a purpose in their work. It is about expressing their inner soul, bearing it all for the public. Landscape- represented more than I can fully explain in this paper.
Edward Burtynsky is landscape photographer who focuses on finding unique locations that are barren with environmental degradation. He is concerned with the current state of our world and wants to change it by using photography as a medium. Burtynsky 's photolistic style often shows incredible scale and detail within his photos by using multiple vantage points. Burtynsky approaches his subject in a very urgent manner, each and every photo is taken to create a deep impression from its viewer. His work is housed in more than 50 museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
A picture is more than just a piece of time captured within a light-sensitive emulsion, it is an experience one has whose story is told through an enchanting image. I photograph the world in the ways I see it. Every curious angle, vibrant color, and abnormal subject makes me think, and want to spark someone else’s thought process. The photographs in this work were not chosen by me, but by the reactions each image received when looked at. If a photo was merely glanced at or given a casual compliment, then I didn’t feel it was strong enough a work, but if one was to stop somebody, and be studied in curiosity, or question, then the picture was right to be chosen.
John Mahtesian's photography offers a visual poetry of the human condition. It is a direct expression of his warmth, depth of spirit, and humanity. A true gentleman, extremely humble and unfailingly polite, he achieves an invisibility that is the success of his art. His patience and commitment to his vision allow him to capture moments others could not. If his subjects are aware of his presence, his gentle nature so enchants them that they are unguarded and their essence is revealed. So compelling are his images that we are truly convinced his insights are our own. They make us rejoice in the world around us, and in the nature of human existence.
“Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” was written by James Agee and Walker Evans. The story is about three white families of tenant farmers in rural Alabama. The photographs in the beginning have no captions or quotations. They are just images of three tenant farming families, their houses, and possessions. “The photographs are not illustrative. They, and the text, are coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative.” (87) The story and the photographs contain relationships between them; in the essay I am going to inform you about the interpretations of the relationships between the readings of James Agee and some of the pictures by Walker Evans.
"Realism." The Thames & Hudson Dictionary Of Art and Artists. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. Credo Reference. Web. 23 April 2014.
Artists of the Modernist era responded to the relationship of body and landscape in many different ways. This essay will focus on the works of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) and will explore two works by each artist. A desire of the Modernist artist was the pursuit of pure forms and removal of extraneous detail that would encumber their vision of what the world should, or in fact did look like to them. As Honour and Flemming (2009) propose, the thought of seeking original elucidations to the issues that surrounded the production of paintings and sculpture helped to propel the movement forward.