Alec Soth, Craft blog

I was looking on wikipedia for photographers who use large format cameras, and Alec Soth is one of them. I've heard his name before, and seen a little of his work, but I never really looked at his images. I picked a few that I really liked from his series, "Last Days of W". The imagery is pretty simplistic but still enjoyable to look at. I also found some of his portraits interesting because they are more of the unconventional portraits rather than a head-shot style. Here's a link to his blog where he talks about all kinds of things.

The diagonals formed by the staircase really make this image work. I also really like the pattern and repetion of the steps themselves. Another element is added by the broken glass, it makes you question why the window is broken.

This is beautiful to me. It appears to go on forever and the muted colors make the image calming. I also wonder what that building is way off in the distance.

This one is just funny to me. I love the juxtoposition of the ice-cream cone and the cigar; it's like the man is still a child at heart. I also see this as a sort of portrait of this person, just a glimpse of who they are because I'm not sure one photograph can capture who a person really is.


Lastly, I like the division of space in this one. Dark on the bottom, light up top, but also by the curtains and window panes. It's a simple subject, just a window with some sort of star flag or something in the middle, but the light in this image makes it something else. It comes through the curtains beautifully and really highlights the shapes of the curtains.

Andreas Gursky

I picked Gursky off a list of photographers names said in photo class and it was a good pick. I find his work very interesting and it's something I could look at for a while. There are a lot of little details in his images so you can really explore the photograph. I like his use of pattern and repetition; everything just seems to keep going on forever. It offers a lot of unity to his work. His pieces become something different when you get up close. From afar, they just look like patches of color, until you get close and you see they are people or windows. Here's a link to an exhibition he had at MOMA.

Annie Leibovitz

So pretty much everyone knows Annie Leibovitz's work, and maybe it's stereotypical for me to search her work, but I still like what she does with her portraits. I think some of her fame comes from the people she photographs; everyone recognizes who is in the pictures so they associate the Hollywood star with Leibovitz. Many of her portraits that were magazine covers have become somewhat iconic, but I like the feeling her work has. A lot of her portraits have a different feeling and they do something unusual. I like that they aren't straight ahead portraits; they are more playful and now what we typically see from Hollywood stars. So I like to get to see a different side of these people.

Jodie Otte

Since I took some portraits of my neighbor's children this weekend, I decided to look at photographers who do that sort of thing and I came across Jodie Otte. I was just looking up child photographers and clicked on a link for Maryland since that's where I'm from. I think it's nice that some people can specialize in maternity and baby photography. Otte does do some older children and teens as well. I just know that I had a hard time getting the kids to focus on me and look at the camera while I was taking pictures, so she must really love this and have a lot of patience. I think I got some cute pictures of my neighbors, and I had fun doing it, but I think there was a bit of ease since those kids are used to me taking pictures of them and they just ham it up for the camera. I imagine it would be a little harder if the kids didn't know the adult sticking a camera in their face, it could be a bit scary. But of course everyone wants tons of pictures of their kids so someone has to do it. There were some pictures on her site that paired a color photo with a black and white one of the same child and I thought those were particularly nice.

Christopher Burkett

I actually found Christoper Burkett on wikipedia. I had googled for a list of large format photographers and just started looking at different artists on the wikipedia list. I'm drawn to Burkett's images because of the natural imagery (something I think I really want to do). I also love his use of color and textures. Some of his images become abstracted, and I just look at the lines and textures, which is something I do in my own work and really respond to. He travels all around the US to photograph using an 8x10 camera and makes enlargements to 20x24, 30x40 and 40x50 (I would love to see his images that big). He also makes some medium format images and large form panoramic images.

Mixed Light

So this is my attempt to find mixed light images. I seem to be struggling with this assignment a bit, but I'm doing my best with what I can. I don't know who took these images, I found them all by googling mixed light photography and had to search a little for the ones I got. It's not a very easy topic to find and some are more successful than others. Here's what I've got so far:

For me, the most effective ones are the ones that include neon or fluorescent lights in the semi-dark (when there is still some daylight left). I can see the mixed light sources better in those images.

Clark Little

Clark Little is a surfer/ photographer who lives in Hawaii. My grandmother actually forwarded me an email with some of his images so I decided to check him out a bit more because I thought they were beautiful images. I've always loved the water, and ever since my nature project in photo 2, I've been interested in photographing it. Little has an advantage, living in Hawaii and knowing how to surf, since he has beautiful scenery all around him and can really get into the scene to get his shot. I think there is a bit of luck that goes into his process, he obviously has to understand the waves and water so he doesn't get hurt and that's where his surfing experience comes into play. I love the colors in all of these images, they're all very striking. He does a great job of capturing the action, freezing the wave just before it crashes down- he has amazing timing. The light also plays an important role for him; it illuminates the water and gives it a glassy look. He seems to be doing pretty well for himself after only photographing for a couple years, he has already published a book and has had work published internationally. For more info, check out his website.