3 Photographer - William Waldron

Giuseppe Ripa

The first thing to note about Giuseppe Ripa’s photographs is how he sets his compositions. A lot of his images have a great use of line, whether it be a object striking through a subject, or the objects in the surroundings. Most of his pictures that have this similarity are images created in urban environments, specifically the architecture of buildings, walkways, and stairs. Some of his natural images have ideas, but are more related to the orientation of curves.

Perhaps one of the most important traits of style that Giuseppe Ripa has is his use of contrast. Ripa makes these surreal images by having very blown out values. In many of his photos, shadows can take up most of the negative space. So much that the majority of some images can be almost completely black. In that same regard, his highlights can also be very strong. His whites can almost be just as extreme as his blacks. This is why I think his work focuses on reflections, and the bouncing of light off of different surfaces. In many of his photos, a reflective material is a large part of the subject, and it’s reflection is usually very strong, with barely any gradient. Ripa also focused on the scattering of light on solid ore matte surfaces. With white, flat walls showing extreme light, as is cascades into medium grays, before becoming completely black.

One of the notes on style is the quality of the photos. A lot of them are very grainy, which could have been just a limitation with film, but it really made some images feel like paintings. In some images, he tends to have slow shutter speeds, while showing a bit of camera shake, making buildings seem like they are trembling. 

Michael Reisch

Michael Reisch has a fascination for both architecture and landscapes. His monograph is split in two sections, labelled as such. The biggest concern for Reisch’s photos was his framing, for both architecture and landscapes. For the structures he photographed, he always centered the building or object perfectly. Every photo had the subject dead center in the image. In many situations, he did the exact same with his landscape photography. He has many photos of hills and mountains being in the center of the composition.  A good portion of his landscape photography also relied on getting as much of the environment in a single frame. He has created many images that are panoramic, getting a large amount of grassy hills and tall trees in his image. 

Michael Reisch has an interesting focus on color. Specifically in his landscape photography, he focuses mainly on the greens and browns, and sometimes the browns. Most of the images he takes are of these fantastic plains, and hilly regions that are covered in a perfectly short green grass. With the colors being so perfect, the natural structures almost seem unrealistic. Another trait is the absence of color in the sky. Almost, if not all, of his photos have this light grey blue sky, with no clouds, or variations. This lack of color and clouds adds to the unrealistic quality, making the photo almost seem like a digital render.

Tim Walker

Tim Walker’s photography is more on the ridiculous side of things. Walker is a photographer with an eye for strange setups. In some of his photographs, he will use elements from the outdoors inside homes, make models seem like dolls, and drive classic cars into beds of flowers. His style seems to be a lot more difficult to explain, since it seems to me that he has done a little bit of everything. 

One of the biggest takeaways from his photographs is his sense of vibrance. Almost every photo he makes has this blast of color from every angle. Its clear to see what his subject is due to this, but at the same time, the objects in the foreground and background can be just as vibrant. Theres no one color that he likes to stick with, as his photographs can consist of every color of the rainbow. 

With all the color and surreal environments, his photos really seem playful, and definitely have a sense of humor. Walker tries to make each image almost too much to handle, with every crazy detail being so finite. The situations he shows his viewer are always bizarre, leaving one to not know what to expect from him next.