1.) The first
book I picked up was a portrait book by Ardnt Home. From flipping through his
pages, I can see a very distinct style of portraiture. He photographs people
who are not expecting their picture to be taken, not wanting their picture to
be taken, or not knowing that their picture is being taken. They are images
made in areas like back streets, concerts, rode sides and bus stops. The images
are all black and white with realistic contrast; no extreme blacks are
purposefully made though many images have at least one item, like a man’s black
pants, extremely black. I think what makes the images, theirs is the distinct
“I was outside in a off the beaten path sort of place and I had a camera and
saw this person who fit into the scenery well so I took their picture” kind of
vibe in all the images. The people are obviously comfortable in the setting, as
previously stated most subjects don’t even know they are being photographed as
the photograph is being made. The subjects fit into the sceneries depending on
where the scene is. The circus is obviously the circus performers, the bus
stops are locals waiting for their bus, not knowing that their picture is being
taken, the backstreets are locals walking to wherever it is in the town that
they feel like walking and they happen to pass a man with a camera.
2.) The second
book I picked up was Photographs by Blind Teenager by Tony Deifell. It is very interesting
because, I didn’t realize it at first, but not all the pictures are by the same
person. Each section is dedicated to a different blind teenager. My favorite in
the book is Antonio, a 13 year old from Enfield, North Carolina. He takes
pictures of whatever he feels like and she captions them as so. For example, he had four dollars and wanted
to take a picture of them, so he laid the four dollars on the bed, stepped
back, and took the picture of his four dollars. Because he cannot see, he, and
all the other photographers in the book, has a distinct style of capturing the
image they cannot even see themselves capturing. All the images are centered.
They are all black and white. And, most importantly, they are special to the
photographer, Antonio. He heard his uncle and he heard his uncle’s gun, so he
put the gun up against the bedside and took a centered picture of it. He heard
a dog, so he listened to where the bark was coming from and took a centered
picture of it. All his pictures too are with flash. I can tell from the center
being extremely highlighted and the reflective surfaces in them being brighter
than they should be off of flash.
3.) The last book
I chose was Tom Munro. He is a celebrity photographer. What I like about him
though is you can tell he gets to know the celebrities as people first. He sets
up the shoot around who the subjects are, and then makes black and white images
with high contrast. Like extremely high to where half the image is black
sometimes. He also does this really fun thing where he inverts the black and
white images into fun colors like pink and yellow and baby blue. Everything
that was once black is soon vibrant pink and what was white is now yellow. It
makes the pictures so different and almost Andy Warhol without being copies. They
portraits themselves are, for the most part, close up of the subjects face.
However some are full body and some are even body in a scenery. But for the most part they are face close
ups. They also vary from indoor to outdoor. The outdoor is really wherever, but
indoors is done in a place you cant tell because the contrast is so high it all
just looks black. I think what makes the images theirs is the use of high
contrast, the closeness to the face to where it is almost uncomfortable, but
the ease in the subjects character that they are comfortable being themselves
in front of the camera. Perhaps that’s why he chooses celebrities.
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