Shiela Metzner – Inherit the Earth
Shiela Metzner’s photos in Inherit the Earth contain many beautiful landscapes and natural or historical objects. Most of these photographs are underexposed and grainy. Her photographs are also oversaturated in some cases, and under saturated in others. Her style conceals the size of the objects she photographs in some cases, and gives magnificence to the size of objects she photographs in other situations. At first glance, some of the massive ice glaciers she’s photographed can appear to be ten feet high, where further inspection reveals the actual height to be more than 100 feet. She has photographs of massive statues that appear at first glance as though they could be the size of children’s toys, and photographs of tree trunks that appear incredibly magnificent, when comparison to small plants next to them reveals their true size to be much smaller. She also uses a different hue for depending on her subjects. When photographing ice in water, she uses a blue hue, making the entire photograph – ice, water, and sky, all blue. However when photographing ancient statues in a dry, brown landscape, the entire photo is brown with a brown or grey sky. Also her photos of a rainforest are brown and under saturated. She changes the color of the sky based on the color of her subjects and the overall hue she wants to capture. Her photos contain no people, but often contain magnificent structures left behind by ancient people.
Shiela Metzner’s photographs in this collection aim to express the beauty and intensity of the magnificence of the amazing structures and landscapes present on earth. Her unique and consistent style adds to the intensity of the things she has photographed.
Lynne Cohen – No Man’s Land
Lynne Cohen’s No Man’s Land collection contains images of different facilities from around the world. She has several photos of the inside of psychiatric testing facilities, strange medical labs, engineering labs, army labs, and many more strange indoor places. Her photographs are almost like indoor landscapes. She almost always uses black and white, and always captures a sharp image with no areas out of focus. Her images never contain any people, and they often contain such strange facilities that they feel almost alien. The rooms she photographs are always extremely clean, and using black and white she is able to show the texture of every surface, giving appreciation to the cleanliness of each site. In many of her photographs it seems purposeful that it is difficult to tell what on earth the facility is used for, and what else might be contained in that facility. She has a unique way of creating an image that appears quite whole, but at the same time is extremely empty. She often captures quite a bit of what she is photographing, and it appears as though you can see everything. However, quite a bit is still left out. Everything that was there in the room is captured in the photo, except for the wall behind her camera. However the subjects are always so vague that everything about what the room is used for and why it is there is entirely a mystery, and in that way her images are quite empty. The emptiness that is felt when looking into one of these photographs is how I would imagine it would feel to visit one of the sights she has captured in this work. Just like the viewer has no idea what on earth went on in any of these places, I’m sure a visitor would also have no idea at first glance.
In Lynne Cohen’s No Man’s Land, her images capture the eeriness and creepiness of the scenes she photographs, and the style she uses captures the feelings one could have when actually visiting any of these sites.
Mario Testino - Alive
Most of Mario Testino’s photographs have high contrast, strong, vibrant colors, and strong black features. Mario often makes use of shadows and uses backlit scenes, using somewhat unconventional lighting. He does however make sure his subjects aren’t drown out by the background light. His photographs are never overexposed or on the lighter side of properly exposed. He seems to appreciate underexposure and his brightest photographs have perfect exposure. He shows motion in many of his photos, even some photos of landscapes and things which are clearly standing still. He captures a wide variety of subjects, varying from wealthy people enjoying themselves at parties, to ruins of ancient people in South America. Some elements of his style vary with the subject matter that he is focusing on. Many of his portrait shots are promiscuous and edgy, while some of his landscape photographs are beautiful and show an appreciation of the city, land, nature, or previous cultures. In his landscape images he does his best to capture the whole picture, and show his viewer every last bit of what he saw. However his photographs containing people often show only capture part of what was there, but still these photos capture everything that was going on. For example, in one of his photographs he cut off the head of the woman who was standing closest to the camera at a party, but it was still so clear in the photograph what was going on. The atmosphere of the event was still captured. This seems to be his style in most of his photographs containing people. He has several photographs that contain just women’s legs.
Mario Testino’s photographs contain a wide variety of subjects. He makes a wide variety of images from edgy photos of couples to beautiful photos of historic and natural landscapes. In each of his images, his style is very apparent.
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