Three Photographers

The first book I chose is titled the name of the photographer, Catherine Yass. I found Yass' work interesting as it is a combined the look of positive and negative. Her subjects in this book were mostly empty rooms, hallways, or outside of a building. Each piece is brightly colored, having an unnaturally filtered look to them. It seems for her style she must have developed or edited her film in such away that the product turned out so blue and colorful. Curiosity took over me, so with some googling I found that Yass would typically manipulate her pieces by overlaying the positive and negatives from her photographs. Many of her images showed a reflection such as a door reflected into a pool or an overhead ceiling reflected onto the floor. The reflections play a lot on how light and color is reflected/concentrated. The style really reminds me of the thermal filter that is on the application of photo booth on mac computers. It's very unique coloring that could be easily recognized.

The second book I choose is called Nudes and features the photographer Thomas Ruff. Ruff's style is vulgar and unabashedly. But Ruff puts a spin on your average pornographic images, somehow making them art. He has men and woman, alone and together, in compromising positions. He uses background colors that pop. There's the deep purple carpeted floor or the lime green couch or the deep red sheets. His style is also to blur his subjects which I think makes the images less harsh to look at. It seems he takes an act of love and makes it rough but then softens it again but burring the image, my interpretation of the depth to this image. He makes it so you do not focus on the individual person or their body parts but instead the act of what they are doing, the image as a whole. On CNN Playboy just released how they are no longer releasing fully nude images in their magazines, this fact seems interesting to think of in terms of Ruff's work, perhaps his style would solve this solution.

My final book I rented is called No Borders featuring the photographer Marty LaVor. Marty's work is unique because as it is entitles the images have no boarders. She photographers everyday subjects doing everyday tasks and surrounds them by blackness. A man sitting in a chair in a suit, turned black and white, and the entire background blackened. His subjects are just floating within the black. Some of her pieces are so powerful, two impoverished looking folk. While others are chubby men just laughing, perhaps at a party, just captured in mist of having a good time. Her subjects stand out so much among the black yet also blend. In some of her images se chooses to keep essential props from the image, a sign or a desk, then blacken out the rest.