Photographer's Gallery
The 'Photographer's Gallery' shows an array of abstract and original pieces featuring two main exhibitions that we visited. The two exhibitions, although being different in the subject they photograph, both were quite similar in their unique and abstract style. The visit to the gallery proved to be somewhat enlightening as it showed us the various creative ways you could photograph common, everyday and usually mundane objects, and turn them into quite interesting pieces.
SHOT IN SOHO.
The 'Shot in Soho' exhibition, found on the fifth floor of the gallery, is filled with unique, abstract and edgy pieces. The exhibition is meant to take a look at Soho's diverse community, exploring the difference in culture, and character.
This is one shot by photographer William Klein, really stood out to me due to the contrasts in the image. We can see a busy and packed background, contrasting against a relatively empty foreground, focusing solely on two men. Furthermore, there is an interesting contrast between the characters in the image. The men in suits seemingly hastily trying to get to their destination, and the man getting his shoe shined, taking his time and being more leisurely.
FEAST FOR THE EYES.
The 'Feast for the Eyes' exhibition tells us the story and history of food photography, showing us the ways and the different themes food has been photographed in throught the years. Some images are purely abstract and artistic where as other shots show a deeper theme of poverty, or deprivation.
BROKEN.
For my exam unit I have chosen to photograph the title 'Broken'.
MICHEAL WOLF
Micheal Wolf was a German photographer who focused on photographing 'the big city' and daily life in these cities. He spent most of his time photographing the tall buildings of Hong Kong, portraying the city as "abstractions" and "never ending repetitions of architectural patterns". He usually cut off the sky from his photos to emphasise the immense size and quantity of the buildings.
Micheal Wolf is a photographer which in these shots tries to give an illusionary effect. As you can see, by the way that he has positioned his shot he makes his photos almost seem 'crowded' with an endless amount of 'repeated' buildings. The 'illusion' Wolf creates in his photographs plays on the audiences sense of perception, in particular the perspective of the audience in relation to the position of the buildings. I quite like his pieces and I have chosen to remake his work as I quite like the abstract and illusionary features he gives his work. I think the this makes his photos much more interesting to study and replicate. The decision to not include the skyline or the ground gives the images its unique features in my opinion this in particular that makes the buildings to appear to be much taller and immense in size, in a way fooling viewers to believe that the buildings are gigantic and 'endless'.
Response One
PEP VENTOSA
Spanish born photographer Pep Ventosa aims to photograph work which he "deconstructs" and then "reconstructs" to give his audience "new visual experiences". Currently the curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, his work along with receiving numerous awards, are also on display at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento California.
Ventosa's work consists of taking multiple frames of the same subject and overlaying all of them together to create a blurred and artistic effect. Therefore his work stands out quite a bit from the rest as his pieces appear more to be like oil paintings rather than photographs. I chose his work as I think it will be much different to any other responses I have done before.
Response One.
Out Of School:
MAUREN BRODBECK
Born in Geneva, Mauren Brodbeck is a "multisensory" artist. Her multidimensional work allows her audience to "step outside of their safe and familiar realities", introducing what is almost chaos into their environment.
Brodbeck's work is quite abstract and unique in it's own way as it features quite usually mundane and uninteresting photographs, but combines the environment with out of place and highly contrasting blocks of bright colours, colours which cover the main building in focus of the shot. I find it interesting in particular how one simple colour change can completely change the mood of the photo into one of chaos.