Urban Decay

I just love these and other images of urban decay. I know it's a big genre right now but it is so fascinating. This is a a link to a good collection of fantastic images of urban decay. I would love to shoot like this.

http://www.inspiration.scottphotographics.com/urban-decay-photography/

Gracey Heart Photography

Mark Gagne

Gracey Heart Photography

Shinichi Maruyama

http://www.shinichimaruyama.com

These are nudes. I at first thought he used a very long shutter speed but he combined up to 10,000 images of the nude and created this wonderful sense of motion.

Pedro Terrinha

This is Pedro Terrinha, a very good looking photographer from Lisbon.  His nature photography is beautiful and colorful without looking fake.

http://pedrotphotography.tumblr.com/

Flikr--MGness

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mgness909/with/15682315331/

I'm sorry that I couldn't get any of these to copy from Flikr but these are amazing images of abandoned houses and buildings. They are beautiful images with really terrible titles.  Prime example of how an overly contrived title can ruin an image.

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Again, really fantastic images, just sorry he worked so hard on the titles.

Oleg Oprisco

The amazing thing about the images of Oleg Oprisco is that they've been done with a film camera without post image editing (other than some color correction and dust spot removal.

“I’ve found it ideal to do everything myself. I come up with a concept, create the clothing, choose the location and direct the hair and makeup,” Oprisco explained in an interview with Bored Panda. “Before shooting, I plan the overall color scheme. According to the chosen palette, I select clothes, props, location, etc, making sure that all of it plays within a single color range.” He uses Kiev 6C and Kiev 88 cameras with medium-format film and a variety of lenses.

The camera he uses costs about $50.

www.oprisco.com

Babycakes Romero

This has got to be every chiropractor's worst nightmare.

Yes, his name is Babycakes Romero. He's a London based photographer who doesn't own a smartphone but walks around the city documenting people oblivious to those around them, choosing instead to interact with their phone. I do understand the statement he's making, that we spend entirely too much time consumed with our phones and other technology, often losing touch with those right by us. Conversely, remember he's only caught a moment in time. These people could have been quickly checking for the latest game score (like in the top image), looking for directions (in the middle image), but they could also be ignoring their dining companion (lower image). It's an interesting group of work that certainly says something about us as a social society. 

Really great street photography can be seen at

http://babycakesromero.com/blog/

This is a "portrait" of an eagle that I photographed for my good friend who is a taxidermist.  Since I can't use it for the portrait project, I thought I'd at least put him up on the blog.

Apparently when an eagle is found dead, there is a long list of Native Americans waiting to be able to own that bird. (As you know, even having an eagle feather in your possession is a jail-waiting offense). This particular eagle landed on an electrical line and you could even see that the bottom of his feet were black.

My friend is a huge bird lover and getting the chance to mount this eagle was a highlight for him. He asked me to take it's picture before the owner comes to pick him up.

I set up this shot in a corner of his basement taxidermy studio.  The set consists of a black backdrop, and one Canon Speedlight that was bounced into a reflecting umbrella. In need of a fill card to bounce some light into the left side of the bird, I grabbed the lid of a styrofoam cooler that he had lying around and used that. He got a huge kick out of my "ingenuity". I took about 50 shots and the whole thing took 75 minutes.

cpleblow photography

http://cpleblow.tumblr.com/

This is a photographer I stumbled across. I have such respect for people who can make fantastic landscape images. It looks easy but I've yet to make a good one that did not have a central focal point.

Lighting Demo

Stesha

This is our lovely Stesha, who posed for our portrait lighting demo. 

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark
New York Street Photography


http://www.maryellenmark.com/gallery/portfolios/new_york_street/index001_new_york_street.html

I researched this group of work in preparation for our portrait assignment. These images are what I'd aspire to in doing the portraits of strangers. They are casual, and unstaged.



 

Herb Ritts

Herb Ritts

Herb Ritts

Michael Jackson by Herb Ritts

Herb Ritts, drawn to "clean lines and strong forms". Known for portraits and editorial fashion, Ritts died in 2002.  I appreciate the graphic quality of his photographs.



http://www.herbritts.com/images/

Andre Kertesz and shadows

Andre Kertesz

In thinking about our next assignment on Light and Form my mind went back to this image from our class lecture. Andre Kertesz has a whole body of work dedicated to shadows.  So many of these are brilliant and wonderful. In looking at his images you can tell that he not only placed himself in locations that would create interesting shadows, but that he was patient and willing to wait for the right light. I think shadows are most interesting when the sun is lower in the sky, creating shadows that define the subject.  We become defined by our shadows and I find that very interesting.

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This work shows us that images can be made anywhere as long as we're willing to be patient and wait for the right light.
A short biography can be found at
http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/andre-kertesz

Mark Appling Fisher
Garage Window - Leslie, Missouri
Photo from his book, Turn Left at the Blinking Light
www.markapplingfisher.com/#/turnleft/

This week's photographer is Mark Appling Fisher, who came to speak to SCC's Digital II class about his adventures in self publishing a book of photographs. He spent many hours on the road in Missouri and Illinois photographing small towns. Because his photos rarely have people in them, some may think his work is lonely or melancholy. His photography shows what happens in small towns. No one is there and business is dying. This particular photograph really spoke to me since it feels like the type of photo I try to take while I'm out. It tells a decades long story through the paint peeling, various colored boards in the windows and the weeds growing into the window frame.

A tag line on his website says it all "Common Subjects Uncommonly Photographed".  That tells me there is a world of images out there to be made and to never feel like every image has already been made. There's always another viewpoint, and another way of seeing things.

Julieanne Kost

It is interesting how you can feel a connection to, or understanding of, an artist the moment you see their work. Julieanne Kost is one such artist for me.

The class was given this link to her work on Aug. 25th: 

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-julieanne-kost/passing-time-moments-alone

and I felt a real connection to her work. Interestingly enough, before this assignment I saw her composited (a photo combined from several sources) landscape image on page 101 in our book "A Short Course in Digital Photography". 



This is such a totally different type of photography than the collection of images that Kate shared with us that I didn't even realize, until days later, that it was the same photographer. 

Not only do I love both types of her work, I appreciate that she is doing such totally different types of work. I think it's too easy to feel like as a photographer you are supposed to be concentrating on one type of photography. "I take portraits" or "I'm a landscape photographer" or "I use photo shop a lot" or "My work uses no computer image manipulation". She has given herself the freedom to do it all. 

My favorite collection is on her website http://www.jkost.net/  under the heading of "moments taken I". 

Henry Cartier-Bresson

Copyright Henry Cartier-Bresson
SPAIN. Andalucia. Seville. 1933http://www.magnumphotos.com

Henry Cartier-Bresson was born in 1908 in France.  He is known for "The Decisive Moment", a book published in 1952 which became synonymous with his style of photography. This picture was taken the same year as his first exhibition, which was in New York.

He states, "...the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity...it is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression." (partial quotation)

What I appreciate about this particular photograph is that even though these children are growing up in a war-torn environment, they still find joy in their surroundings and with each other.

Blue Door

8.21.14  © JNowakowski 

A Different New Orleans

I was recently in the great city of New Orleans after a decades long absence.  During my undergrad photo days (way too long ago), we visited NOLA a few times for Mardi Gras, Spring Break, and a photo conference.  A small group of us would descend on the city with cameras in hand, rolls and rolls of film (!) and just only enough sense to stay out of jail but not enough sense to stay out of a little bit of trouble.

We were PHOTOGRAPHY students and we were there to record the fabulousness of New Orleans. It's a great place to be as a college student. Wild, different, crazy, and freedom are words I'd use to describe it then.

Fast forward to this summer when I went there for a church mission trip. Totally different trip! This time my words would be dirty, dusty, sweaty, and tired because of the demolition work we did. It was frustrating to be in such a fun place, not able to have the kind of fun I associated with the city. I wanted nothing more out of this trip than to see my favorite place, the French Quarter. We spent an afternoon there and it was then that I realized how different the concept of photography is now.

When we visited as photo majors we were carrying 35 mm or medium format cameras--big hulking things that most people hadn't really seen before. When you stopped in front of a street artist or painter or produce seller to take their picture, it was a little bit special. Even those that didn't really want their picture taken tolerated it since there weren't very many of us "photographers" to bother them.

On this 2014 summer afternoon, I experienced something entirely different.  Most people in the general public now have a camera. These masses of people didn't necessarily come to New Orleans for the purpose of taking pictures. However, you see something interesting? Just take out your phone and take a picture. Everyone now has a camera that they carry with them ALL THE TIME.

Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. Does it change our roll as photographers? Absolutely it does. Almost anyone now can be a "photographer".  SLRs are very affordable, many people can use alter and edit their pictures, often in their phones, and cameras on phones can be of really high quality. All of this is great. What does this mean for the photographer? Why even bother taking a picture of something that has probably already been taken a million times? How can I be different from all the other photographers out there? I can be different by seeing something differently, by noticing something that other people pass over, by injecting my own thoughts and personality into every image I make.

Camera phones are great, but are the users making photographs or are those users simply recording something to post online?  We as photographers own it to ourselves to strive to make images that make someone feel what we felt and to get them to see and experience their world a little differently.