Modern and Postmodern Photography

Modern photography suggest different view and perspective, it is pushing boundaries, delivering different messages within images. There's a lot of room to discuss modern photography with great works throughout the years.
In this post I would like to mention works of modern photographer Diane Arbus. She's most noted for series of black and white square images picturing seemingly surreal or ugly people. Arbus' works are shocking, provoking and most of the time uncomfortable. It's not the rule that modern photography is obliged to trigger unpleasant feelings, although it draws a different perspective and different view to a photography as an art form.

Diane Arbus, Mexican dwarf in his hotel room in N.Y.C., 1970

Postmodern photography differs from modern photography with more conceptualism in it, also it aims to reject concept of modern photography. Postmodernism is breaking all the rules created by modern photography, it can't be described as warm and close or sometimes even as beautiful. It might seem careless, created with no passion. To be honest it's was always quite difficult for me to "read" postmodern photographs or find story, signs, meanings of it. Trying to find answers and trying to understand meanings of it I found myself realising that postmodern photography is deeply personal in many cases.
As an example of postmodern photography I chose Stephen Shore who is known for is images of banal scenes and also he's the pioneer of coloured photography.

Stephen Shore, Proton Ave., Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, 1974

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography
http://www.moma.org/
http://diane-arbus-photography.com/
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/arbus/
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/arts/art-review-when-photography-became-postmodern.html

Biography: Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss (born 1970) is an American photographer working mainly in the streets of Philadelphia. She is a photo-based installation artist. She started taking pictures when she got camera as a present for her 30th birthday.
Strauss is still very deeply connected to her roots and her neighbourhood where she shoots most often. Her images reflects everyday life in South Philadelphia with all its shuttered buildings, sad beauty of everyday life.
Zoe's work is quite voyeuristic and might put the viewer into uncomfortable position. It is very intimate, sometimes shocking. As Zoe said "I approach someone with the intent of making a photograph and what attracts me to the person is intangible, although later on in the edits it seems as if the portraits that have the greatest importance to me, and have the greatest satisfaction, are the ones where I have had some sort of connection with the person, and that almost always involves a connection that can not be articulated — a sense of pride and joy of being in the world.".
One can find difficult to connect to those images, especially if never been to such surroundings and atmosphere, even though, it's difficult to stay indifferent to Zoe's work, which proves it to be very strong.


http://www.zoestrauss.com/zoe.html
http://blog.metrogallery.com.au/?p=282449055

Paparazzi

Recently I spoke to quite few people who are very interested in work as paparazzi and find it very entertaining (well paid as well). As a person who never liked fashion photography, I do not hesitate to go through yellow pages checking pictures of drunk, humiliated celebrities, exposed in all true colours for us to judge. I guess it's just human nature to dance a happy dance when someone (most of the time - more succesful) is in trouble or having a rough day.

So, trying to understand our curiosity and habit to care more about lives of celebrities instead of lives of our close ones, I did some research about paparazzi.

There are many scandals involving paparazzi, many unsolved cases and blames, like death of Princess Diana. The job is also very difficult - sometimes one paparazzi has to be at more than one place at the same time. But it really brings good money. For example best paid paparazzi photograph is worth 10 - 14 000 000$, and of course it's image of Angelina's Jolie twins. So why somebody is willing to pay such an enormous amount of money for the picture of somebody's kids? Why are we so interested in gossip, in people caught in unfortunate situation? Why do we talk and talk for hours about Britney shaving her head or Michael Jackson almost dropping his kids off the balcony? Is it just a natural curiosity or we are so bored with ourselves that we'd rather read all gossip magazines instead of having a pint with a friend?

Britney Spears attacks paparazzi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paparazzi
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4697388

Photo sharing on Facebook

These days we're all trapped (mostly on our own will) in a social networks. I guess the biggest consumer of our time and real social life is Facebook. Not only we can check what our friends are up to, we can read most intimate things, share romantic moments, sometimes become a witness of tragic events - all is there. Poking, liking, commenting and it seems that our social life is just one click away.
Debates about advantages and disadvantages will never stop, as there will always be people, who can't live without social networking, and people who will hate it forever.
I must admit I am mildly addicted to Facebook myself. I check it almost every day and can't really remember when was a last time a wrote big, warm e-mail to my friends or family back home.
Well lets return to the main subject - photo sharing on Facebook. I do it myself gladly whenever I have something nice or worth wasting time. Although I'm still quite shy and with a low self esteem as a photographer, so I rather share exceptionally with my friends. One can find most intimate family, party, daily life pictures, snapshots, self portraits made with computer cameras. Sometimes I just ask myself - is it photography? Or photography lost its value? And is it still considered as art, work of talented people?
I have no illustrating examples for this post as I don't really want to steal those snap shots from other users. Though I have no doubt we all know what I'm talking about..

Fighting for equal rights through photography

Notice to the Midland School Board Directors, Arkansas

Recently I was invited to participate in future exhibition in Lithuania which aims to fight for equal human rights. The main idea for the exhibition is to deliver the message about strongly existing discrimination of race, ethnic origins, sexual orientation, etc. Unfortunately it is extremely intolerant situation in my country. People are fighting and fighting for years now but the progress is quite invisible.
I chose to make series of photographs against homophobia, which is quite risky..
Unfortunately my research about photography against homophobia was fruitless. I found one young photographer Charles Meacham and his work called "Different Cultures, One View". Charles Meacham is an American travel photographer, who considers himself more as a photojournalist. Recently he participated in a project against homophobia along with blogger Sarah Baxter. They travelled through 15 countries documenting 15 different Prides and published a book "Images against homophobia. Walk with pride".
Sadly enough I couldn't find more works regarding this issue. Maybe in modern world it's not so sensitive and people are much more tolerant, maybe in homophobic countries photographers are not willing to take a risk. My faith in delivering message through photographic images is very strong and I do believe that this type of work might make a change.


http://www.culturazzi.org/photography/different-cultures-one-view-charles-meacham-photography
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2010/10/notice-to-midland-school-board.html

Feminism in Photography

The pioneer of modern feminism photography is considered to be Cindy Sherman, an American photographer and film director. Mainly her works contains contemporary portraits (self portraits) of women and their role in modern society.

Cindy Sherman does not consider her work as feminist but her images state different. Arguing stereotypes and representing women within those frames she's clearly pushing boundaries and expanding the view.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still 1978

A lot of her work is her biography. She's an amazing photographer and her being a woman those days made it even bigger achievement, especially as photography at first used to be considered as lower form of art. Like of earlier days British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron was just capturing beauty and very quickly became a member of the Photographic Societies of London and Scotland.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Sadness, 1864

The impact of those women (also many more are worth mentioning) in world of photography is priceless. The world being male dominated was blind to see or value anything created or achieved by women. The strength and courage of women is making this world and everyday life easier also more competitive in a good way. It covers every single step - arts, politics, science, where bright mind, imagination and creativity of women inspire every single one of us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sherman
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/photography/Cindy-Sherman.html
http://www.sickmansick.co.uk/feminism-in-photography/
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/C/cameron/cameron.html
http://www.shutterstock.com/s/feminism/search.html

Semiotics in Photography

Every type of art has its own purpose and message to deliver. Photography is not an exception. My biggest interest is in street photography and documentary. It might seem to straight forward with nothing hidden. Viewer is absorbing information which is presented there and then. One might think that it's too flat, leaves no space for interpretation, etc. I do think that photos of everyday life, life happening next door, on your street or somewhere very very far away, can deliver message in simple manner or in such, that would leave one absorbing and digesting it for days.
The symbols, hidden messages can be found in all type of photography. One might see message hidden behind the scene, face, expression in the photograph, others might take the photograph itself as a whole message and a sign.
Most commonly semiotics is noticed within advertising. Unfortunately usually what we see is never what we get. Advertising is attempt to sell, therefore it's made to be pleasant to view, able to attract, being persuasive in a hidden manner. In my opinion, semiotics within advertising is real art of sales and manipulation. Fashion photography, photography for advertising, sales, and us not getting what we were expecting, shut the door in our minds which helps to see signs and messages hidden in the work which reflects us and the real world we're living in.
As an example I chose photograph of Villagers collecting scrap from a crashed spacecraft by Jonas Bendiksen. Behind this beautiful and romantic image is hidden history, which is neither so beautiful nor romantic. This image delivers us signs of carelessness and indifference towards planet Earth and our own home.

Jonas Bendiksen, Villagers collecting scrap from a crashed spacecraft, surrounded by thousands of white butterflies, Altai Territory, Russia, 2000.

http://www.gunnarswanson.com/writing/TruthInPhotography.pdf

wikipedia.org

http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/rhethtml/signifiers/sigsave.html

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/2009/08/photography-sem.html

Lady Gaga and Polaroid

Recently one of the biggest Pop Stars in the world Lady Gaga introduced a brand new product from Polaroid - sun glasses enabled to take pictures and store them in installed memory drive, portable printer (you can carry it in your purse according to Lady Gaga) and new Polaroid camera.
Being as an icon and a role model for millions of people all over the world she is able to give a new boost for Polaroid products. Also she became the Polaroid Creative Director. Being glamorous and a fashion icon she's expected to deliver outstanding performance creating new Polaroid products. This just leads me to a question whether glamour and not always acceptable sense of style (can't doubt the originality) will benefit this product? Or photography is becoming just a stylish hobby, or having lets say this Lady Gagas Camera will make one feel closer to "real" fashionista? Baring in mind that with digital technologies overtaking media world, there are more and more people who can afford and have some spare time for photography. It's becoming more difficult to compete or come up with new great ideas. Competition most of the time is very good for creativity, but isn't it becoming a "rat race"?
Being very talented no doubt, Lady Gaga is also known as a philanthropist responsible for numerous charities and humanitarian works. Her contribution in many fields is noticeable and lets just hope that her involvement with Polaroid will restore this brand along with the quality known for years.

The Ninth Floor by Jessica Dimmock

I came across to Jessica Dimmocks work the Ninth Floor while searching for Visual Analysis of an Image essay for the first semester. I found this work very strong, shocking, it made me stop and think about many issues of life we live nowadays, that’s why I decided to share it in my blog.

Jessica Dimmock (born 1978) is an American documentary photojournalist. Her main work The Ninth Floor is series of images taken in a drug addicts shared flat in Manhattan, New York.

Jessica Dimmock, The Ninth Floor, 2006, New York

It took three years of intense documentation of around 20 to 30 heroin addicts. The series includes images of everyday life in the apartment, also a video where subjects are talking about themselves and the lifestyle they were drawn into. The age of subjects in whole series is frightening, most of them are young people and not necessary with a bad background or difficult childhood. The images are full of social and emotional perspective. To my opinion these type of projects has a very important meaning and message to a viewer, it makes people think twice what is going on, what impact it has and how serious the damage might be.

Jessica Dimmock, The Ninth Floor, 2006, New York

http://www.mediastorm.com/publication/the-ninth-floor

http://www.jessicadimmockphotography.com/projects/the-ninth-floor/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2008/04/jessica-dimmock-and-the-ninth-floor.html

Biography: Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin (born 1953) is an American photographer. She was drawn into gay, transsexual, hard-drug addicts communities and started documenting the scene. Her famous work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency includes photographs taken between 1979 - 1986, which shows violent, drug abusing couples also her autobiographical moments. Most of the people in Ballads were close friends of an artist and were dead by 1990s of drug overdose or AIDS.



Work of Nan Goldin is very personal and based on her experience and observations. Suicidal of her sister at the age of eighteen has a huge impact in Goldins work. Exhibition Chasing a Ghost opened in 2006 was her first installation which includes moving picture, narrative score and voiceover, and has a three screen slide and video presentation Sisters, Saints & Sybils which includes her sisters' suicide (at the age of eighteen) and how artist coped with it.

Nan Goldin, Sisters, Saints & Sybils, 2004, installation view at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

It's very contraversial and shocking in some ways. To my opinion it shows a different side of life, which most of us might find unconfortable to face, but it's still the part of our lives and can not be ignored.

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/13609/nan-goldin/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Goldin
http://www.matthewmarks.com/artists/nan-goldin/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E1DD1130F934A35757C0A9609C8B63
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/stender/stender3-31-06_detail.asp?picnum=6

Exhibitions: John Stezaker @ Whitechapel Gallery

By making collages from classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustations British artist John Stezaker (born 1949) gives old imanges a new meaning.

His famous "Mask" series gave me the impression of glamourous life of celebrities still connecting with nature and everyday life. It gave me impression that despite fame, wealth, fashion and exceptional life style, people pictured in the images are still down to earth and not that far from nature. We do not connect with nature that much these days, nor really think of it while trying to manage everyday life, although work of John Stezaker made me stop and think, rather than run again.

John Stezaker Mask XXXV, 2007, collage

Although, despite really original idea and quite impressive finals, I wouldn't say that this is the work I admire or it wakes some new ideas up in my head. The originality and aproach is very impressive, leaves one to think of so many different things, unfortunatelly it faded as soon as I left the gallery.. We all do have our priorities, likes and dislikes, and I might be very wrong or silly to critisize. And to put my very own opinion aside - at the end of the day this work is worth seeing.

Biography: Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Philip-Lorca diCorcia for PDN magazine, Chris Buck

Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American Photographer, who studied at The School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. His work has been exhibited in group shows in United States and Europe since 1977 and his first solo show was held in 1985 and from that time he has been featured in one-person exhibitions worldwide.

His work can be described as documentary but it’s mixed with fictional world. Though his photographs might seem like snapshots of everyday life, they are carefully staged and planned. To bring more drama in his work diCorcia chooses to photograph persons with different choices of life style.

The Hollywood series (The Hustlers)

Eddie Anderson, 21 Years Old, From Houston, TX, $20, Philip diCorcia, 1990-92

The Hollywood series were made in Santa Monica boulevard area which is frequented by drug addicts, drifters and male prostitutes. Artist carefully staged every picture, picking up the man and offering him to pay for posing. Each photograph includes name, place of birth and amount paid for a sitter. Despite the fact that every man accepted money for posing, diCorcia was not certain if every male was a prostitute. The twilight effect created in a photographs brings aesthetic and exotic impression. As Philip-Lorca diCorcia says “ ‘Twilight’ provides the rose-coloured glasses that make it possible to see out but not see in”.

Mike Miller, 24 years, Allentown, PA, $25, Philip diCorcia, 1990-92

http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hsct101/pages/dicorcia02.html

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/photography/past_exhns/twilight/diCorcia/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip-Lorca_diCorcia