Annie Liebovitz Portraits

Annie Liebovitz has shot many portraits for celebrities, as stated before she is able to capture an emotion/s well. Celebritity portraits include: Michael Jackson, Lenon and Ono, John Mayer, The White Stripes, The Queen, Lady Gaga, Leonardo Dicaprio, Miley Cyrus, Angelina Jolie and Many more

 

 

Annie Liebovitz: Capturing the mood

Annie Liebovitz can successfully catpture the mood in photograhps. I like these photo's Annie Leibovitz shot for Vogue. I like the quirkiness of Alice in Wonderland and the compositions within each shot. I also like the spin on the characters and the high contrast.

In general i like photos with interesting compositions and lighting.. i like quirkiness in a photo or something that tells a story because it keeps you looking at it and wondering about it. I think a photograph is successful if it can keep you looking at it for longer than normal or if it can make you wonder about what's occuring in the photograph....

Erin Antgnoli - Holga

Artist Statement - Erin Antognoli

     I use my Holga camera as a way of digging deeper beneath the surface of my environment.  By overlapping multiple images in a single frame of film, I am able to make connections that are not otherwise apparent, and was able to uncover a spirit in a city that I initially viewed as cold, corporate, and soulless.

     Upon moving to the Washington DC metro area, I was challenged with making photos in an environment that was completely foreign to me.  Everything around me seemed so standardized and clinical, devoid of any personality or individuality.  I could not find my place, or my voice.

     After using my high tech cameras with little success, I decided to go back to basics and use a Holga camera to approach the task of making images in my city.  The camera itself is incredibly simple – plastic, very few controls, and prone to irregularity.  This method of making images placed much more of the emphasis on my own mind, for I have to decide what I want to say and how I want to make certain objects relate to each other, and then figure out how to translate that vision to film with minimal technical options.  This process inevitably forced me to become more intertwined with my own environment, for I am taking the time to look for objects and shapes and textures that strike me, and might compliment each other well when overlapped in a frame.  During all this, I found myself becoming more in tune to and comfortable with my surroundings while making my images. 

     The body of work I created depicting areas in and around Washington DC shows a city that I do not often see portrayed anywhere else.  When most people think of the District, they think of the memorials, government, or other textbook accounts of the area.  As with every place I have ever lived, the details are what make a place unique.  Therefore the details are where I choose to focus my attention when making my urban Holga photographic images.

     I have since taken my Holga camera on many trips to a wide variety of locations across the United States and beyond to make photos in this style while visiting, and have found success with incorporating my travel images into my overall portfolio.  I have also incorporated more human portraits, forms, and elements into my work style since the origination of my DC series. This manner of making images is essential to me because it has allowed me to carve out a space for myself where before there was none.  It reflects the way I see and feel in the world, as well as in the place that I call home.

Example of Hand Coloured Photographs: kate breakey

Kate Breaky is a successful and well known photographer who hand colours her pictures, they are done extremely well and look realistic.

Kate Breakey

"The natural world is chaotic and unrelenting and randomly cruel. I know this from living in the brutally harsh desert, where the little deaths are constantly tugging at my heart.  In an attempt to compensate, I have collected up the dead and given them kindness and attention. I have constructed symmetrical shrines where they can have their memories and dreams in a kind of imaginary afterlife. Here in my theatre, the quail chicks have flight and love, the Cottontail is off to find his mate- as if in a children’s storybook- rodents sing and the geckos are lovers. Greek mythology, Aboriginal Dreamtime legends, Aesop’s Fables, are all here in my studio where I can have my own memories and dreams with these animal spirits".
Kate Breakey 2006

Cyanotype Process

We tried to types of cyanotype processing. One was using bought cyanotype paper and the other was painting the emulsion on yourself, both worked, however painting on the emulsion yourself took longer, but the result was worth it.

When using the cyanotype paper you either used your transparency prepared earlier or found objects, absolutely anything could be used. I used doilies and flowers. Once you have placed your objects where you want them to be you cover it with black plastic and head outside into the sun, it's ideal if it's a sunny day with high UV, because the UV rays is what develops the cyanotype.

If you are painting on the emulsion yourself, you had to use a glass rod and carefully drag the rod down the page, after having applied the liquid cyanotype chemical infront/underneath the rod with a small dropper. After the chemical has been layered up and enough has been applied to the paper the glass rod is washed and dried thoroughly and the paper is to be dried on the back side of it, with a hairdryer. 

The process of painting on the cyanotype chemical can turn out with a few smears and drops, however this looks more authentic and is part of the process. 

Hand Colouring

Hand colouring Balck an white photographs can add an interesting dimension and feel to an image, I chose to use crayons instead of oil paints so the result was subtle. Here are some examples of hand coloured photographs which i like:

Examples of Cyanotype and Gel Medium

Examples of Gel medium

Iphoneography.

Examples of Iphoneography which i like

David maisel

'David Maisel’s large-scaled, otherworldly photographs chronicle the complex relationships between natural systems and human intervention, piecing together the fractured logic that informs them both. 

Maisel’s aerial images of environmentally impacted sites explore the aesthetics and politics of open pit mines, clear-cut forests, and zones of water reclamation, framing the issues of contemporary landscape with equal measures of documentation and metaphor. As Leah Ollman states in the Los Angeles Times, “Maisel’s work over the past two decades has argued for an expanded definition of beauty, one that bypasses glamour to encompass the damaged, the transmuted, the decomposed.”

We looked at David Maisel's photographic work 'Library Of Dust' in photography specialisation, i was already familiar with this series of work as he was mentioned in black and white photography last year. 

I think the 'Library of Dust' series is really amazing. Aswell as the story behind it. 

The canisters are from the Oregon State Asylum. This operated until the early 1970's. The patients who died in the asylum were cremated and their ashes were kept in copper canisters. The Copper canisters left behind are ashes of the patients who were unclaimed by their families. The canisters were placed in a room on shelves when they were unclaimed and there they sat for over a century.  

I find this story really sad, as the ashes were never collected by their loved ones, they were forgotten and left behind for over a century. Even though it's a sad story the canisters containing the ashes are really beautiful with vibrant colours. This occured due to the reaction of the ashes and the copper.