"New Town" volume 1 by Andrew Hammerand

The photo book "New Town" volume 1 features a series of photographs taken in a mid western town. It was photographed by Andrew Hammerand. He was a student at Mass Art and was an unknown photographer when he decided to make this photo book. It was independently published in an edition of twenty five in Boston. I like the design of the book  because of the spiral binding that he used. I also like the fact that he used digital pictures and managed to get access to them by using his own camera which was in the public space and that could also move. The pictures that he got were very real I thought

He took them from a very high angle and from the same vantage point moving the camera around observing the various goings on with various people which I found interesting. The book ties in with the kind of work done by surveillance or the kind of the pictures you get on the internet. I feel that the book is important because it implies that photography plays a big part in they way we look at the world around us. It also implies how we go about looking for information about people in the United States. This has been important for the N.S.A. I think it is fascinating and this topic is getting much more prevalent by the day.

The Genius of Photography, Part 5: We are Family

1. Who said: "The camera gave me license to strip away what you want people to know about you, to reveal what you can't help people knowing you"?

Ans: Diane Arbus

2. Do you think that photographers tend to pray on vulnerable people?

Ans: Yes they tend to because they photograph people who are homeless or on the streets
and these people are easy access.

3. What is Larry Clark's Tulsa project about?

Ans: It was about is own life in Tulsa Oklahoma hanging around with friends, taking drugs.

4. What is the title of Nan Goldin's most renowned work?

Ans: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

5. What Araki's photographs now? What is his philosophy?

Ans: He only photographs what he wants to remember. His philosophy is that if you don't shoot photography you wont remember much so having photographs does help him remember

6. What was Richard Billingham's work about?

Ans: It was about is own dysfunctional family at home, his alcoholic father and also his obese, tattooed mother.

I chose to display the photography of Larry Clark on my blog because I find his work fascinating. I think the photographs that he takes are astonishingly real and provocative.

Below are 5 photographs taken by Larry Clark that I selected for that reason

Light

1. Midday

2. Golden Hour

3. Dusk

4. Tungsten Light

5.  Fluorescent  Light

Composition

Depth of Field

Perspective

  Texture

Space

Balance

Airbrushing and Slimming

photomontage 1

The Americans By Robert Frank

Quote

“It produced a book of photographs that laid bare the soul of 1950s America”

Synopsis

Fascinating look at the making, publication and reception of Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s book The Americans which was a view of America and American people after World War 2. His photographs were unique in that they seemed to suggest tension in American culture and wealth over race and class differences. His photographs were also unique because he used  techniques that other photographers didn't use like low lighting and unusual focus. After securing a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim foundation in 1955, Frank embarked on a ninth month odyssey with is family travelling all around the Unites States during post World War 2 documenting that American culture which he believed was spreading all over the continent. Looking on as an outsider he went to New York, South Carolina, Texas, California, Chicago and eventually ended up back in New York. He started in 1956 and the book took over two years to complete finishing in 1958. He had taken over 28,000 shots. When he was finished he met up with French publisher Robert Delpiere and he showed him his selection and they started laying out the book which miraculously took them one day to complete. Frank selected 83 photographs from the amount he took to be published. It was finally published in France the same year he had finished taking photos and it came out in the United States the following year. The reception was very bad and it also had lost money. The critics hated it because they felt it was an unfair portrayal of Americans. But over the years the Americans has become inspirational for later photographers and has become seminal in the work photography and is clearly Frank’s best known work.

Photos