Artist Research

Alec Soth
Soth is an American photographer and his photography has a cinematic feel to it with element of folklore showing there's a story behind each of his images. He has been said to be able to find a photographic career out of finding chemistry with a stranger. He thought that his awkwardness helped and comforted the people he was photographing, he uses a camera with the cloth over his head so that the models don't know he's looking at the but in reality he is looking at them in the eyes. He also had a list of people he would look for with certain looks for what he wanted to photograph. He has a book called 'Sleeping by the Mississippi' which contained landscapes and portraits. A lot of his images are muted colors and softly lit creating no shadows.

This is one of his more well known images because he was always looking for bearded men that he could take pictures of in nature.

I really like this photograph of the women with the baby because the way she looks is also portrayed in the location as he just asked her to stop and stand there holding the baby I find the way he just asked people really inspiring. She is also a white women wearing a Jamaican shirt which is really controversial and you want to know her story and why she's there alone with her baby.

Trish Morrissey

Morrissey's style could be described as narrative documentary as it uses the conventions of portraiture and snap-shot photography. She always appears in her work, although at times she is hard to recognize as Morrissey changes her persona is each shot, in one work being a teenage girl in another a young man. However despite having a connection to moving image work, her practice is very rooted in the tradition and language of photography her final work seems to have fallen out of a family photograph album.
I really like this image because she took the women out of the actual scene, she also wore the women's ring and took her place in the scene. I also like this because it's quite controversial as well with the different races, she had the original women take the picture so it looked like a normal family picture on the beach.

This is one of my favorite pictures Morrisey took because she had a random women on the beach take the photograph which is why there are fingers in shot because it was taken by an amateur. I really like how she's done this because it's really original and different, although she does it a lot I really like this one because all photographs are supposed to be perfect so she kind of breaks the rules.

Nan Goldin

Goldin is an American photographer who started photographing as a teenager and her earliest works were black and white images of drag queens celebrating the community she lived within. She then carried on taking these great photographs of drag queens but also took images of her friends who were suffering from AIDS while recording her experiences in Asia. Most of her work was shown in slideshows with a soundtrack her longest one being 45 minutes with 800 pictures with her main themes being love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality. All her photographs show a story of what people are going through, sex, drugs, traveling and sex.

This is a photograph of Nan Goldin a month after beaten, I like this image because it shows a massive story of her life and the ending of a long-term relationship. Although she has been beaten she seems well groomed with jewelry and makeup on with her hair done, this portrait has dark shadows behind her head an indication of using the flash bulb on her camera.

This colour photograph shows two drag queens one fully looking at the camera (Jimmy Paulette) and the other in profile in the reflection of the mirror (Tabboo!). I like this because it looks like the drag queens have just been going through there usual routine and has taken her camera out to get a good shot just after getting the attention of Jimmy. This almost shows them getting out of character and dress as he is getting redressed and taking off his dramatic makeup. Because as seen in another photograph earlier that day Jimmy is seen fully in drag along with a drag queen called Misty.

Irving Penn

Penn originally set out to become a painter, but at a young age took a job at Vogue designing some of the covers. His fashion images showed elegance and luxury through composition and clarity rather than using  elaborate props and backdrops, this I appreciate because he was able to do it really well. He photographed a large number of celebrities and would spend hours with the model he was working with to get them to let out their true personalities, they were also taken in front of plain backdrops with natural lighting, which made them really direct and to the point while being sophisticated.

I like this photograph it's really clean and doesn't have any distractions, also the lighting is really soft and she has a lot of looking space.

I'm not the biggest fan of Penn's photographs because although there are clean cut and sophisticated I find them rather boring and don't have much to them.

Rineke Dijkstra

Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer who's style was formal portraits until she formed her own style of portraits. She started taking pictures of adolescents at the beach in their bathing suits, this got her recognized in many countries like the USA making her internationally successful. She did a lot of short videos of her portraits from adolescents, clubbers and soldiers, her models are mainly shown looking directly at the camera standing against a minimal background.
This is one of her adolescent beach photographs, the girl is stood very awkwardly as if she is very self conscious with her hands pressed tightly to her thighs. With the light from the sun casting a shadow directly behind her, Dijkstra also uses the bulb flash to narrow the depth of field having only the foreground and the girl in focus.

This women was photographed at her home almost straight after giving birth to the child she is holding, with the medical pants to stop bleeding. She appears happy and content holding her baby close to her in her arms. I like this because it shows a lot of emotions and that she has just been through a lot but is happy enough to have her photograph taken.