Stuart Franklin:  This photo appears less photojournalistic than his others which is why I picked it and why I liked it the most out of all the other.  However it is subtle because it is from the aftermath of a hurricane.  Every color in this photo is dull, possibly because the objects on the sore have been bleached by the sun.  Regardless of whether it was purposefull or not i believe that it improves the effect of the photo.

Stuart Franklin:  In this photo the destaurated colors put emphasis on the gloominess of the situation.  There are bright colors in the background that have been desaturated so it isn't just the lack of sun or grey sky.  The subject in the middle seems to have a very desaturated and cool tone to his skin which kind of relates to his pose.

Dominic Nahr:  I think the desaturation in this photograph intensifies the feeling of loneliness.  As well as the shadows and composition but especially the fact that no colors pop.  It clearly is not an area where there are saturated colors however the earth tones and other colors have been muted and desaturated.  

Dean Rogers- Still from Valhalla Rising:  This movie inspired the me to do my blog on a commercial photographer that works on movie sets named Dean Rogers.  Rogers is creating interesting relationships in this image, such as the way Mikkelson's posture echoes the shape of the mountains in the background.  The first relationship I realize in this photo is the position of the axe in relation to the cross- it is as if the axe is directed or going to come down on the cross, which definitely relates to a theme in the movie.  Another interaction in this photo involves the axe as well but in relation to Mikkelson's face.  Besides the similar shape, they also both appear stoic and stable. This relates to my photography because I am interested in animating inanimate objects, working with still life objects and giving them personalities.  However this is more interesting here because Rogers gives the axe a personality and then relates it to a similar human personality.

Dean Rogers- Still from Bronson:  It was hard to find a still from this movie but I finally did even though it is low quality.  However I think it bests captures Bronson's insanity and wild personality.  Clearly he is detained or locked somewhere- but he is grinning devilishly.  The light is shining of his bald head and illuminating parts of his face in a way that puts emphasis on the framing of his head.  I believe the frame within a frame helps the picture, not only to give us a hint that he is jail, but also to create a distance from Bronson.  The negative spaces that Rogers created could be stronger more activated but they are still mildly interesting.

Dean Rogers- Still Photo from This Is England:  This shot puts emphasis on a very strange aspect of this boys life in the movie.  He spends time alone in this field close to a river and it seems to be where he has most of his fun.  He suffers from the pain of his father's death in battle, and this is where he reflects on memories of his father.  Compositionally I am responding to the relationship between the shape of the slingshot and the shape of the boat.  Also the concrete structure fits very nicely into that corner and adds space where there is bland grey sky.  The shallow dpeth of field also compliments and works with this photograph because it keeps the focus on the kid and the time he spends here.

Brainstorm Images: Life-Death, Heaven-Hell

Ron- here are my images for the Brainstorm project.  I have done further research and thinking and I plan to narrow it down to Life- Death. Focusing on imagery associated with the two words and contradictions and ambigiuosity that goes along with the words.  Below is my original idea and even though I have narrowed down and reshaped this idea I think it is still relavent.

We live and we die, maybe we go to heaven or maybe we go to hell.  For the fortunates life is heaven- and death is usually a hellish experience for them because they love their life so much.  For the unfortunates life is hell- and death is heaven, or a liberating experience.  In my last project I touched metaphorically on how humans can make heaven out of hell or hell out of heaven, this is another relation of these words that is intriguing to me.  I think stuff like this is amazing and very relative to life throughout history and myth.  I also am fascinated with exploring the the complex emotions that go along with these words.  All together I would like to work with imagery, emotions, metaphors, and relationships of form to convey life-death heaven- hell and how all the words intertwine.  

Jayne Hinds Bidaut:  Turtle skeleton

I was originally drawn to this image because I saw the description first and it said Bidaut used photogram tintypes and I thought that was awesome.  The form is very recognizable and the claws are a visual confirmation that it is dead.  But the context which it is displayed in is interesting because it looks very organic like water.  And the gesture of the turtle mimics swimming.  This photogram conveys the line between life and death and how it can be fooled with in photography,

Mark Osterman: Lathe

I think this image is the strongest metaphor for time I have ever seen.  And time goes hand in hand with life and death.

Duane Michals: The dream of Flowers

Without the title I would have associated this image with death- and I still kind of do because of the surface the figure is resting on.  Who sleeps on a hard surface like that?  Either way the flowers that are fully bloomed definitely convey life and beauty .

Joel Peter Witkin: Corpus Medius

In this image Witkin objectifies death.  Direclty out on a table for us to see and relate to- the lower half of an average adult male.  Clearly about death and the brutality and gore associated with it.  However something about the lighting, the cloth and composition seems classical or related to the renaissance.  This to me makes me reflect on past life and how artists devoted their lives to studying the not always complete figure in the renaissance and other movements proir to and after.

Francesca Woodman: Untitled

Francesca Woodman’s work is dark, surreal, and sexual.  This image is dark and surreal, but not sexual.  It screams hell and feelings of being trapped through motion and the chaos of the composition.  But not hell in the sense of Dante’s Inferno- more like Hell on earth.  The setting is clearly a room, the glass enclosing is recognizable, and the form is clearly human.  This figures life has become hell.

Michael Flomen: Photogram 

Regardless of how dark and mysterious Flomen’s images are, he is an artist purely concerned with the life of nature.  He lets elements of nature take control of his composition to a certain point, like in this image.  A lightning bug is the light source walking over dirt- and although it is not recognizably a lightning bug it’s energy is clearly conveyed.  I admire Flomen for his ability to abstract something completely but still keep it’s essence and life in the image.  This image and all of Flomen’s images touch on life- but in a much different way than average nature photography.

Kunie Sugiera: Photogram

Sugiera deals with a concept referred to as here- not here, which is key to certain aspects of this project.  It defines a huge difference between photograph and photogram because a photograph of these flowers makes the flower seem tangeable to the viewer- on the contrary with a photogram it is less tangeable.  The flowers in Sugiera’s photograms are there but not there in their true form.  This relates to both heaven-hell and life-death.  Heaven and hell are either real or not, and we can find aspects of heaven and hell on earth whether they exist or not.   

L. Moholy Nagy: Dessau Photogram

Besides form, composition, and tone there is not too much to read into this photogram.  However these three aspects of the image depict a relationship between life and death, lightness and darkness, and beauty and the absence of beauty.  The wilting form of the flower cutting through the dark conveys a feeling of life or survival to me.  The form of the flower reminds me of a man or woman arching their back, but the form is so objectified it seems destroyed almost.  The tone not only makes the image better than just stark white and black but it also brings out a relationship between the flower’s beauty and the fact that the flower is not represented in it’s true beautiful form (here- not here).

Adam Fuss: From the series In Between

This represents the aspect of life that is inexplicable and unidentifiable.  Impossible to put a finger on- yet Fuss did a whole series on this topic of not birth or death but the In Between.  To him birth and death are clear- but life is just an period of time in between the birth and death.  This is an abstract view on life that is clearly portrayed in this cibachrome print.  The bird seems to standing and alive- but the vegetation seems to wilting and unhealthy, maybe dead.  Though there is a dark element to this print It conveys an aspect of life to me more so that death.  And that aspect is the ambiguity of life.

Hisae Imai: Open Air Creatures

A very erie, touchy, and emotion-provoking photograph.  From this image I get a strong sense of death- but in relation to life.  It seems as though her body is sinking into the ground becoming part of the soil under the leaves.  The image has a dreamy quality like Arthur Tress’s work, however there is more of a nightmare being portrayed here.  A child’s death gives nature life- disturbing but truthful and photographed very well.

Warren M. Hill: Compartmental Series

This image speaks to me in a way that relates to accepting death.  The two ghostly bodies on the side convey some kind of drowning or suicide, and the woman in the middle seems pretty calm and passive.  She seems at peace with what could possibly be her death.  I also think this photograph is a tribute or reference to another painting that deals with sacrifice to Gods.  Either way this image seems to be conveying a way out or a liberating experience through death.  

Kunie Sugiura-  All three of these photograms were made by the same artist however they touch on very different themes.  The all have similar compositional elements, but very different  whole compositions.  The flowers touch on a beauty theme becuase of the arrangement and choice of flowers.  The squids touch on a very different more organic sponaneous theme and they are beautiful in a different way than the flowers.  And the boxer is an action packed documentational image with a slightly humorous side.  I chose these three images becuase I wanted to convey the versatility of this artist.  Suguira uses the photogram technique but not always in a straight forward traditional way.  What I admire most is that she never stops exploring her medium or her subject matter- constant experimentation that brings positive and beautiful results. 

In comparison this is more of what I like from Flomen.  It is what drew me to research him in the first place and it is what is inspiring me to do more with my photograms.  This image was made with lightning bugs water some weeds or long grass and moonlight.  Very natural elements that I can imagine are very complex to work with.  It seems that Flomen has embraced his subject matter to the fullest letting nature have some control in the outcome of his photograph.

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I chose this image by Michael Flomen because it is different from the ones that I am drawn to.  It has much more of a lunar landscape quality than a abstract quality and I don't like it as much but it still reels me in.  It is possible that this is too minimal for me but it is also possible that I just don't like the lunar aspect of it.  For whatever reason that the image rubs me wrongly I also like it simaltaneously.  

Under the Cover of Darkness, The work of Michael Flomen - La nuit est ma...

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Micheal Flomen: Being-  All these photos are large gelatin prints from an artist who I found when looking through a gallery website.  I found a lot of the work interesting but these 3 photographs were especially striking.  What grabs my attention immediately is the chiarrascurro effect- the lights emerging from the dark.  Then abstract qualities definitely keep my maintain my attention becuase that is the type of art I am most interested in.  What is being depicted here is of no importance to me becuase of the quality and the beautiful shapes of light vs. the dark background.  Clearly Flomen doesn't settle with average print quality and I admire that a lot as well as his eye for abstraction.

Eclipse: Another Flomen gelatin print with very beautiful abstract organic shapes.  Although the lighting is not as ambiguous as the previous image it is still effective.  What works best in this photo is the tonal range and the composition.  Flomen works these two things together to bring out the abstract quality which is almost paradoxical becuase he is showing us the image very clearly but it unidentifyable. 

Contact:  More similar to the first one the lighting is very ambiguous and the chiarroschurro effect is very high.  Here it seems like Flomen gives us a little more of a landscape which seems to go with the title.  There is a very organic flow to the photo where your eye basically follows the lights in a curvy zigzag.  But the jaggedness contrasts the organicness and creates variety through the photo.  Overall I think these are 3 very succesful and mindblowing photographs.

Adam Fuss- From the series My Ghost:  I believe this image is successful because of how Fuss is dealing with the forms.  He is choosing to reduce these birds down to organic shapes and create relationships between the shapes he creates.  Why he chose to do this is clear because of the title of the series- Fuss creates an image of the birds souls swooping around.  What I love about this image is that he clearly put alot of time and effort into choosing the correct printing process to capture these birds souls

Adam Fuss-From the series My Ghost:  In this image Fuss displays how well he creates and composes organic shapes.  He has a way of making something into nothing in terms of reducing things into organic shapes.  The edge light around the figure suggests a white light that you might see moments before death and I think that works very well with the rest of the series.  I don't know much about the daeggeorotype process but I do know that it's old and probably hard to do.  However, a common thread with Fuss's final prints is that the process is key to convey the meaning of the photograph.  

Adam Fuss- From the series My Ghost:  I appreciate this image for many different reasons such as the organic-ness, the flowing composition, and the detail.  I am inspired by works like this because there is no end to the image.  There is no way to get bored inside this image, and becuase it has a very organic quality your eye flows around the composition as opposed to a geometric image where your eye bounces around 

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Harry Callahan:  These three photographs will share the common theme of simplicity.  In this photograph the relationships and subject are very simple and the composition is elegant.  The lighting in this photograph works two different ways.  On the nude it is soft and I think that fits with and exemplifies the simplicity- but at the same time the hard edge created from the window light reduces some of the space to geomtric shapes which also exemplifies the simplicity.  This is only how I interpret the image- but I think it is pretty apparent, especially the triangle intersecting her head.

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Andre Kertesz- Glasses and Pipe:  Another simple photograph in terms of the subject matter.  This composition consists of multiple traingles.  Three of these triangles are reduced to geometric forms which I like a lot becuase it hammers in the simplicity.  The glasses and the pipe appeal to me because of the relationship between the circles and lines.  Geometry often becomes a complex element in a photograph but Andre does a really nice job of keeping it simple and subtle- which is what I like about this photograph.

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Yousef Karsh- Portrait of Andy Warhol:  I believe this photograph is, like the other 2, very succesfull becuase of it's simplicity.  Andy Warhol is a very complex character but to see him portrayed in a very simplistic manor leaves more room for interpreting the amazing composition of the this photograph.  There is an amazing tilted triangular focal point which really draws attention to the fine detail and quality of the photograph.  I also am very drawn to the relationship between his hair and the paintbrush because of the silvery tone in both.  The dead black background is a key element because it forces our eye to remain in the triangular focal point.

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Pete Turner- Starlight Drive in:  Perspective is being used to make this photograph something more than an ad.  As a viewer I feel small and it's not an effect of the neons it's the point of view.  Turner clearly is committed to the editing process which I respect a lot.  I also am mesmerized by the kind of tribute to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.   

Pete Turner- Texascape:  Perspective is key again.  Its almost as if Turner spends his whole life behind the viewfinder becuase you have to have a very trained eye to spot this.  But what I think is more of an important aspect to this photo is the quality of the exposure and the intensive editing process.  Turner gave this image a Fear and Loathing mood which I am really drawn to.

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Pete Turner- Road Song:  I think this photograph is very visually stunning becuase of the point of view that the Turner chose.  He turns a rigid fence into a fluid organic path that our eye follows.  The car is pretty ambigous and I think only Turner could explain why he included the such a recognizable element into this abstraction.  What amazes me is not the possible metaphor about the road not traveled or some shit like that but the commitment to art photography.  Turner has an eye for certain stages like this one and so do a lot of photographers but this image is special.  He not only took the shot but he really went to the next level of editing in terms of color choices and mood.  

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Abbas- My theme with the next three photographs is 100% interpretation.  I feel that these three images have the same amount of striking and raw power- they just deliver in very different ways.  This one is the most blatent, the second image- less blatent, and the third completely subtle.  The power in this photograph is felt immediately.  There's no need for a caption or explanation- we get it.  When I look at it I want to back away- but I still want to see the action go down.  Besides the focus the image is clear not only because it is massive and exploding- but also because the hose, figure, and water draw your eye directly toward it.  

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Rene Burri- I believe this image is powerful but in a much quieter and serene way than the previous.  This image is like an excersise for the mind.  It functions in many different ways such as, an abstraction, a documentation, a dream-like almost surreal image, and an example of a great color image.  I myself am drawn to the shapes- some are organic, some geometric, and some repeated.  This image is just as moving or powerful as the previous, however in a much different way.

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Robert Capa- I never realize how powerful an image is out of context.  This photograph moves me only becuase I read the caption.  This Pilot, Lardner, has marked on the side of his plane how many german fighter planes he has shot down.  With this information the photograph has a whole new meaning. Most likely when Lardner is sitting in the cockpit like he is here he probably just earned another mark or is about to.  I also think it is interesting that Lardner doesn't even have swatzstikas on the side of his plane- since the symbol is not tilted it is actually an ancient hindu peace sign.

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Ezra Pound- photographed by Richard Avedon:  I wanted to find a photo that blatently conveyed spirituality.  I believe the driving force in this photograph is the way Pound is showing us his soul.  But the hard part is as a pjotographer how do you get these poeple to forget they're in front of a camera while expressing themselves in such unique ways.  One way I guess is to have them close their eyes and perhaps Pound was instructed to project himself beyond the camera.  Or maybe he's just a wierdo.  Either way I wanted to use this as an example that wasn't as sad as the other 2- but it still fits with the theme of spirituality.

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Marilyn Monroe- photographed by Richard Avedon: Unlike the last photo this photograph strikes me becuase of the lack of eye contact.  Where is that that sexy look she always gives the camera?  It looks as though something else is weighing heavy on her conscience.  Or a wave of sadness just washed over her as Avedon hit the shutter.  Regardless- it is something.  We can debate or guess what is going through her head and causing her expression but the fact remains that it is not something tangeable or proovable.  Which only leaves one answer- this is a photograph of Monroe's spirit.

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R.B. Kitaj- photographed by Richard Avedon:  This portrait strikes me, instantly, becuase of the eye contact.  What stands out besides the eye contact is the texture of Kitaj's skin and the over-all expression.  I'm not very good with labeling poeple's emotions- what Kitaj's expression reveals to me is a sense of spiritual communication.  Perhaps his communicated guilt or shame but that is not the key to the photograph.  The key is the fact that Richard Avedon made himself and the camera invisible in the photgraph.  Kitaj seems unaware that there is a camera anywhere near him- he looks as though he is looking in a mirror and truly not liking what he sees.  

Edward Sheriff Curtis- The Announcement:  The simplicity of forms in this photograph is what intrigues me the most- in this case less is more.  It not only intrigues me but also inspires me to strive for a composition like this in my work.  The way the sky and mount are reduced to mere shapes that join together reminds me of the way that the Natives view the sky and the land.  Besides the composition I also admire Curtis's dedication and respect towards the Natives.  He is photographing something the Natives believe to be spiritual/ritual.  Amazing.

Edward Sheriff Curtis- Four Horns:  I also relate to this image because portraiture of this nature and quality is one of my goals.  Curtis put his WHOLE life into creating portraits and landscapes of Natives across the country.  I admire these portraits- this one especially- becuase the effort to make this image is more complex then just his shooting and plate developing techniques.  The real difficult part of this portrait is gaining Four Horns respect, trust, and faith- which Curtis achieved with probably all the Natives he photographed.

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Man Ray- Gift:  This image relates to me as a goal for myself.  I would very much like to help define an art movement- like Ray did for dadaism- with a photograph.  He is someone that inspires me so i tend to flock to his work when I need a little motivation.  What I admire about the photograph is the relation between the nails, the iron and the title encompass dada art.