Fine Art: Photography: Artist Research.

We were shown a presentation of 50 photographers of note, and instructed to blog about a piece of work by three different artists.

The first photographer I chose to write about is Martin Parr, I really enjoyed looking through his work. Much of it has a running theme, exploring british/western culture and consumerism. For me the look of his work matches this -extremely high saturated pictures, lucid block colour (I love the deliberate-tacky feel that really works!). This repetition and simple factor to it. Matching people with food and money, and the zoom allowing us to look close at particular quirks or branding. This picture I chose to post here was from one of his books 'Common Sense'.

I think this image sums up my analysis of his work, the sea of people all looking the same and with the same towels with a huge price tag stuck over the top. The badly painted toenails, tanned feet and glittery sandals (I love those!). Together it really does have an impact in bringing across this theme of consumerism.

The next photographer I decided to post was Lewis Hine. I think the fact his photo's were quite instrumental in bringing about child labour reform in the US is so important, and brings so much more depth, meaning and emotion to the photos whilst viewing them. His work is very plain, you are drawn only to the reality of the images, the detail, the time and people. The picture I chose to post is of an 11 year old girl who works in a mill. 

I think this photo is so beautiful. You can see an endless stream of spinners (work), this is complemented by the lack of focus. She is surrounded by grey, plain, dirty conditions and she stands in focus looking out of the window and into the light in wonder. His work is very impacting and very real, and I really enjoyed looking through the photographs. 

The last photographer is Mary Ellen Mark, I love her street photography of New York. The angles she uses are particularly interesting, tilting a shot and a blurred image as if the photographer themselves is moving. It really creates this sense of movement and busy cities. Again there is a real focus on people and character, and with no back story the images leave the viewer to interpret their own characters and scenario. The photo I picked was...

As I said before, it's the angles that interest me. It's almost as if she was walking down a busy street with camera in hand, and accidentally snapped a picture! I love how she cleverly manipulates your view of the surroundings. The photos are just a snap of a second in time. I found her work really thought provoking.