Adam Fuss

I really like this photograph by Adam Fuss. It is a very pretty image, but also seems to have some meaning behind it. The baby looks like it is floating around in a womb. The picture was probably taken by putting a baby on a glass table or some sort of transparent material. Then the photographer put water on top of the material and just took the picture from below the glass. The baby looks like a frog or tadpole swimming through water, it makes the baby look very primordial. The photograph makes me realize that a baby is still an animal and looks just as weird as all the other new-born animals. The cuteness goes away and the baby just looks weird.

Miro Slovik

This photograph was made by Miro Slovik. It looks very experimental, the process behind the must be interesting. I don't know how to feel about the photograph itself, I don't really like it, but how he made the photograph is interesting. He probably exposed 3 different negatives onto the photo paper: the woman, the stack of books and the thing she is running on. The silly pose is a critique on society in that the books she is carrying are all the books she needs for school. Society forces us to do certain assignments that we end up rushing for without thought which is signified by her running stance. Her bowing pose makes it look like she is a slave to the work she has to do.

Abelardo Morell

This image by Abelardo Morell is very interesting. The photographer combined his wall and a landscape. I liked the process he used to make the picture. Making and using a camera obscura seems to be really difficult and patience testing. Since it is a landscape too it makes it even harder because in general landscape photographers spend a lot of time setting up a picture, especially if they use a large format camera. The camera obscura for a landscape picture adds to the frustration of the process. The photograph itself is very interesting, the shapes in the room get filled with the landscape, it makes me want to explore the photograph.

Robert and Shana ParkHarrison

This image by Robert and Shana ParkHarrison is very interesting because there are people attached to clouds floating over a landscape. The men in the clouds seem to be fishing for people to bring up to the clouds with them. I imagine the men to be angels and they are looking fishing for good souls to bring up into the afterlife. Its obviously not real but the picture is very convincing and well done.  The process of this photograph is really interesting as well. The photographer must have layered the negatives onto photographic paper. He probably exposed the landscape with clouds onto the paper. Then he exposed the man attached to the ropes on to every cloud.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia - Street Studio

This photograph is by Philip-Lorca diCorcia. He took this picture by setting up studio lights on a street and he just waited for people to walk past the lights. He would wait for an interesting person and hit the shutter. The result showed how he caught people's natural faces with a studio lighting effect; getting a natural face in a studio would normally be very difficult to do. The picture itself is just of a man's face and its kind of interesting, but what makes me interested in the photograph is the process of how he took it.

Christopher Thomas

This photograph is from Christopher Thomas' series 'new york sleeps'. It is a picture of a ice cream parlor in Ridgewood, Queens. The website says its Brooklyn, but the website is wrong. I live two blocks from that parlor, and it is most certainly Queens. I like the picture, but it shows a nice contrast between the past and the present of the parlor. You can see how the ice cream parlor used to look before it closed or was bought out, but there is a Carvel sign on top. The picture pokes fun at corporate stores buying out smaller stores and then just adding a little sign to prove it. The picture itself is very dramatic because of the use of lines and strong angles. The lines of the road and power lines separate the picture into neat sections which make it easy to see what the picture is about, the ice cream parlor. The sharp angle of the parlor makes it pop out of the picture make it even more obvious as to what the picture is about. I also walk by that building often, so its cool to see in the series, I've actually bought an ice cream cake from there before.

Hiroshi Sugimoto - Early Humans

This photograph is by Hiroshi Sugimoto. It is a picture of a display of early humans in the museum of natural history. This photograph is part of a set of many pictures Sugimoto took in the museum. I think this is an amazing photograph because of how real Sugimoto makes the display early humans look. The picture is playing with reality because obviously there is no way Sugimoto actually took a picture of early people, but the picture looks real. Its playing with our eyes and how we view photographs; people like to think that a photograph shows reality. Sugimoto is saying that a photograph can pretend to show reality. For the first couple of seconds of looking at it, it almost looks like the picture is of reality and that Sugimoto had his camera with him in the time of early humans, but after a few seconds it all the little details that make it look fake slowly show. The use of black and white makes the display look real because it hides the off colors that would be shown if the photograph was in color. Sugimoto is playing with how reality is depicted in this picture and how people view reality.

Hitchcock - Albert Watson

This photograph of Alfred Hitchcock is by Albert Watson. The photograph shows Hitchcock holding a dead goose. The portrait is showing Hitchcock with the thing he is most famous for, a bird. It is in reference to his movie "Birds". I like the picture, the skinned goose and Hitchcock have the same body texture, the textures show relationship between birds and Hitchcock. Watson also put on what looks like a bow tie on the dead goose, further making it obvious that he is comparing Hitchcock to a dead, skinned goose. I enjoy the photograph because it is funny and clever.

People Jumping - Philip Halsman

 

     This photograph, whose title I do not know, is by Philip Halsman. It is a picture of two presumably famous aristocratic looking people. I like the photograph because Halsman has a unique way of directing his models. He had both the man and woman jump up together, Halsman believed that people jumping up showed their inner or true character. In this photograph when the man and woman jump up you can see that they are very stiff and rigid, almost analogous to how they might be viewed by people: rich, posh, or aristocratic.

The Human Condition

 The Human Condition by Duane Michals.

    This image is by Duane Michals. It is called Human Condition. To me the obvious idea this sequence of pictures is about is wonder. The first image in the sequence is a picture of a bored looking young man. The next one shows the same picture but the man is glowing. It is showing how the man is going inside his own mind because he is so bored with his surroundings. The next sequence of pictures before the last image just shows the journey to the deepest part of his mind. The last image is a picture of a galaxy, maybe the our own galaxy the Milky Way. Michals is telling us that people wonder at grand things and have a strong desire to explore the unknown. That we want to understand how everything works. To us right now the greatest mystery is space and the universe; everyone would like to know what our place in the grand scheme of things is. Its the human condition is wonder at everything and to be curious.

Daido Moriyama's Demon Boy

 

This image is by Daidō Moriyama. It depicts a young boy in Japan. Its a very straight forward image visually because the picture clearly shows you what it wants you to see, the boy. The boy has a almost demonic look to him. The boy probably looked normal in reality, but he is crossing his eyes to give himself a weird look. Moriyama took a picture of that moment and then dodged his whole body in the picture to create a halo around him. The halo makes the boy pop out of the frame. The picture also has a tilt to it. The tilt makes the boy appear more evil-looking because it makes it seem like the photographer was rushing to take the picture as if he was running away from the demon.