Liam Drury's ART 240 Blog

 Arno Minnikin's work as a self portrait photographer seems to use his own sort of poetic license when taking his pictures, as rather than displaying the human face, he displays other things like arms and legs, often submerging himself in water, or somehow hiding the rest of his body. The extraordinary amount of detail/crispness of his images stands out to me too, as proper focus is a very difficult part of self portraiture, and is something I myself have struggled with immensely.    Minnikin's Porttaits often feature subjects or backgrounds of nature. The obvious desire for extreme contrast is apparent here, but in some of his other shoots, he tries to make himself seem as if he is part of the scene. His ability to sort of conform to the landscape makes for some astonishing photos too.   His ability to sort of set scenes with parts of himself, relating to either experiences or the background itself is all part of his art. Rather than using his surroundings to make his portrait

 Arnold Newman's photography is based on Portraits of people, and their professions. Placing people in environments that suit what he thinks of said person, or how society should view them. He seems to have a formula for all of his photos, using distinctive posing, and then a fitting environment to portray them in their element. Some pictures of his are set up in a more controlled or calm environment while others seem chaotic or even staged. He distinctly uses black and white to separate and distinguish the subject from the background, using high contrast to show off facial features while still keeping a sort of mysterious vibe in some of his images. Often times he has people dressed in their best clothes, looking as presentable as possible.  Some of his other works also include up close and highly detailed facial shots, usually using a dark background and most likely using studio lighting to get the face to sort of glow and contrast the black backgrounds.  The photo below of W. Eu

       Fred Ritchin's "After Photography" written in 2009 discusses the many differences between digital and analog photography. It is extremely important to know when this book was written, as he states in one section "And the digital camera will be further absorbed into other devices, first as telephones, refrigerators, walls, tables, jewelry, and ultimately our skin." (Ritchin 143) This quote sticks out to me because he isn't wrong. In 2009 the Iphone 3GS was released, featuring a built in camera function. It may seem ground at the time but Iphone Cameras did not, and still to this day do not have nearly as much control as a cheap DSLR or even pocket sized camera would. I think that is one thing somewhat overlooked, is that digital cameras and devices that can produce digital photos are two totally different animals.      Later in the article, Ritchin quotes two photographers about the major differences between digital and analog. The first being Paolo Wo

                James Turrell's work consists of mainly color and light. He does a combination of mood/scene manipulation, as well as creating images or vibes with set lighting. Turrell also uses extensive cropping, as to rid his images of distractions in the background, and create a sense of absolute nothingness, making the only real subject matter in his photos be the color themselves. A lot of his photos consist of capturing patterns, often times being hard for the viewer to figure out what they are looking at, sometimes looking like a drawing or a movie set when in reality it may be something like a keyhole or a pattern on a wall.      This first image almost looks like something made in photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. The sheer simplicity of it is extremely fascinating, and the use of sharp edges is also very nice in keeping the photo clean. There is very little, if any grain, and the image itself was taken at precisely the point where all the lines are perfectly straight. For