Does Biography Matter?

In this chapter, the writer introduced a photograph toke by Andre Kertesz. He begins the chapter by asking is the biography of the author really reflected on one’s work, is there a self in every work one made? There are many examples of artwork that don’t relate to one’s personal life very much, for example, Vivian Maier’s, but Kertesz’s is a counterexample of that. His work much more reflected by his inner experience than presenting an objective world. There is one sentence that I think is very interesting: “his images filtered social reality through a highly emotional filter.” His works, instead of saying about the social changes, speaks more of himself. Not only his emotional state but also his experience. When he was in Paris and met many artistic people, his photographs are said to have a big difference from works later on.

During his old age, he made lots of images of still life. These images reflect his emotions as consistent. And, it is these stories of him that made the still life different and beautiful. Under current situation, I think still life photography is also something interesting and worth exploring!

Lost Cloud by Andre Kertesz

Comments

Street Photography

Rexer talked about multiple purposes of street photography. When cam era and film were first invented, people are only able to shoot empty streets and architectures since it is impossible to capture the second of a moving person. Atget’s work is an example. When technology has developed, the focus started to shift from historical to social, and now artists have turned back to the looking itself. The reason that I like street photography is human interaction, the power of it to show a place through a personal lens, and the contingency of it. You don’t know who you are going to meet and what interactions would you find or have with others. Going to other places is fun for shooting; however, even if one is shooting the same city, the photography can be variant. Like what Cole has shown, photography is a powerful tool to fight for equality and justice. It focuses on the vulnerable people in society who are usually ignored. The photos help them to get resonance in society. This work, ...

Project 2

Not Hungry Picnic Girl Check out my photos on Flicker→ Not Hungry Picnic Girl In this project, I toke all the photos by iPhone 8. Echoing the mass photo discussed in the last chapter of Rexer's book, I decided to do a challenge with taking pictures with my phone. The idea is also inspired by a film called Tangerine , which is completely filmed by an iPhone (even older version than mine). I was surprised and very interested by the idea when I first heard about it. It challenges the current notion in film industry or even photography that in order to make a good work, a good equipment is essential. And while watching this film, I didn't notice any severe decrement in image quality. The film does not look like a phone made film if not told so. But, there do have some shortcomings, such as a lack in dynamic range. To overcome these technical deficiencies on my phone, I decided to build a strong tone to cover th...

Street Photography

Check out the bottom few photos titled as street photography Flicker Speaking of street photography, people is an inseparable element. I went to College Ave. with my mask on, but because of the pandemic, I wasn't able to take satisfactory photo with people. Another point is that I still feel somewhat awkward taking pictures of random people. So, in this work, you won't see huge amount of interaction with people. But street photography is not only people. Even without image of people, it can also tell something about the place, its culture, social message, human trace etc. So those are what I am focused on. I had both BW and color photo. BW I think is great for street photography. It erases extra information and left with what is essential. On the other hand, color photo is a great tool to show the colorfulness of some spot and capture interesting color combination. A thing about American street that I think m...

zx.lyu

Search This Blog