This week I found a website of Photo District News that listed the top 30 photographers of 2009. Paging through, there were a few that really caught my interest, only one that does work that I might like to do. Nathan Harger has a couple different series. The first set is the one pictured here (and some more like it). It sort of reminds me of the type of work I did at the end of last semester. He takes photos of an object repeatedly in different times, places. He then displays them together, creating a mosaic pattern of photos. In the ones of the airplane, the slightly changing color of the blue sky let the viewer know the times, places are different. I find the patterns mesmerizing, and the planes seem to be just a negative space shape. Another like this one is of an overpass, with cars streaming by. Same idea...different times show different cars at different places of the frame. Similar to the planes, it creates a pattern that makes the cars almost inconsequential. His other work is appealing to me, also. He shoots very industrial looking objects in urban scenery. These pieces are highly contrasted, almost no grey at all. While the subject matter is different, the high contrast pieces make the subjects more important as negative space than as the actual subject.
Hmmm...Ray Metzger is another artist you might look at if you are interested in the very graphic juxtapositioning of similar elements. I am interested in what you might shoot if you were to work in this vein. I know you are aware of the Bechers (Bernd and Hilla) and their categorizing of similar structures. Though their grids are less designed than these.
ReplyDeleteI thought of the other person you should look at. While she uses appropriated images from flickr it is similar to this fellow. Penelope Umbrico.
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