Heesun Park reviews Michael Frye

Rock Formation at Night, Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Petroglyphs and Star Trails, Wind River Range, Wyoming

He is a professional photographer specializing in landscapes and nature. He believe that light is

what allows him to create a mood, whether that mood is lyrical, playful, or mysterious.

his most of picture used very colorful light, it create very mysterious picture but also can see

beauty of nature. his work is very playful and mysterious. However, I really enjoy his work.

In fact, I just start practice to take picture at night. it is very hard. I have been practicing for 1

year but I have not taken any good successful picture. His work made me more challenge my

self. The picture of Petroglyphs may not really interesting during the day. but the star

movement and playing with light it came out together it made image very interesting.

more info : http://www.michaelfrye.com/port/night/night1.html

Heesun Park reviews Bruce Barnbaum

Moonrise Over Cliffs & Dunes

I was just research about a photographer and found out Bruce Barnbaum.

When I see his art work I could not believe my eyes... Since I am focus on landscape I look up

his Classic landscape work. I just could not stop look up his work. It was so beautiful .

"Bruce Barnbaum's photography expands upon the dynamics he finds everywhere in nature, relating forces that move the universe to the sweeping forms that mold his imagery."

His art work is very realistic and abstract, I am not big fan of abstract but I love his work.

his work makes me change my thought about landscape. I believe that I will learn a lot of things

through his work.

More information

http://barnbaum.com/barnbaum/Portfolios/Pages/CLASSIC_LANDSCAPE.html#2

heesun park about Gum Bichromate Print Info

http://www.christopherjames-studio.com/build/ALTgum.html

Check out please.

Heesun Park reviews Christopher James

John Q., 2005, cyan & gum

Christopher James is an internationally recognized artist and photographer whose paintings

and photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in this country and abroad.

His work has been published and exhibited extensively, including shows in The Museum of

Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The George Eastman House, and the

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

His work "John Q" got my attention , because I am also working on alternative photographic.

" John Q"

Christopher James is an internationally recognized artist and photographer whose paintings

and photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in this country and abroad.

His work has been published and exhibited extensively, including shows in The Museum of

Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The George Eastman House, and the

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

His work "John Q" got my attention , because I am also working on alternative photographic.

" John Q"

Christopher James is an internationally recognized artist and photographer whose paintings

and photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in this country and abroad.

His work has been published and exhibited extensively, including shows in The Museum of

Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The George Eastman House, and the

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

His work "John Q" got my attention , because I am also working on alternative photographic.

" John Q" especially, very interesting a portrait. The Lips, eyebrows facial .. all detail is so clear.

I feel like look a painting but also feel like a photo. I also liked the color that he selected .

The color made the portrait more stronger image.

About more information gum Bichromate print

http://www.christopherjames-studio.com/build/ALTgum.html

Rebecca Villarreal presents Guy Gagnon

Guy Gangnon is a Canadian photographer, who in all realities just discovered a love for photography in the last 10 years. I found him in one of the Photographer's forum magazine and the one picture that he chose from his portfolio really caught my eye enough to look up his work. At first I was a little disappointed because some of the first images I saw were his portraits which were a little commercial and not really what I was expecting from the photo in the magazine. But the further I clicked around on his website the better the work got...to clarify his work is good but the more you click around the more you find his fine art photography. His landscapes are gorgeous and for a minute I thought most of them were double exposures, it turns out many of them are reflections in water that the focus is really crisp. Another thing to make note of are his skies all of them have a cloud in them (a rule if you ever took Larry's basic class he drills into you) and they have contrast to them. I don't know how to describe it other than awesome and if you are into Landscape photography he's someone you should look at. I will say that for some he maybe a little to contrasty but I honestly don't have a problem with it, all his darks still have texture and the same with his light areas.

As a photographer he seems interested in exploring many different styles of photography, though he says on his website that urban, architecture, and macro photography are his main interests.

Ray comments on Looks Who's Taking: Connecting with Social Media

There are some fun and valid reasons why photography has taken a form of art by means of social media. First of all, do you believe photography is an art form? If you do, do you believe all photography is art? I know there is art in all mediums that I have a hard time considering it as art. I Do believe art is subjective to a certain extent, but where do we draw the line, so to speak. I can see the beauty, and have embraced the resource possibilities of social media and the different means of communication. I am entertained by the logistical possibilities via photography. But, I also feel strongly about the basic elements involved in creating or capturing a photographic image. I really hope someone argues this point with me! Maybe social media photography should be classified as entertainment, or as a special event. Maybe I'm old fashion, But I have a hard time considering this type of photography as art. Maybe my elementary aged nieces and nephews are freaked photographic fine artist because they have taken some amazing photo that carry much more validity as fine art than many photo exhibit that are currently being displayed, in public, galleries, and museums. While I appreciate the passion for capturing images for whatever reason or purpose we have, we are entering new territory as far as form and content are concerned. Looks Who's Taking: Connecting with Social Media was certainly an I opener for me.

Blair Bodden submits Annette Fournet

Annette Fournet is a contemporary photographer who lives and teaches photography in Memphis, Tennessee and in Prague, Czech Republic.

Fournet uses collected old snapshots, carte de visites, and portraits in the body of work titled Lost Promises. This series Fournet states, “celebrates all the promises of life – marriages, special occasions, and family gatherings.”

In this body of work, Fournet has combined found images, scanned materials and her own black and white photos to create a narrative for the people in her photographs. These images that she finds are usually old portraits or snapshots of people she does not know. So in creating this work she gives these individuals a new story. Again this is another artist that I found doing research for my own work it is very intriguing how she uses found material and found individuals to create the characters of her narratives.

Blair Bodden submits Carrie Mae Weems SPE Conference

Carrie Mae Weems was the Keynote Speaker at the Society of Photographic Education South-central Conference held at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Weems gave her lecture on Friday September 30 to a recital hall full of students and faculty from seven different states. Weems is a very articulate and strong speaker which shows the passion she has for creating the bodies of work she has done and still will do. During her lecture the body of work that she spoke that struck my interest was the work she has done in the city where she lives. The body of work is titled Social Studies 101, Operation: Activate, 2011. This particular work interested me because Weems decided to use her art to take a stand in her community on violence but she still incorporates her contemporary style to these messages in what is said in them and how and where they are presented. This shows that our art can be used for so many things if we choose to do so with it.

Blair Bodden submits Brianna Burnett

To give a brief background on Brianna Burnett, she is from Houston and studied her BA at Austin College in Sherman and received her MFA from Texas Tech University. Most of Burnett’s work seems to be done in an alternative process, tintypes. I found this work intriguing not only for use of the tintypes but for the basis of her work that she completes. Behind Burnett’s work revolves the act of storytelling. Burnett uses this idea in all of her bodies of work which take a look at interpreting stories. In Burnett’s artist statement she states, “I interpret stories, retell memories, and interpret narratives I have heard. This act of retelling becomes an oral reference of time and collection…As humans, the stories we collect keep us connected all to being alive and experiencing life. I envision this body of work as being a collection of images which reference experience, past, connections, and community.”

The use of storytelling and narrative has always inspired my work as a student artist. In my research for my work I have found several artists that influence and inspire me to keep going with my work even though sometimes I struggle with getting my idea across clearly. Brianna Burnett is a great resource for concept based work and also for the use alternative process in her work.

Rebecca Villarreal presents Aaron Huey

Aaron Huey is a photojournalist who has worked for Harper and National Geographic, his work is driven some by politics and much by what he believes in. He's very passionate about people's rights and much of his work reflects this. One of the projects he worked on centered around Native American rights, he's helping to continue the fight of the Lakota Sioux Indians to regain land they lost back in 1890 at Wounded Knee and to show the world just how far reservation life has declined. His lecture on TED talk, was amazing to listen to and eye opening with information on how hard life for the Lakota Sioux has been. To say the least the photos from Pine Ridge are worth more than 1,000 words. They are ghostly images of suffrage.

The more I've looked at his work, the more I think he has an eye for Americana. For one project he walked all over the U.S. with his dog and took pictures of the places and people he saw along the way. All his images tell stories about America, when and if he ever finishes the project it will be a great portrait of what makes America...America.

His website is filled with tons of work and I encourage every one to take a look at it, I haven't even gotten through all of it.

Rebecca Villarreal presents Binh Danh

Binh Danh is a photographer who uses a the alternative process of photosynthesis to create images on leaves. His work is extrodanary to look at and was one of the things that inspired me to try the process out in class this semester.

Much of his work is based on his Vietnemese heritage and the trials and tribulations Viet Nam has suffered over the years. Many of his images come from old negatives he's found of war and the people who were in the middle of it. Danh uses a variety of leaves and grasses to print on, the quality is amazing to look at of the image and the print. I never would of thought you could get some of the range he does in a plant. There is a bit of poetic feel to his use of leaves as his canvas, more so I think for the leaves vulnerability and the past's vulnerability. Something I like about the process, because there are conflicting ideas on it stability to last for long. An idea that coincides with history's ability or inability to keep the past alive in the future.

He's definantly someone to look at.

Ray submits David LaChappelle

http://www.davidlachapelle.com/

David LaChappelle lives in a wonderland of art and creativity. These are just a few of his highly dynamic images derived from his passion for visual stimulation.
I appreciate the vast combinations of techniques and processes. In the spirit of our class, Studies and Sketches 3, the tryptic image, probably utilizes photo oils or pencils, mounted on cardboard. His use of elaborate sets, add a definitive narrative to his final images. I enjoy studying the different light sources and how they work in the final comps. His images, in my case, provoke a desire and a thought process to create art. What compels our choice of color in the work we create?

Andrea Couture submits Kristin Giordano

Kristin Giordano who does mostly landscape photography. She takes photographs of landscapes that have the presence of the human without usually seeing an actual humane within the picture plane. She uses a 1970s Diana and a Yashica to create her photographs. Using these cameras creates an ethereal quality in her photographs that she probably could not get with a regular digital camera. I really enjoy her photographs and the airiness of them. These are the type of photographs that I would like to work on for my personal project that deals with memory.

Here is the link to her website:

http://www.kristingiordano.com/

Andrea Couture submits Carrie Mae Weems talk

Many of us went to the Carrie Mae Weems talk during SPE. I thought that she was a great speaker. She seems to be very passionate about her art and allows her life to be consumed by the work she is making at the time. Weems had a lot of interesting things to say and I enjoyed seeing her work. The work that I was most drawn to was her Kitchen Table Series.

I think this series is interesting because all of the photographs are set in the same scene, only the characters and a few simple props move and change. Each photograph is set where most of the kitchen table is seen and the light hangs down, shining brightly in the middle of the table. These photographs are simplistic but they say a lot. This series talks about the human relationship (romantic, mother/daughter, friend, ect.) I really enjoy the interaction between the characters; it reminds me of the things that really do happen around a kitchen table. I also feel that many of life's events happen around the kitchen table and that is where we learn about each other and ourselves.

If you would like to see more from this series, visit this link:

http://carriemaeweems.net/galleries/kitchen-table.html

Midterm Blog entries are ridiculously low.

Hey Advanced Photo students...where are your weekly blog entries? These are to show me the progress of your personal research and so far, I only see 4 names here. Many of you officially have an F on this requirement. You will now only be able to achieve 1/2 of the grade for the blogs...come on people. This is not that big of a requirement. Check your syllabi for the weight of the blogs in your final grades. You are advanced students, get your game on!

Katy Schmader presents Sarah Cusimano Miles

http://sarahcusimanomiles.com/

I first met Sarah Cusimano Miles at SPE nationals in March. She recently spoke at the South central conference in town. Man oh man is her work exciting.

Miles had access to all the unused animals at the Anniston Museum of Natural History in Anniston, Alabama. Miles composes these creatures to create these beautifully composed images. I believe a lot of her influence comes from religious renaissance artwork. All the objects in the frame of her photograph tend to have a greater meaning than purely being fixed into the image.

The greatest thing about these images is how they are composed. Sarah Cusimano Miles breaks the image into a grid. In each portion of that grid she takes several different photographs at different focal lengths. When she uploads all these collected images into photo shop she masks off each image in a way to give herself in infinite amount of focus. This process creates incredibly detailed images.

Not only are these images beautiful, but they create a conversation between the specimen and the viewer.

Katy Schmader present Dan Mountford

Dan Mountford is one of my favorite new finds. Mountfords work is mostly made up of double exposure that is all done in camera, without the use of photo shop.

Due to the technical skills, and the flawlessness of his prints, he seems to have worked the technique that he uses down to a science.

His prints are clean, and well thought out. They really take advantage of positive and negative space, not only as the finished product but as well as the process. In order for these images to work the way they do I feel Mountford has to put in an incredible amount of work, and thought process.

Mountford’s mages are excellent examples of double exposure, and the otherworldly project that we are currently working on. These images really helped me to think about how two images relate to one another, what those two images together say as a whole, and what that says about the image conceptually.

Chris Castillo presents Roy Flukinger at the Harry Ransom Center

At the end of this years Society for Photographic Education South Central conference, co chair Kent Rush led a small group to Austin to meet Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator of Photography at the Ransom Center. Flukinger showed us the public areas of the building and selected pieces from the Gernsheim collection for us to view.

Temperature, humidity, and light levels are some of the main conservation concerns. The building's lighting, temperature and humidity are completely controlled. Lights are UV and infrared shielded. The windows have screens to block out daylight and the overhead lighting is dimmable.

From the collection, we saw work by photographers including Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, and Carleton E. Watkins. We were also shown examples including an albumen print, a wax paper negative, and a pre-photographic era (1810) camera obscura.

The collection has around 600 pieces of 19th century photography apparatus, Flukinger said.

Until we set up our own class tour to the collection, click this link to hear Flukinger introduce the collectors, the hunt for the first photograph, and how the Gernsheim collection was brought to The University of Texas at Austin.

For more information, visit http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/audio/

Chris Castillo presents Bill Durgin

Bill Durgin is a photographer who uses the abstracted body to redefine genre boundaries. Is he a still life photographer? Is he a portrait photographer? Is it documentation of performance? Durgin’s work is a combination of of the above categories.

According to his artist’s statement for his nudes and still life works, he riffs on classical painting genres. He pays attention to relate the scale of the body equal to the scale of his juxtapositions (plants, wig hair, animals…) Dancers, models, and the artist himself pose as the subjects.

His nude work is unexpected. Bodies become objects, distorted, contorted, and universal. The spaces that surround the bodies are ambiguous, isolating, and haunting. They allude to the white cube gallery, but could allude to sinister or controversial spaces, like prison systems or psychiatric institutions…

He details his technical process. He shoots on 4x5 film, scans it, and minimally retouches the C41 prints. The photos are true to life’s real surrealism.

For more information visit http://billdurgin.com/

Rebecca Villarreal presents Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon is a hard person to describe as a photographer. Her work is impressive to the lengths she goes in the research alone to put it together and get the shots she wants. Much of her process is about the research and letter writing to just about anyone who can help her reach her goal. Many of her projects seem to surround the idea of injustices done to people by the government, their own family members, and the things we aren't supposed to see. Out of all her work my favorite project, that inspired me to write about her, was her work called The Innocents which was based around how photography is used as tool to convict the wrong people in many cases of crimes the did not commit. All the men in her photos were tried and convicted almost solely on the use of photography in a photo line up. Many spend years in jail before being aquitted by DNA or a confession by the actual criminal. Some of the photos in series are powerful to look at with the story attached, with one photo a person's life is completely ruined and they must forever live with a stigma of having been in jail.

That's really what seems to make Taryn Simon's work, work, is the story she investigates and insures is true paired with a photo that puts an image to the facts or research.