Elayne Estrada_ Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham

Her images are very sharp and a good amount of them look to be of porcelain texture. She was best known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was an American photographer and continued shooting up until her death at 93. Her work is characterized as a visual precision, not scientific, but presents lines and textures of her subjects, which are articulated by natural light from their own gestures.

 

Elayne Estrada

http://www.imogencunningham.com/

Elayne Estrada_ Ruth Bernhard

Ruth Bernhard

 

Ruth Bernhard was known as a Berlin-born American photographer who focused her work around the live she loved, the beauty she knew, and the happiness she experienced. All her photos are made like that. Before Ansel Adams death, Bernhard was inducted into the National Women’s Caucus for Art and Adams hailed her as “the greatest photographer of the nude.” Her work migrates from still life figures to complex nudes. Loving the black and whites of her images, I have selected the images that interest me the most. 

Elayne Estrada

http://www.artnet.com/artists/ruth-bernhard/ 

Elayne Estrada_ Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic

 

Described as “the grandma of performance art” Marina Abramovic has been an active artist for over three decades. Her work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body and the possibilities of the mind.

In Imponderabilia two performers, both completely nude, stand in a doorway. The public must squeeze between them in order to pass, and in doing so choose which one of them to face. This performance was reenacted at MOMA in 2010 in The Artist Is Present.

Throughout her performances, Abramavic has “explored passive aggression, constructing the actions around her rather spectacular body.”  She notes that Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful. During the early years of performance art female artists used their own bodies to challenge the institution of art and the notion of beauty. Marina has said in an interview that during the 1970s,  “the commodification of art and artist by critiquing conventions of and demands for female beauty in art and contemporary culture.”

 Elayne Estrada

http://marinafilm.com/about-marina-abramovic

Elayne Estrada_ Vanessa Beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft is an Italian contemporary artist who lives in Los Angeles. All of her work addresses conceptual concerns as well as aesthetic concerns. She is a performance artist and her work is often large scale and most of the time involves female nude models. Critics have characterized as art, fashion, brilliant, terrible, evocative, provocative, disturbing, sexist, and empowering.  During performances her models are unified through details like hair color, or identical shoes, stand motionless, unapproachable as­­ viewers watch them. 

 

Elayne Estrada

http://www.vanessabeecroft.com/ 

 

Elayne Estrada_ Carolee Schneeman

Carolee Schneeman

Her work is characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relationship to social bodies. She has been coined as “a mad pantheist,” because of her relationship and re­spect for nature.

Up To And Including Her Limits – is a direct result of Pollock’s physicalized painting process.  The artist suspended herself in what is called a tree surgeon harness on a three-quarter-inch manila rope. She has access in manually raising or lowering her body in order to sustain through a period of drawing.  While holding crayons which is hitting the surrounding walls. While accumulating a web of colors the says, “My entire body becomes the agency of visual traces, vestige of the body's energy in motion.”

Elayne Estrada

http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/ 

1 Ryan Schude Brandi Adams

http://www.ryanschude.com/#/index


Ryan Schude's tableau photography is both intriguing and full of humor. Most of the images I have seen from him have a minimum of 2 people in them or a whole hoard of people. His images do not really cover the same subject matter more than once. Some of his images layout part of a story for the viewer and leave the rest to imagination but he also has some images that give little information as to what is going on but they are still beautifully shot and they allow your imagination run wild. The image right below this text is my favorite. :)

Elayne Estrada_Robert Mapplethorpe

 Robert Mapplethorpe

Aside from photographing shadows, I am fascinated with the idea of shooting nudes. If only I could get my camera in front of one! Any takers?? Mapplethorpe’s lighting techniques are thoughtfully planned and carefully arranged. His remarkable talent grew increasingly during the late 70’s when he began documenting, through photography, the New York S & M scene. The artist attitude towards what he wanted to capture was shocking to the public but he insisted he was looking for the unexpected. He most certainly achieved such expectations! I feel that when I am observing one of his images, I observe mine in my head and question, how can I make this piece reflect anywhere close to the stature of his. It’s inspirational for me to want to achieve a sense of uniqueness and greatness within  my own work and it should be for yours as well.

What do we think of the nude man with his legs spread-eagle… wow! I mean who wouldn’t love to photograph that. The way the lighting distinguishes the muscles curves with the high and lowlights being omitted. This image looks soft and naturalistic.

http://mapplethorpe.org/

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

 Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

I am not entirely sold on Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy his portraits and appreciate his what can be seen within them. I just feel he needs to introduce something new to his collection before it looks like an over played record. Maybe not, it’s just an opinion. However, the portraitures he does photograph are interesting because of the connection made between the artist, camera, and subject. The three elements make each image have distinguished personality through body gesture, facial expression, and even layout. All while keeping a tradition in shooting style Sanders works with. 

I chose the three images so we can keep in mind while we are shooting, to be creative about the subject. To incorporate everything and anything we see or can imagine.

http://www.greenfield-sanders.com/

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Richard Avedon

 Richard Avedon

Browsing through Richard Avedons’ photos all I can say is, “OH MY GOODNESS!” I am so in love. The creativity and alignment his subjects are positioned and posed are very sophisticated and classically photographed. In the beginning his portraits had mainly been used for editorial publication and throughout his career his pictorials have been published in numerous fashion magazines. When he had made himself known in the art world, his photos turned quiet vigorous in activity and theatrically.

Look at the dramatic and obscurity he brings to his photos. Also, Avedon’s rich contrast is extremely captivating. I think this would be a great artist to reference because his work in very influential for us not to be boring.

http://www.richardavedon.com/

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Bill Brandt

 Bill Brandt

Started his career in Paris in 1929; Bill Brandt had such an exciting place for a young artist to begin. The access to young models without modest minds to be expressed naked was at his advantage. When photographing nudes, Brandt let his camera do most of the talking. His interference was minimal with the images produced and manipulated because of the lens/lenses used. The artist had never observed the anatomical images and shapes produced before. Through his photography, Brandt has mastered actuate distortion in which he has used to convey the weight of a body or the lightness of movement.

I chose the images because of the way he has manipulated the image by the positioning of his camera. He really plays with the scale of the subject to the scale of the background. The foreground of the woman’s head and the scenery in the back ground have a significant distinguish and almost looks like the images have been pasted on to one another.

www.billbrandt.com 

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Jerry Ghionis

 Jerry Ghionis

One of my favorite photographers who conditions his work around the idea of experimental lighting is Jerry Ghionis. He is an award-winning photographer who had described his work where vintage glamour meets the eye. Although once could imagine his work as pretty pictures, Ghionis’ arrangement of his subjects and lighting are precise through his imagination and technical skills. He stems from the concept of, it doesn’t matter what kind of camera you are shooting with, and it all depends on the lighting. He can definitely bring out the best in any situation presented to him. 

Some of us might choose to take one of his lessons posted on youtube and apply it to our own field of work. He offers us a chance to really experiment with lighting concepts and produce the best work we can.

www.jerryghionis.com

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Marc Ullom

 Marc Ullom

Marc Ullom, a professional photographer in Michigan, has been creating complex photos that involve historical and experimental processes. His images articulate technical and abstract qualities. In his Evidence series, the artist states how he became intrigued with the idea of how we remember. The ability to remember every detail of something is impossible. So by giving the view a hint of detail to an item helps render the memory and draws concepts of vague recollections of what has been seen. The complexity of these images is successful though multilayering the objects photographed and then Photoshoped and eventually space is created through digital compositing.

I chose his Evidence series because of the complexity of an image and how we as artist can evolve what we have learned throughout our college experience and really push the envelope.

www.marcullom.com

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Yamini Nayar

Yamini Nayar

Yamini Nayor, an artist in Brooklyn, NY, works with architecture and installation as photography. In her, “Underfoot and Overfoot,” c-print, she photographs found and discarded materials and gathers them to arrange an image that has been destroyed by an act of nature. The installation is destroyed once the photo shoot comes to an end. In her Study 1 c-print, Nayor draws directly onto her photograph. She uses geometric line technique to invent order out of chaos to seek a sense of only where the remains of destruction lay.

Nayor is an interesting artist for us to reference because she uses material all of us have at our disposal and opens our mind to find new ways of conceptually producing new work. Chaos and order is a subject we all know too well and I feel we can definitely relate to the artist.

http://yamininayar.com/home.html

Elayne Estrada

Elayne Estrada_Olivia Parker

 Olivia Parker

Olivia Parker switched from painting to photography in 1970 and attended Wesley College for Women. Parker mainly arranges her shoot with still life setting, which was influenced by 17^th century paintings. She believes the photos of dead matter are an expression of classical ideals whether alive or dead. The connection the artist try’s to make with the viewer is to continue evaluating the purpose of the photo without ever defining where the eye comes to rest. 

The three images were chosen to signify the artists’ concept of dead matter as lively matter. Although the peas have been pulled from their stems, the snails have slipped out from their shells, and the octopuses have been extracted from the ocean, the objects still reflect movement of life by the way they have been placed and shot with controlled lighting.

http://oliviaparker.com/

Elayne Estrada

Christy Campbell submits Sarah Sze

 Sarah Sze works more sculpturally than photographically but I thought she would be a good example for this assignment because she arranges everyday objects into interesting compositions.  The photographs I have included are some of her smaller pieces, but they reflect well for the Corner, Wall, Table assignment.  Her intricate sculptures are put into places that can interact with her work.  For example, many of her pieces are suspended from the ceiling or coming out of a wall or the ground.  Not only are the objects a good reference to look at but the way she approaches the placement of the sculptures is important to think about as well.  How are the objects we choose engaging with the environment around them?