Jim Zuckerman - photographer

Jin Zuckerman gave up medicine to become a photographer. He is self taught but over 35 years has become world renowned for his nature photography. He sells through stock photography and has an extensive website with plenty of photos on it. He teaches creative photography at universities and he leads many excursions to exotic places like Kenya, Ethiopia and Turkey. He also has been published in many magazines including National Geographic. He has written 14 books. SO - well respected.

It was his aerial photography that took my eye. He does what I would like to do - photograph abstract nature from the air . The photos that I include here were taken in Kenya and Turkey.

EDWARD STEICHEN - photographer

In 1954 Edward Steichen organised an exhibition called 'The Family of Man'. He invited professional & amateur photographers to participate. In a book called 'Picturing an Exhibition', the author Eric Sandeen talks about this man & his exhibition. The Family of Man exhibition was a huge collection of photographs taken all around the world. Steichen then photographed the exhibition itself and that became a documentation in itself. What caught my eye when reading this book were several quotes made by Steichen or about him which I list below:

'Steichen made a distinction between a positive and a negative approach to delivering a message through photographs.'

'The Family of Man made a positive approach towards human attributes: "instead of making pretty pictures or technically perfect pictures, we are going to get out of life"'.

'The collection was built of a rhetoric of unity, the only structure powerful enough to oppose the perils of the modern period: the ever-present elements of bigotry, and the snarl of intolerance, the hate and fear that is generated all over the world".'

"From day to day we are brought face to face with the differences in life. Of course, those differences are there. They are differences of race; they are differences of of creed; they are differences of nation. But you measure up those differences with the things that we are alike in. That must be our prevailing theme...." then he goes on..."But there is also love. That is the same the world over."...

He calls his style 'very straight forward semi-photojournalistic documentation'.

Reference for photos: http://www.luxembourg.co.uk/clervaux.html

KELLY MUNCE - photographer

KELLY MUNCE - photographer

In October last year I attended 'The Event' run by AIPP. At it I attended a practical class run by Kelly Munce, a photographer from Newcastle who particularly likes to photograph pregnant women. Kelly had an eight months pregnant model. She showed us several poses with the model wrapped in a length of flowing material. She was able to put the mum-to-be at ease & showed us things like how to place her hands and to make sure that the hands were super relaxed. She had the mum-to-be leaning against trees, lying on huge logs but the photo that seems to define Kelly was her in water shots with the material floating & clinging around the body.

VAL WILLIAMS -Who's looking at the family? on motherhood/pregnancy photos

VAL WILLIAMS -Who's looking at the family? on motherhood/pregnancy photos

In her book 'Who's looking at the family', Val Williams has a chapter on motherhood and the lack of photos historically on that subject. She says that mothers and children have become symbols of a nurturing presence. In painting and photography, mother and child have become heroes in both painting and photographic medias.

In the 1950s Grace Robertson was commissioned to photograph a baby's birth but they were considered too graphic for women to see (ironically this was judged by men) and so they were never published. The 1991 image of Demi Moore on the front cover of Vanity was almost as disturbing for society, says Williams.

Williams mentions Katrina Lithgow (took photos of naked mothers with children including one pregnant model (see photo). Williams says of this photo that it 'addresses the questions of voyeurism and as quickly discards them'.

References:

http://www.artnet.com/artists/katrina-lithgow/past-auction-results

NICK WAPLINGTON - photographer

NICK WAPLINGTON - photographer

Waplington used to photograph around the area of the Broxtowe in Nottingham where his grandfather lived during the 1980s. this included friends and neighbours. These photos here were taken at that time. He has published several books eg 'Living room' and 'weddings'.Of

He is about 40 years old and lives in New York City. He is known for his conceptual approach to photography.


This photo above was in the book 'Who's looking at the family' by Val Williams et al.


I find his work raw and interesting . The 2nd & 3rd shots above of family life are really eye catching.

VAL WILLIAMS - Who's looking at the Family

Val Williams - Who's looking at the family

There was an exhibition of a large collection of family portraiture at the Barbican Art Gallery in 1994. Val Williams helped select the photographic art for it and she wrote a book called ‘Who's looking at the family?’ The book traces the history of family portrait images and includes such images as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant mother (1936) and a series of June and Hilda Thompson’s photos of children (1958). She says that from the beginning of photography the family has been a ‘focus of attention’. Most families create memories of birthdays, weddings and holidays through their snapshots. The snapshots create a favourable reflection of domestic life. However family photos can make the world more or less real.

In one of the chapters, Nearly Narrative; Some Domestic Stories, she talks about the photographers who construct family stories with photographs of real lives and do not pretend to be objective. This is similar to the way story tellers have a point of view and are generally partial. She says ‘the families they have photographed have entered a public arena, giving us, the audience an opportunity to observe, to make comment, to judge and compare’.

Tina Barney says of her family portraits that: ‘the environment in which she photographed her subjects was as revealing as the expressions on their faces—and, in some cases, more revealing’.

DAVID BATE _ key concepts - documentary

As with my pregnancy photos, I looked again at David Bates’ book ‘The key concepts - photography’, this time at what he had to say about documentary photos.

The story-telling in photographs became popular in the early 20th century (1920-1930s). These photos, says Bates, ‘aimed to show in an informal way, the everyday lives of ordinary people to other ordinary people’. This was about life itself. In the mid 1930s magazines about people’s lives bacame pooular - such as ‘Life’ in the US and ‘Picture Post ‘ in Britain. Documentary photos were accompanied by stories of people’s lives. They also showed a lot more expression on people’s faces such as smiling, laughing and anger. The aim quite often was to educate and enlighten in a creative photographic way. Photojournalism came into being and social documentaries along with it. When the camera is clicked a microsecond of a scene is recorded. It is not exactly what is occuring but hopefully it sums ip historically the essence of the situation.

What the photojournalist decides to include (or exclude) in their photo can be said to stage reality. It is an interpretation which can be profound. Then the question arises as to whether the interpretation is true or false. Bate goes on to say that the photographer should be telling the truth as an eyewittness. But then eyewittness can can tell different stories about the same scene.