Photographic Strategies

 

Photographic Strategies

Michael Stolberg

Zun Lee:

Zun Lee is an award-winning photographer that was formerly a physician. Lee’s work is all across the world both in public and private collections.  He was born and raised by Korean parents in Germany. As he got older, he soon found out that his biological father was not the man who’d raised him but a black American. From 2011 to 215 Lee began to take photos of black fathers and their children in urban areas around the New York City area.  Lee made a personal connection with these families by witnessing moments and interactions. He wanted to disprove the stereotypes of black men as absent fathers.

Barbara Kruger:

Barbara Kruger is American conceptional artist best known for her layered photography and collagist.  Kruger developed her signature style by laying aggressively directive slogans in white and red text over black-and-white photographs that are found in magazines. She often repeats pronouns in her work such as your, you, we, I and they. By doing this she directly addresses her audience. Her art was heavily influenced by her history working with magazines as a photo editor. Kruger work is still widely known today to question affection, contempt, control and power by putting life into still images through the use of movement and speech.

 Ren Hang:

Ren Hang was a Chinese photographer and poet. He is known for his risqué style where he photographed his models naked in provocative poses. Hang was also very familiar with his models as he used his friends in shoots. He made them feel comfortable by talking to them and creating a fun casual atmosphere. Hang has learned to work his away around censorial conditions of working in China. He develops and scans his film at private studios to avoid any charges.  His work reflects his freedom of expression. He did not care about politics but did care about his work.

Mickalene Thomas:

Mickalene Thomas is an African American contemporary visual artist. She is best known as a painter for using rhinestones, acrylic and enamel into her work. Her art was heavily inspired from popular movements throughout history including Impression, Cubism, Dada and the Harlem Renaissance.  Along the way Mickalene began to take a liking to photography. Just like her paintings she uses elaborate sets to serve as backdrops for her photographs. Her art focuses on female sexuality, beauty and power. She illustrates through her work how identity, gender, and sense-of-self are informed by the ways women are represented in art and in pop culture.

Irving Penn:

Irving Penn was a world renown American photographer known for his still life, commercial and fine art work. Penn initially had dreams of one day becoming a painter, but at the age of 26 he took a job designing photographic covers for Vogue magazine. His career spanned nearly over 70 years. He preferred to take photographs in large format with 35mm cameras. He was a master of both black-and-white and color photography allowing for simplicity and directness. In the 1960’s and 70’s he revolutionized the art world by his revival of platinum printing. Penn was one of the first photographers to cross the chasm that separated magazine and fine art photography. He enjoyed taking photographs of celebrities, taking the time with each individual to sit for hours and to reveal his or her personality to the camera.

Daido Moriyama:

Daido Moriyama is a Japanese street photographer. He originally wanted to become a sailor but failed the entrance exam for maritime school. As a child Moriyama moved quit often. When he moved to a new city he loved to wander around town.  He would walk around town and click the shutter when an imaged appeared.  Moriyama spent over 50 years traveling the streets of Japan creating high contract, blurry images which depict a feeling of movement and franticness. When he is working on a project, he compares himself to a stray dog or alley cat circling the streets for his next inspiration. The camera Moriyama uses is a compact camera because he feels this is less intimidating for the person that is being photographed.

Quintavius Oliver:

Quintavius Oliver also known as “Film God” is an Atlanta based commercial, fashion, and portrait photographer. The name “Film God” is a nickname that he came up with to take responsibility for his work. His grandmother gave him his first camera at the age of 6. He credits most of success to his Leica camera and his 35mm lens as it has gotten him through many countries, cities and never let him down. “Film God” strategy when taking a photograph of people on the street is to be in the moment and don’t be afraid to walk up to an individual. He also believes everyone wants to be noticed and wants to feel loved.

Dana Scruggs:

 Dana Scruggs is an American photographer and director focusing in fine art, portrait and fashion. Her work has been featured in ESPN, Nike and Rolling Stone. She became a photographer because she felt lost and was going through a period of severe depression. Unable to work she began selling clothes on Etsy in order to receive some type of income. At the early stages of her career, she launched SCRUGGS Magazine. A print publication deeply invested in shooting black males in all its complexities. Scruggs mostly shoots males because she enjoys their energy, bodies and their masculinity. Showing images of Black men allows her to break down barriers and change the narrative. 

Zanele Mulholi:

Zanele Mulholi is a South African visual activist and photographer. Mulholi would be preferred to be called a visual activist because visual activism is basically dealing with a political agenda and using visuals as a means of articulation. Muholi takes black-and-white photographs of individuals of the LGBTI community. Mulholi believes this is her own way of writing South African LGBTI history. She tries to empower the people that are featuring in her work and around her. Muholi calls people in her shoots “participants” rather than “subjects” to acknowledge the commitment required to complete a project. When there are exhibitions, she takes her participants with her and speak to highlight their voices.

LaToya Ruby Frazier:

LaToya Ruby Frazier is an American artist, activist and professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ever since she was a child, she had a passion for art, drawing her mother, grandmother and other members of her family. It wasn’t until 1999 in undergrad when she picked up her first camera. Frazier does remain distant or shy away from difficult subjects. Having grown up in rural Pennsylvania she uses photography, video and performance to document healthcare inequities and environmental crises faced by her family and her hometown.  She images Black American experience in black and white.

Rinko Kawauchi:

Rinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer best known for her serene, poetic style, depicting the common moments in life. Kawauchi first became interested in photography while studying graphic design at Seian University of Art and Design. After college Kawauchi took a job in commercial photography for an advertising agency. Years later she had a change of heart and began a career as a fine art photographer.  Her photographs reflect a worship of the spirits of nature which is based on Shinto a religion in Japan. She uses soft colors that leads us to appreciate the little things in life. Her photographs have been described as visual haikus.

Laura Letinsky:

Laura Letinsky is an artist, designer and Visual Arts professor at the University of Chicago. She started her photography career by taking photos of people but not too soon after shifted to concentrating on objects in the form of still life. Her work questions opinions on perfection. She uses raw images such as partially eaten food, dirty dishes and messy tablecloths to explore the tension between the reality of everyday events. The artist leaves a lot to the viewers imagination. Many of these missing parts make the viewers wanting to know more about the photograph and the story behind it.

Ishiuchi Miyako:

Ishiuchi Miyako is a Japanese self -taught photographer. Ishiuchi grew up in a Japanese city where the United States established a large naval base in 1945. She soon was shocked by the prevalence of American military culture there, and quickly began to be scared. After moving away in 1966 she promised herself she would never go back. Ten years later Isiuchi returned to Yokosuka by using her camera as tools to express, document and explore what it meant to be Japanese at crucial moment in history. Just like Daido Moriyama she faced the trauma of post war Japan and the opening of a new age. Her work features black borders and heavy grain, which represents memories.

Bernd and Hilla Beacher:

Bernd and Hilla Beacher were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo.  Bernd originally studied painting and typography, while Hilla was trained as a commercial photographer. They are famous for taking photographs of industrial structures such as water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories. Their photos never included people and were always taken in black and white. They displayed their work in sets of several photographs of the same type of structure in grid formations. Their first photobook “Anonymous Sculptures was published in 1970 and is their most well-known piece of work. Their work has influenced minimalist and conceptual artists like Ed Ruscha, Carl Andre and Douglas Huebler.

Cindy Sherman:

Cindy Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. She refuses to place descriptive writing on her images relying a lot to the viewers imagination, as an important component of appreciating her work. Never revealing her true meaning, Sherman investigations have a compelling relationship to public images, from kitsch to art history to greenscreen technology and the most update advances in digital photography. Sherman also plays with a mixture of horror, heightened by gritty realism. Which provides a new look through which to explore general assumptions surrounding gender and the measurement of concept over style.