Bela BorsodiPosted on September 29, 2015

This image is a composition of ties conducting human activities. The first impression that I am given is that the ties remind me of business men, or those that are climbing the business ladder. The use of alcohol suggests failure or disappointment, and perhaps stress from the lack of fruition from their business life. One tie is holding a phone and appears to be taking a call, which could be a representation of business contacts or the stereotypical calls home to explain why he is late from work.

I think that this image would appeal to the business sector as humour, or to show ‘normal’ people what life in that side of the world is like and the pressure that is paired with the lifestyle. This is represented by the constant use of alcohol in the photograph.

With the world of business ever expanding, this image would strive because the audience becomes increasingly familiar with this as a reality, and it becomes more relatable as further individuals join the work force in formal jobs.

Horacio SalinasPosted on September 29, 2015

Horatio Salinas initially aspired to become an artist, but ‘sucked at drawing’. He was soon guided into photography and, once he overcame the fact that photography perhaps suited his abilities, Salinas embraced his new profession, illustrating with a camera and often doing so in unique and abstract ways. His philosophy is that inspiration is overrated, and sees the photographic process as a ‘secondary’ to the research and planning that goes into each image.

This composition of make up brushes, featured in a cosmetics magazine, forms a duckling hatching from an egg. This can be used to suggest a lease of life that make-up, or the utensils that you use as seen in the image, can offer you. It is the simple touch of adding the egg shell, crumbled around the subject, that makes his work and way of thinking so unique, tying in his abstract thought process within the advertising sector and a sense of correctness. His use of composition allows for a large negative space, but delicate fragments of egg shell break up the monotonous background and again reinforce the sense of detail and thought process behind the image.

Because of the childish element of a cutely formed duckling, I believe that the intended audience is younger, but also mature enough to be in the market for cosmetics. The use of a baby animal also suggests that this image should appeal to someone perhaps with a maternal instinct that allows them

to see the photo through the eyes of a child, fulfilling the potential of the brush composition.

I think that this image is successful because it maintains a feminine appeal and air of childishness, allowing connotations of youth and beauty to be linked to the photo. These are things that women wish to achieve through the use of make-up, and those with children of their own will perhaps appreciate the imagery with the eyes of a mother. Alternatively, it is arguable that the target audience should be older than this image could be conceived to be, and that by spreading this photo we are promoting underage maturity and the ideal that girls require make-up to be conventionally beautiful.

Simon RobertsPosted on October 6, 2015

Simon Roberts is a British photographer who lives in Brighton in England. He has been photographing since 2004 when he travelled from 2004-2005 through Russia and went to different cities and made a book of all of his photographs that he took there. Then in 2007 and 2008 he travelled through England in a motor home using a large format camera capturing people in play, and exploring the relationship between the people and the place they visit.

In his photographs he mainly deals with our relationship to landscape and links our identity to it and rituals. He has published and exhibited his photographs in major public and private collections. He likes to shoot from relatively high so we see patterns. His photographs show many different kinds of aspects and places. different towns and events and beaches. His photograph are relatively simple and aren’t heavily edited. There are people in quite a few of his images.

A distinctive thing about the way he photographs landscapes is that they are shot from a high point of view so it doesn’t look like he is standing at the floor of where the photo is being taken. There are also people in a lot of his images.

Something thats part of the cultural climate that he photographs in is politics and the general election. Roberts travelled all around England during the 24 days of electioneering and captured photographs of as many political parties as he could. A common theme of his work seems to be large amounts of people in areas.

Chatsworth House, Bakewell, Derbyshire, 7th August 2008

In Simon Roberts work he tends to often photograph people, but they are not the main subject within his work, giving them a diminished and unimportant feel. A lot of his work tends to be of places that are busy, for example parks, piers and public streets. Also, in most of his images there is some form of building, whether it is a pier, shop or a house. He likes to use high angle shots as well as low angle in his photographs.

His work seems to follow the theme of ‘overpopulation’ and how people overlook the fact that they are ruining the planet. He tries to show how people are taking over the natural world and how people are unappreciative of what they are doing to the planet, and giving them the incentive to change this.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, Nottinghamshire, 16th June 2008

Simon captures people in photogenic and beautiful places, in which they spoil the scenery with themselves. Within this, Roberts displays the attachment that we have to our surroundings, and the ways in which we use those as a recreational environment. Therefore, significant locations that appeal to him include seasides, parks and various other ‘English’ locations that combine to attempt to show what it means to be British. Looking at his work, Roberts’ pieces have an overpopulated sense to them that I associate with a festival-esque feel, so larger and perhaps rowdier events are his demographic.

I think that Simon sees humans as littering a beautiful environment, but in a way that can be perceived as both good and bad. His work suggests that it is important to spend time on recreational and enjoyable activities, and not be overcome with work, but at the same time his images maintain a subtle impression that humans are spoiling the view in the process. I think that Roberts would like to convey this message to his audience, to show that fun is necessary to keep a balanced lifestyle, but also appreciate that the world be use as our playground is beautiful, and we cannot spoil it.

The Haxey Hood, Haxey, North Lincolnshire, 5th January 2008

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Rut Blees LuxemburgPosted on October 6, 2015

Luxemburg was born in 1967 in Germany, but studied in London and was eventually educated at the University of Westminster before starting her photography career in 1999. Her niche is night photography, exploring her urban environment and often managing to capture rich colours within the darkness. The intention behind her imagery is to show the beauty within our polluted and damaged world of urban culture, using light and colour to dramatise her environment within her photographs.

Visurbia

Primarily, her photos are used within books, including ‘Visurbia‘ in 2000, ‘London‘ in 2001 and, most recently, ‘Commonsensual: The Works of Rut Blees Luxemburg‘, 2009. However, her photograph ‘Towering Inferno’ (depicting a large, lit up tower block) was featured as an album cover for the band ‘The Streets‘ debut album, ‘Original Pirate Material‘. As an alternative to these commercial products, Luxemburg hosted an exhibition in 2011 in France, entitled ‘The Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award laureate’.

Album Cover, ‘Original Pirate Material’ by The Streets.

Often, Luxemburg uses angles and patterns within her composition, depicting shapes in an artistic manner to fully dramatise the subjects. Due to the darkness within her photography, her balance of light to create sharp tones and colours within her work is always very bold and distinctive, which I find to be very powerful. The warm tones within her work make them very welcoming, despite the fact that really the environment is very cold and hard – an industrial world of human pollution. Additionally, water is often used to show reflections in ways that display either light or words, diversifying the ways in which she shoots to add depth within not only that image, but her overall portfolio.

I believe that Rut is trying to convey the message that our urban world is beautiful, even if we do not always appreciate this. The warmth of her images show homeliness and is inviting, but her subject matter is always very desolate and cold. Usually, her photographs are photographed not only at night but also in the rain, making the buildings around her seem very

appealing in comparison. This technique is very controversial to our usual interpretation of beauty, which is often in the daytime in a natural environment filled with colour, but is also effective as a strong way to make us appreciate the world we live in (the industrial/urban world).

My impression of her work is that it is designed to show the beauty within the social environment, perhaps from an angle that we tend not to see. Her night photography and photos from rainy evenings are typically times that we hide from the outside world, and so we lack appreciation for the way the world looks outside within these times. The peaceful essence within her images matched with the soft colouring is very smooth and soothing, giving a relaxing vibe to a world of wildness when it is awake.

Alternatively to my initial impressions of urban beauty, I think that images like the one above spark the idea of individuality, loneliness and expression. Luxemburg may be trying to inspire us to appreciate the world we have made for ourselves, but alternatively could simply be expressing her own

separated-ness to society in where she sees beauty, as it is ultimately very different to what we are led to believe we should see as a socially approved ‘pretty’ environment.

Simon Roberts

As an example of how contradictory to our usual impressions Luxemburg’s work is, Simon Roberts photographs landscapes during the day at times when they are bubbling with human activity. This is very different to Luxemburg’s desolate photos of tower blocks and dingy stairwells.

While Robert’s work is equally not entirely identifiable as an image of beauty because of the heavy human activity within, they are much closer to that standard than most would find in Luxemburgs’ pieces. Perhaps the most notable difference is the fact that Robert’s work displays the ways in which humans ruin the ‘perfect landscape’, whereas Luxemburg shows that we are what makes the (albeit urban) landscape, and how lonely and abandoned it seems without us to fill it.

Iain CrawfordPosted on October 13, 2015

Crawford’s work is often taken for advertisement purposes, with clients ranging from beauty to technology. His work is spread through various types of media, including  television and magazine articles. Examples of his work such as beauty segments, which often include water, suggest cleanliness and flawlessness. Crawford uses this effect to imply effectiveness of the products, with well made-up models posing in ways that promote refined beauty, suggesting that it is caused by the products advertised. 

   

Ian Crawford is a very modern photographer and has worked with many top brands such as Harrods, Givenchy, Burberry etc. The technology he uses will be highly commendable equipment in order to achieve the fine details that Crawford captures. He would likely use Photoshop to refine his photos so this shows he is a 21st century photographer. He grew up in Africa and Malaysia and worked for a well known company called Saatchi and Saatchi, but he later on left to pursue his photography career. He loves to capture images that have a strong graphic and textural quality, often searching out the graphical symmetry in chaos, while still maintaining the personality and emotion of the subject. His career has lead him to shoot campaigns for many

of the world’s top brands and receive commissions from a host of top international magazines.

 I think that Crawford brings an element of individuality and difference to the world of photography, incorporating movement around the subjects in order to display the motion around them, whilst capturing them in a suspended movement. This allows for conflict within the image which makes it much more impressive and draws the audience in.

   The use of liquid allows for spray, creating further movement and spreading of the focal area. The dimensions caused by the manipulation of liquid through movement of people or objects is both agressive and graceful, which is something very rarely captured that Iain manages to bring into his photography. This new approach to photographing sport, particularly a masculine display such as football, is was makes Crawford’s work so fresh, and creates the impression that we should appreciate the art within sport, whether it is generically beautiful like dance or the more animalistic and competitive side, often represented by men.

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Carli DavidsonPosted on October 13, 2015

The ‘Shake’ series was started in 2011 as animal trainer Carli Davidson began taking fine art photos of dogs, which developed further into cat photography, and now she is a freelance photographer for Oregon Zoo. Domestic animals are now a consistent part of Carli’s commercial work as well as her personal shoots, which are focused around fine art photography.

The initial idea of her ‘Shake’ series was inspired by her own dog’s saliva, and was intended to be nothing more than an entertaining photoseries that we could respond or relate to. Her puppy mugshots became a global success, with the artistic use of water and grace complimenting the unflattering motions created by the animals as a comical twist of artistic license, realism and fun.

Davidson’s Nikon allows her the ability to capture her high speed images, with DSLRs allowing her to use varied settings including a high shutter speed.

The public received Davidson’s images well, appreciating the comedic value whilst admiring the cute factor and technical brilliance of the images. After the initial release of ‘Shake’, which had been a unique venture in itself, Carli progressed to capture puppies, cats and kittens in similar manners, and also released some video footage of her subjects. Again, these exposed her to further audiences as her work went viral through the sheer appreciation of cuteness within her images of distorted, furry faces. Most photographers attempt to capture their subjects at their best, looking beautiful, fresh or innocent. Davidson disregards this and aims to catch the awkward, quirky side of regular domestic animals that we can all relate to, and envisage our own pets through.