...Nikon Vs Canon...

Nikon or Canon? .. its a common question that comes up when people are buying into DSLR cameras. But is one actually better than the other?

Nikon and Canon where the first two companies that really made the leap from film to digital and are probably the most popular brand of camera that people buy. They are the two who battle it out for the top spot, while Olympus, Panasonic, Song and Pentax fight each other for third position. But like any competing companies whenever there is a new release the other always tries to best it.

Looking at the this website ( http://photo.net/equipment/35mm/canon-v-nikon), you can see that both Nikon and and Canon have a variety of good and bad points depending mostly on the individual that uses the camera. The sight also gives a list of the best cameras each brand has with the best capabilities. For example it states the the Canon EOS iv is probably the best for a decent viewfinder, as alot of the others has insufficiently high eye point, thats many people who wear glasses might find uncomfortable. In comparison it states that a majority of Nikon cameras (N90 and up) are excellent for eye glass wearers.

In my personal opinion I prefer Nikon cameras. I like the look and feel of a Nikon camera more to that of a Canon camera. Since starting photography not too long ago, I can say that my Nikon camera has defiantly helped me improve my technical skills. I wont be able to give a proper review unless I switch to Canon and try that out.

At the end of the day there is no better camera, as the photographer is always going to pick what camera they like best, and what camera helps them take the best photographs.

References -

• http://www.europe-nikon.com/en_GB/
• http://www.canon.co.uk/
• http://photo.net/equipment/35mm/canon-v-nikon

...Irving Penn Exhibition...

Going to the Irving Penn exhibition I was a lil bit sceptical as I had never seen any of his work in an exhibition before, and I had only ever seen a few of his photographs before. But I had heard good things about it and decided to go even thought it wasn't a free exhibition.

Going into the main hall, there where alot of fashion photographers portraits and a few nudes. I didn't really like the nudes all that much at first , but I liked the lighting and the tone of some of the images. I later found out that the images in this room where all daylight only. This in fact made me like the images more as I really like natural lighting to studio lighting. I liked how the images where all presents also, in nice silver frames.

In the second room the picture that really caught my attention was the Salvador Dali portrait. As I am a fan of Salvador Dali anyway, I liked the portrait as I think he is such an interesting person to look at. He almost looks like someone out of his paintings or sculptures... surreal and cartoon-like. In this room there where a few more portraits including Alfred Hitchcock, which where all really sharp.

Going to the exhibition, having not really seen much of his work, I can say I do enjoy some of his work, and would recommend the exhibition, even if you have to pay a small price to enter. My favourite image of his would defiantly be the Salvador Dali portrait. The lighting, the tone and mood and even the back round fits perfectly to show Dali in his own light. Which is actually a known trait of Penn, as he apparently can take any man, woman or child and photograph them and make them all unique. (See reference)

References -

• http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2002/01/16/29565.html

...Stephen Shore...

Stephen Shore is an American photographer famous for his deadpan images and pioneering colour in contemporary art photography.

He first became interested in photography at the age of 6 when he received a dark room kit for a present. At the young age of 9 he started developing his own colour images using his 35mm camera. When he was 17 he was lucky enough to meet Andy Warhol, and took pictures in his studio. He later went on to taking pictures of the American Landscape which he is well known for. He was also the first person to have a one-person exhibition at the Museum.

In 1972, he made a trip from New York to Texas, taking many pictures that provoked his interest in Photography. He got the idea to use colour in his images when looking through the streets and towns he passed on his journey. At first he used a 35mm, then a 4x5 view camera before he finally settled on a 8x10 format camera.

His book, Uncommon Places, published in 1982, has been called the bible for the new colour photographers. This is because not unlike William Eggleston, his work has proved that a colour photograph can be a work of art, like a painting or black and white photograph. People such as Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Joel Sternfeld, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky has all said they are influenced by Shores work.

His work actually reminds me alot of Lee Friedlander's work, although I prefer Friedlander, and has similar tones in the images. Looking through some of his images I see alot of photographs that remind me of Friedlander's and it may be why I like them.

References -

• http://wwar.com/masters/s/shore-stephen.html
• The Nature Of Photography - Stephen Shore
• http://www.303gallery.com/docs/Shore-bio.pdf
• http://www.artnet.com/artist/15493/stephen-shore.html

...Nan Goldin...

Damn everyone hates this chick... so lets write about her :)

Nan Goldin is an American Photographer born in Washington D.C. in 1953. She is well known for her documentation of her and her friends and families life, through both good and bad times. She is also known for her intimate life, showing not only sexual experiences but also violent and depressing stages throughout her own life.

With her friend David Armstrong she became engrossed in the gay and transsexual community at the age of 15. She was fascinated by the people, calling them the most beautiful people she'd ever seen. After this she began to document the life of her friends and her husband who used to beat her. Alot of her friends and associates she met died in the 1990s, either due to AIDS or to various drug overdoses. These pictures where later published in the book The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy. During this long period she never left the house for 15 years, only going outside occasionally at night with her friends.

She is praised for her use of colour, that show the emotion of the moment she captures. One of her most famous pictures (the picture above) shows her and her husband after having sex. The orange glow signifies their dying love, and her face looking up at him shows a mixture of affection and weariness. (This is actually the only photograph of hers I really like). He is sitting and smoking with his back to her and looking almost like he doesn't wanna be there, again showing their dying love. She has also been criticised for glamourising heroin usage, domestic violence and amateurism.

References -

• http://www.artnet.com/artist/7135/nan-goldin.html
• http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/fineman/fineman12-12-96.asp
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z3sihEuiEk

...Robert Frank: The Americans/Come Again...

The name Robert Frank has become a very important one in the world of photography. He is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century and is well known for his documentation of American Life.

He became a photographer in he 1940's, starting out doing fashion photography for Harpers Bazzaar Magazine in Paris. After becoming bored with it and abandoning fashion photography, he took a series of pictures in the late 1950's that would be published as The Americans; a book that would be called one of the most influential books in photography.

The Americans is known for its 'American-ness", showing humour, sadness and everything about America that is American. A tall thin cowboy rolling butt outside Madison Square Garden, a long shot of a night road arrowing into the distance, a tattooed guy sleeping on the grass, and a man resting under American Flag canopy in an old busted car seat. Its ironic and meaningful imagery is full of concepts that come to mind when thinking or envisioning American life.

Another one of his famous (and my favourite) books is Come Again, showing a series of images with no words whatsoever. The images are of buildings, cars and window, taken at different angles and then stuck together to create one image. The way he has presented the images in an almost amateur style, with no words leaves the viewer to guess or to envision their own concepts and ideas on why the image was taken, and presented in such a way in the first place.

Robert Frank's work has really inspired for alot of work, and his style is very influential. In fact The Americans was a huge influence on some of my most recent uni work. The lighting, tone and mood of his images really gave me ideas on how to create my own. Plus his book Come Again was another piece of inspiration that gave me ideas on my own concept.

References -

• http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/frankinfo.shtm
• Robert Frank - Come Again
• Robert Frank - The Americans

...Feminism: ...

Ok... Feminism... touchy and interesting subject...

Feminism is basically movements that in both past and present have tried to gain equal rights for women. But there are also different types of feminism.

The first "Wave" of feminism was during the 19th and early 20th century, with the women suffrage movement. During this period they where two types of suffrage movements. Suffragists: who where involved with more peaceful protests, and Suffragettes: who where alot more militant in their protesting. For example, one of the most well remembered suffragettes named Emily Davidson, threw herself under the kings horse a a race in 1913.

The second "wave" took place between the 1960's and the 1980's and really focused on ending discrimination against women. The third "wave" started in the early 1990s' and was a response on the problems and failures of the second wave. It also avoided what the second wave deemed an essential definition of femininity.

Nowadays Feminism is a really broad term, which each feminism group having their own ideas on what Feminism really means, and what its true definition is. For example, during the 1960's a feminist would never be a stripper, as they would be using their bodies for the sexual pleasure of men. However a group of stripper feminists have stated that they are empowering their femininity by not being ashamed of their bodies and being a women.

A group of feminists called The Guerilla Girls expose sexism, racism, and corruption in art, politics, film and pop culture using facts, humour and outrageous visuals. The girls remain behind their masks and their work has been shown all around the world, being passed on by their many supporters.

A blog I found called BITCH, PHD is a feminist blog that talks about being a woman in academia and about different feminist views and ideologies. The blog mentions different feminist conferences and other feminist groups and crop up all over the world

After reading the blog, I found it interesting that we never know that it is in fact a woman. Would be cool if it was a dude who switches all genders when talking about his life experiences.

References -

• http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/
• Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls
• http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

...Vic Muniz...

Vic Muniz is a Brazilian Artist born in 1961 who has lived in New York since the late 80's . He is famous for creating images by arranging certain unconventional materials, to recreate well known works of art, and then photographing it, resulting in the final piece.

He was born in Brazil where he was trained and started out as a sculptor, but soon moved on to even more creative methods of making art. He at first would take pictures of his sculptures, but then focused completely on the photographing of his work. One of his most famous pieces called "Pieces of Dust" was done by collection dust around The Museum of American Art and recreating it into the pictures that where being exhibited in the museum. The ironic thing about this is, that dust is seen as a destructive thing in art, especially in museum exhibitions.

Another famous piece of work by Muniz is titled "Clouds" where he would sky wright cartoon images of clouds in the clear sky over New York and then photograph them. While "Clouds" is a well known exhibition by Muniz, I myself am not a fan of this particular piece.

In this video I found online, he talks about himself and what he thinks it is to be creative.

http://www.ted.com/talks/vik_muniz_makes_art_with_wire_sugar.html

His work really caught my attention when I was researching for my Relive and Remake project. The first image of his I saw was the image of abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock by Hans Namuth, that he had redone in chocolate syrup. The detail of the image is amazing, showing alot of precise work and dedication. Also the way he had lit the image gave it more depth which worked really well, as it could have looked flat being a 2d image of a 2d drawing.

References -

• The Photograph as Contemporary Art - Charlotte Cotton
• http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/photography/photographerframe.php?photographerid=ph080
• http://www.artnet.com/artist/12255/vik-muniz.html
• http://www.vikmuniz.net/html/bio.html
• http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2001/clouds/muniz/about_clouds.htm

...Postmodernism: Janelle Monáe...

After being extremely confused about this topic for a long time I decided to talk about it involving music... seeing as I love and understand music.

Modernism as I understand it is a very broad and over theorised term to describe a very old art movement. Postmodernism as I understand it is a reaction to the work of modern philosophers. Modernism was replaced by Postmodernism : which one can not even talk about in a dictionary. Basically saying that everything original has already been done, and that anything that is made now is just a copy or an influence.

"Music: An art form that has the potential to change the world"

Im going to talk about a music artist called Janelle Monae. Born December 1st 1985 in Kansas, Janelle Monae Robinson, moved to New York to study theatre at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She later changed her plans to preforming on broadway to creating music, an art she had a true passion for.Her music has been described as Grippo: A type of music that combines styles from a wide and varying list of genres and combines them into one almost genre-less sound, music that has no borders or race whatsoever .

Her albums tell a futuristic sci-fi story of a cyber-girl named Cindi Mayweather who has been programmed not to feel any emotion. However she falls in love with a human, which is against the law, and she then goes on the run. The reason she is doing something new but is seen as postmodern is, even though she is defining herself while many other artists are letting the "era" define them, she has been influenced by many things. Listening to her music you can tell that she knows her musical history. With influences from Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and even Elvis. All the while keeping in with her own style and her own vision, telling her own story.

References -

• http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=postmodernism
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya6qYbkJb9U
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHgbzNHVg0c

...Semiotics: Banned Aids Awareness...

This image that I found is a real life AIDS campaign poster that was released in France. As you can see, it shows a man having sex with a large scorpion and a woman receiving oral sex from an enormous tarantula. Sexy right?

I decided to talk about Semiotics with this poster, as I think the semiotics in this photograph are negative. The posters main point is to bring awareness to AIDS with shock value. The grotesque image of humans having sex with arachnids sticks in the mind of the viewer, but may not do the job that the advertisement was made to do. While it does its job of shocking the viewer the whole idea of using a large tarantula and scorpion is to show something that is poisonous and therefore dangerous to us and is something we want to avoid. The huge spider and scorpion register in our mind as something bad and frightening. But are people who have AIDS like this?

The poster uses little words to get is message across, only a small print at the bottom that translates to : "Without protection, you are making love to AIDS. Protect yourself", and itself could be considered propaganda as you could argue that while bringing awareness to AIDS it is also showing people who have aids in a bad light. Yeah they may have AIDS, but is having sex with them the same as having sex with a scorpion?

I personally feel that the intention of the poster is good, as it is bringing AIDS into the light in a way that people will remember, but at the same time, is saying that people who do have AIDS are poisonous, dangerous and essentially walking death. It reminds me of the old AIDS campaigns of the 80's which described it in such a way that made people believe that even being in the same room as an AIDS sufferer would be enough to pass on the disease.

References -

• http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/2007/05/french_aids_cam/

...Banksy? Art or Vandalism?...

"In a world with no rules....one man broke them all"

Contemporary graffiti artist Banksy, (whose identity has been never been revealed), has become alot more popular over the last few years. His ironic, outspoken and often funny works have gained alot of attention, and have caused many arguments with critics, mainly "Is it Art? Or is it just vandalism?"

I find his work very inspiring and interesting as he says what many people are thinking and don't want to say. It also sends a powerful message to people with a shock value that many other artists don't have. I love graffiti as art and Banksy is defiantly my favourite graffiti artist.

His work has appeared all around London, and even in other places around the world. He uses his own unique style of graffiti, often using stencils mixed with well know artworks, to promote aspects of politics often ignored by mainstream media. His most identified pieces are his rats which can be seen holding signs saying things like "London Doesn't Work", ""You Lose" and "Go Back To Bed". He has also added his stencil touch to "Water Lilies" by Monet (Entitled Show Me Monet), the famous picture of the 9 year old Vietnamese girl running by Huynh Cong Ut (having her run with Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald) and even Queen Victoria. He has managed to hang a piece of his own work inside London's Tate Modern and also in New York's Museum of Modern Art and American Museum of Natural History.

On March 5th 2010, a humorous and ironic film documentary about street artists, including Shepard Fairey, Thierry Guetta and Banksy was released. Banksy's face is never revealed and his voice is distorted through out the film to hide is identity. I have yet to see the film, but as it more ironic and not based on the real life of banksy i'm not really in a rush to see it.

References -

• http://www.banksyfilm.com/
• http://www.banksy.org.uk/
• http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/banksy/Banksy_photos_thumb_011.htm

...Edward Burtynsky...

Edward Burtynsky is a Photographer and artist born in 1955 and has since become one of Canada most respected photographers. He mostly does documentary photography that shows how man/manmade industry has affected landscapes. He studied Graphic Art at college and then went on to become a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Photography at Ryerson University and then became a lecturer on photographic art. He has hosted alot of exhibitions including Before the Flood (2003) and China (2005-2008), which have been shown not only in Canada, but across the States and also in Europe.

His images are technically perfect showing alot of depth and detail, usually of landscapes that have been affected by industry, such as shipyards, mines and scrap piles. His photographs are taken on a large format field camera, usually 4x5, and a printed to become high resolution pictures. The reason i chose to blog about him is because I find his images very powerful as they show a man Vs nature theme, and even in the images that show scrap heaps there is a certain beauty about them. The above image of his is my favourite of his. I love the contrast and the impact it has. The framing is great too, and i like how the lava at the front of the image looks hot, while the trees in the distance seem cold.

He has recently came out with a exhibition that was released as a book, titled Oil (2009), that shows a decade of photography that explores the subject of oil and its uses. I tried looking for the book but I couldn't find it :(

References -

• http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/
• http://www.lensculture.com/burtynsky.html
• http://www.kochgallery.com/artists/contemporary/Burtynsky/index.html
• http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/Sections/Statement_CV/Bio.html

...Lee Friedlander...

"Central Park, 1992" - Lee Friedlander

Ok, so this my attempt at a blog entry, and i'll start by talking about one of my favourite photographers: Lee Friedlander. I enjoy his style, and the mystery and mood that is present in his photographs is something that I try to create in my own.

Lee Friedlander was born in 1934 in Aberdeen Washington and first started photography taking pictures of Jazz Musicians for album covers. His early work is known for his self-exploration that can be seen not only in his cultural statements but also his self-portraits. He has said that his biggest influences are Walker Evens and Robert Frank. He has used many different cameras in his time, from a Lecia M Series 35mm camera to a Hassleblad Super-wide Medium Format Camera. Because of this, Friedlander's style has changed somewhat. 15 years ago his photographs reflected his knowledge at the time: he would use fences to frame his images, showing that he would chose and carefully plan to structure his framing. Bu his images would still come out great. Nowadays his images are more luminescent and naturally structured.

He created a series called "Stems" while suffering from arthritis. He was housebound, and had to do what many other artists and photographers do and make use of the things around him. (I recently had this experience myself). He took pictures of flowers his wife would place around the house, but was allot more interested in the stems. It was published before having his knee joints replaced since his "limbs" reminded him of stems. These images where said to be less textured than what is seen in his older work, but shows a strange period during the photographers career. He was sat in his chair at home rather than out in the city streets, woods, road or at parties.

References -

• http://www.fotopriority.com.au/2009/09/quote-a-day-lee-friedlander/
• http://www.schaden.com/book/FriLeeSte03006.html
• Lee Friedlander - The museum of modern art