Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s (1908–2004) “inventive work of the early 1930s helped define the creative potential of modern photography, and his uncanny ability to capture life on the run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”—the title of his first major book.”

MoMa has some online exhibitions of Cartier-Bresson and an interactive gallery (this one is of his USSR photos).

“Cartier-Bresson was the first Western photographer to be admitted to the Soviet Union after the death of Josef Stalin, in 1953. The pictures he made in the summer of 1954 were news in themselves, and several magazines reproduced quite a few of them. When he returned to the U.S.S.R. nearly two decades later, in 1972 and 1973, his image of Soviet life developed a new dimension—grim, barren, and bleak.”

I’ve been wanting to post about a street photographer, but wanted to find one who was more inspirational/less pretentious than The Sartorialist (pretty much the only contemporary one I’m really familiar with). So I wikipedia’d ‘street photography’ and came across this guy. He seems pretty awesome, so I plan on learning more about his work!

Hi everyone. My name is Gary.

well. I am enthusiastic… and I have a camera….um. I hope that as the quarter progresses my pictures will improve in quality.

Looked cool at the time...


Here is one of my self portrait daily photos from our assignment

Julien Brenton – Light Calligraphy

I’ve seen a lot of ‘light writing‘ photos on the internet, and they can vary in quality and creativity, but this weekend I found the best example to date. Julien Brenton does a lot of work with Arabic Calligraphy, and has moved to going some very powerful pieces with light writing. The examples below are bad screen caps, check it out here for better resolution.

Filters on the 35mm

My brother has been experimenting with filters on his 35mm camera – rather than altering the footage post production. Nice colors right? I’m sure I’ll end up posting more of his work, since he’s constantly sending me updates.

 

https://plus.google.com/photos/107294301392691723652/albums/5698088871608241793?authkey=CIvmvKq-8paHxwE&banner=pwa&hl=en-US

Fire

I’ll admit it, I am an incurable carnie. I love circuses and performing and being that weird guy who juggles for no reason. I do a lot of photography of flowers and mushrooms, but if there is one subject I find the most fascinating, the most alive and dynamic, it is fire. I have harbored a healthy fascination and respect for fire for as long as I can remember, and good photography locks the liquid properties of fire for everyone to appreciate.  I’ve followed Tom Lacoste on DeviantArt for years, before he quit DA earlier last year. I tracked his work down to a flicker account for everyone to enjoy. The pictures below link to different sections, click on his name to see the full set.

Daniel Golston

More on young, local talent. I grew up with Daniel – we were even ‘boyfriend & girlfriend’ in the fourth grade. To his dismay, I dumped him on the playground. The story has a happy ending though – as it turned out he likes boys, so we’ve settled on ‘besties’.

Daniel is studying fashion photography at the School of Visual Concepts in NYC, but he’s a globe-trotter in his off time. His travel photography is worth taking a look at. Enjoy!

inspiration

I checked out Danielle Tunstall’s work…woah. I liked how looking through her work there were alot of recurring themes and visual elements that gave her work a very cohesive feel, her style becomes very recognizable. I would imagine that is very important for a professional photographer…any artist of that matter strives, I think, to develop his/her personal artistic style so they may become identifiable in the art world. I also enjoyed her use of special effects (particularly demonstrated in the video on her website) to add to the gritty and age-worn feel of her work. What I was most attracted to in her body of work was her black and white portrait (perhaps because we are working in B & W and I am always drawn to faces). I liked the way she was able to capture such contrast in her B & W portraits…in the close-up portrait of the young boy, you can see and imagine the feel of each freckle that marks his face. There is also a gritty aspect to her B & W work. How is that achieved and controlled? I would love to try and capture the grit of life in my B & W work (particularly portraits).