Alot of my blogs haven’t been turning up on the photography blog site…buuuut hopefully this one will!

The more I’ve been shooting and developing and as I explore more artist works via the internet I find I’m becoming increasingly obsessed and transfixed by faces captured in black and white. I get bored shooting and looking at nature and buildings…but faces, the bodies connected, emotions and stories that they can express through a single moment captured in shades of black and white! For example, the portraits of Richard Avedon…I’m interested in how he explores expression through a series or set of images (seems relevant to our Night & Day project too), but most of all I’m blown away by the power behind each captured face and gesture. I was also particularly struck by Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s photography. I was intrigued by the way he utilized nature/the scenery surrounding to communicate with the viewer. Sometimes the scenery offsets the figure/s (like in the masked portraits) creating a sort of juxtaposition, while other times the scenery emphasizes the emotion communicated by the figure/s. The framing in his work is interesting to me.

I’m loving shooting people…but I’m getting tired of shooting my housemates. If anyone would like their photo taken OR would like to bring some friends OR model clothes/dress up OR just mess around and take pictures I WOULD LOVE TO TAKE YO PICTURE and friends! AND I’LL MAKE YOU A PRINT!

Im friendly! If your interested message me- kazanje@students.wwu.edu

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).