EDIT PICTURES

SOLITUDE PHOTOGRAPHY

These pictures are been taken in the Goffs park in Crawley and the Hyde Park in London

SOLITUDE PICTURES

I researched all the three types of photography listed in the blog, I decided to base my assignment on the solitude photography.
I was thinking to get some pictures of trees, and empty streets.

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY

Fashion Photography is a type of photography displaying clothes and fashion items.

We can discover fashion photography in magazines like: Vogue, Vanity Fair, Grace and many others.

One of the biggest and most important Fashion photography magazine is Vogue.

Vogue is a fashion magazines published monthly in 18 different nations.

The current editor of the American Vogue is probably one of the most impressive and rich person in America, her name is Anna Wintour.

She took over Vogue in 1988 and since then she produced a type of fashion that nobody have seen it before, she also took her magazine to a wider audience.

Not many photographers had the honour of taking pictures for Vogue.

One of the early photographer who took some amazing fashion pictures was Cecil Beaton.

Cecil Beaton was an English fashion and portrait photographer.

Beaton took many exellent shots for Vogue.

Vogue took him regurarly in 1927.

Cecil Beaton made fantastic fashion pictures, and many Vogue's photographers nowadays are trying to set up the same studio, same lights and same camera that he used back in the thirties and reproduce the same or (almost the same) pictures.

Beaton also worked for Vanity Fair during the thirties.

Fashion Photography different from others types of Photography, produce a kind of fake image; so we need to understand that the audience who like fashion photography are very different to those who liked war and photojournalism.

War photography it shows something real, something that in that moment is really happening; while Fashion photography is more a studio shots photography modified by computers.

Infact many models that we see and admire on posters or magazines they are just a reproduction of a sudio picture modified in later on a computer.

Fashion photography also look like portrait photography, so what is the difference?

Both are visual art forms and each of them fills a particular need.

We need to take in consideration that Fashion photography deals with the exterior areas of humans being; clothes, make up, hair style are all about the appearance.

Fashion photography is also a form of art that change with time.

Portrait photography capture the essence of the individual not the appearance.

Portrait photography is also used in a lot documentaries to show lives and fellings of people.

THOMAS HOEPKER

One of the many differences between human beings and animals is that humans need to reflect their own lives;
they need to record special moments and to freeze scenes of their lives.
That's why Photography nowadays is one of the most important media of our time.

We find photography everywhere, magazines, books, TV, posters.
We are constantly fed by pictures 24 hours a day.
Our century if full of great photographers.
Ton/y Vaccaro, Eddie Adams, Diane Arbus and many other artists have helped to enrich our century with colour and meaningful pictures; and in this post I am going to analyse the life and the work of one of them.
Thomas Hoepker is a German photographer.
He was born in Munich in 1963.
Hoepker first began taking pictures when he was                 sixteen.
His grandfather gave him an old 9/2 glass plate camera.
He developed pictures in house and began to sell some of his photos to friends and classmates.
In a few years Hoepker became a respected photographer; Magnum Photo began to publish his pictures in
1964 and he became a full member in 1989.
Thomas Hoepker's pictures are very passionate; they captured moment and action of our life that only such an artist could see.
He used say " I am not an artist, I am an image maker" 
He took all kind of pictures, black and white, colour, he added some special effect to some of them and as a World photographer he has been everywhere.
During his career his photographed many famous people like: Mohammed Ali, Andy Warhol and many others.
On 9/11, the day that America was attacked he took one of the most controversial pictures.
A group of New Yorkers sit and chatting in sunny day, while on the other side two towers in New York are burning.
In this picture these people look very calm, enjoy their day, like nothing was happening.
 This picture when first came out was banned because in that sad moment of the history, a group of American were looking the towers burning with indifference, so America could have bad publicity.
This picture was banned for years and it just came out this year.
We will never know what those people were thinking; maybe they were scared and worried just like the rest of the world.
 Thomas Hoepker took this picture, maybe he could be the only one to know what those people were discussing about and what were their feelings.

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAHY

Portrait photography or portraiture is when you capture an image of a person or a small group of people, in which the face and expression are the most predominant.

Even if in the portrait picture the face is the most important, some photographers decide to include the body and background aswell.
A portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the camera.
One of the first portrait photographer that I can mention in this blog is Diane Arbus.
Diane Arbus was an American photographer and writer, famous for her portraits to different people  (giants, nudists and circus perform)
she used to say " I am a photographer of freaks"
She also took portraits of powerfull families, like the Matthaei family portaits.
The Matthaei family were hiring important photographers like Diane Arbus, to take portaits of the family.
Diane spent a lot of time around the Matthaei's villa taking portraits of the family members.
Diane she was particulary interested in the Conrad Matthaei's daughter, Marcella.
She liked taking picture of Marcella in the white dress, she was constantly looking for emotion from the subject in front of the camera.
Diane Arbus committed suicide in the late sixties.
Walker Evans was taking portraits during the depression.
He was always looking for families very poor.
One of his famous picture is called " The Croppers prepared to have their picture done"
In this photo we can see this family ready for having their picture done, so one of them is looking at the camera, the other one looks a bit nervous and so on.
Richard Avedon, probably a genius of the portrait photography, his best pictures were made during the late 40s early 50s.
The great gift of Avedon is that he was capable to make rich and powerful people, look divine.
Another photographer who loved taking picture of famous people, was Tony Vaccaro.
The difference between Richard Avedon and Vaccaro is that Avedon took many pictures of famous people, and he was good to make them look very powerful, while Vaccaro wanted to make famous people look just like other common people, he wanted to capture the essential of their soul.
One of the Tony Vaccaro's famous portrait is the Pablo Picasso one.
Picasso once called him at his place to have is portrait done.
Vaccaro tells that Picasso had the intention to get a picture that would show is power and success.
Tony Vaccaro had no intention in that, so while Picasso was trying to get the perfect pose for his picture, Tony said there was something wrong with the camera; at that moment, Picasso drops this mask and show his real emotions and during that second Vaccaro pressed the shutter.

While others Americans photographers were concentrated in taking portraits of famous people, Larry Clark wanted to take picture about his life.
Larry Clark used to take pictures of him and his friends while they were shooting drugs and playing with guns.

Clark wanted to show a part of the American life that nobody wanted to see.
In 1971 he published a book, Tulsa.
In this book almost all the pictures are indoors and they show a life punctuated by drugs, guns and sex.

Looking at these photographers life, we can understand that the portraits photography has changed so much with the passing of the years.
At the beginning only rich people could afford it.
 During the seventies,  Larry Clark brought the portrait photography to an extreme point, showing sex and drugs.
Nowadays, portrait photography is everywhere, we can make portraits with our digital camera, we usually make portraits of our family or girlfriends and people we care.
Portrait photography is one of the most used technique of our era.




 

Photo Journalism and War Photography

Henri Cartier- Bresson was a very important french photographer, considered the father of modern photojournalism.
He always belived that being in the right place and the right time could make perfect pictures.
Henri Carteir- Bresson is also very famous for inventing a new tecnique of photography The Decisive Momen.
The Decisive Moment is when you capture the instant action in photography, a moment that won't be easy to repeat, one second before or after and the picture would look different.
Bresson himself used to wait for hours in the same place, waiting for life to come.
In 1933 Bresson created one of the most important picture in the photojournalism world.

This photograph (on the side) it's called: Behind the Gare St. Lazare.
This picture really show the decive moment tecnique.
A man jumping into the unknown.
This picture is also very famous because many people identify the man in the picture as the symbol of Europe jumping into the unknown during war time.
Another important aspect of the Photojournalism is the War Photography.
War photography captured moments of executions, conflits, battles during a war.
There are two photographers really important during the World War II.
Eddie Adams who won the Pulitzer price for a pictures that shows an execution of a Vietcong in 1973.
The photographer himself said that the decisive moment that he press the shutter the bullet just hit the boy's head.
This photograph became a symbol of what was really going on in Vietnam during the war, I think this picture is kind a mirror of the truth.

Another important photo, worth to be remembered in the War photography's; is a picture of a Spanish soldier just being hit by a bullet.

This picture was taken by the Pulitzer price winner Roberto Capa.

Roberto Capa was also a soldier, but he loved photography.

During the war he used to keep a rifle in his hand and a camera on his neck.

Another important name worth to mention is Tony Vaccaro who is one of the best photograher during the II World War.

nowa days there many books about war photography.

We can also find was photography in newspaper, and TV.

We can find many war pictures at the present day.

Infact there are thousands of pictures taken during the war in Iraq and we got many also many shoots taken when the World Trade Center it is been attacked.

One of the most impressing photo of the 9/11 is been taken by Richard Drew; and it shows a man falling from the tower.

Photographers like Toni Vaccaro, Eddie Adams, brought shocking images to people the rest of the population.

Eddie Adams was the godfather of the war photography during the Vietnam, because his pictures could actually tell to all the people away from war, what was really happening in Vietnam.

From those pictures, we understood that to take those kind of shots, we don't need sofisticated camera, tripods or background lights, we could just use simple cameras to make impressive war photos.

Infact after Eddie Adams, many photographer decided to go to war and witness by wonderful pictures the horror of the war.