Josef Koudelka

Born in 1938 Boskovice ( former Czechoslovakia) Josef Koudelka is a photographer who's work I greatly admire. This is mainly due to the photographs he took of Romany people throughout Eastern Europe. His first book titled 'Gypsies' was published in 1975 and is my favourite to date. In it hes shows the journey he took through gypsy communities, exploring the customs and traditions of the Roma people, a people that were and still are greatly outcast from modern society.

Documenting them through all of life occasions such as weddings, funerals, some hard times and some good. He manages to capture their true emotions so that they for the first time can be understood as people, rather than judged as outlaws. Above I have placed two of my favoutire phtogoraphs one of which was taken at a funeral and higlights a tragic moment for a famiily. Yet is heart capturing becuase of the beautifully white light shining down on the body that etchines out the faces and emotions of the people standing by.

Also I have included another of Koudelkas photographs that was taken at a wedding were by the gypsies took to the streets to play their instruments; something they were know greatly for and took pride in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Koudelka

Modern Photographer

Man Rays' work could be labeled a modernist approach to photography because of his attentive detail to form, structure, composition and lighting. He looks at the subject as shapes and lines; as a visual structure.

Man Ray took the photograph above called 'Larmes' in Paris 1930. This was at the time of the break up with his then Lover Lee Miller. It can be said the false tears maybe in some what in relation to his emotions and situation at the time.

As you can see this photograph is a film still and visualises a new style of photographic genre that is not concerned with what is real and factual, but more about the conceptual idea behind the image.

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=44253

United colors of Benetton

Figure 1 AIDS – Davis Kirby 1992. Photo: Courtesy of the United Colors of Benetton website

The United Colors of Benetton are a hugely successfully Italian based clothing company that always aim to make a statement and raise awareness in their advertisement campaigns. In 1992 they used this photograph of David Kirby dying of HIV AIDS(see figure 1). Its aim: to raise awareness of AIDS worldwide, and to get people talking about a topic that still today remains a taboo matter in many countries.

Though what is wrong with this image? Well German Appeal courts got the advertisement banned all together in Germany, having claimed that,

“Benetton is trying, through its depiction of the intense suffering of living things, to evoke a feeling of compassion on the part of the consumer, and to suggest that it is sympathetic," the court wrote. "In this way, Benetton tries to enhance its name and its business in the mind of the consumer."

Also adding that the advertisement, “strips HIV-positive people of their dignity.”

It is difficult determine whether or not the company is sincere about their reasons behind the campaign, or if they are in fact exploiting someone else’s pain for the benefit of company profit. Though the answer is impossible to know. What is definite though is that some moments are too sensitive to expose, such as this one. To think if you knew someone that was dying or had died of AIDS would you really want advertisements like this posted all over the world? Showing an image of a weak and frail person who has some what lost their dignity and the ability to live. I am sure that is not how people want to remember their loved ones, nor be remembered. Rather figure_ can be viewed as a form of shock tactic,an advertisement that digs deep for cheap emotional manipulation, rather than a source of truth and new awareness.

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was a Jewish - American fashion photographer turned documentary photographer, born in 1923 New York City. I have to say I love her work its truely depressing and gritty. She chose to photograph people that where anything but ordinary, so called 'freaks' of society. Anything from dwarfs, transvestites and circus performers to the mentally ill.

She would follow these people day and night and catch them when they were off guard and most vulnerable, because they had begun to trust her.

She has been criticized by art critiques such as Susan Sontag. One being for her choice of lighting when photographing her subjects such as the one in the portrait above. Arbus did anything but beautify the person in the image.

"These photographs show the world only as a meaningless place of ugliness, horror and misery." Smith, C. Zoe. "Audience Reception of Diane Arbus' Photographs." Journal of American Culture, volume 8, issue 1, pages 13-28, Spring 1985.

She used a harsh flash creating a dark carved shadow around the person; further enhancing any unflattering features. So forth not giving a fair representation of them and the 'people' they represent within society.

Above I have also chosen a photograph Arbus took in a Psychiatric hospital of a few of the patients. She truly makes them look like a bunch of freaks; photographing them with paper bags on their heads. You can question the ethical stand point on this as she is photographing people that aren't of sound mind. She is coming in to their seemingly 'safe' and 'protected' environment and photographing them at their worst.

Though Arbus cannot be criticised to full extent as she to suffered from mental health problems. She was Bi - Polar and suffered from severe mood swings and bouts of depression. Leading to her death at the age of 48; suicide by ingesting barbiturates and slitting her wrists.

A different look on feminism

When I think of feminism I think of bra burning and hairy hippies, though the truth is feminism is far from that. Its more about equality for women and the end to primitive views and laws that belittle women universally.

A group of woman calling themselves 'The Guerrilla Girls,' were a group of radical feminist artists who established themselves in 1985 New York. Disguised as guerrillas they managed to remain anonymous. These women weren't stupid they where lawyers, accountants, business woman. They targeted the prejudices women faced in the art world regarding the lack of female artists work present in galleries in New York and America. They did this by designing catchy posters covered with facts and statistics regarding the matter such as,

'Less than 5% of the artists in the Met's modern art sections were women, but 85% of the nudes were female.'

These posters where spread all across New York, on buses, on billboards and even in galleries. The Guerrilla girls wanted to provoke thought in people and inevitably create change. They did this is in a clever manner using sharp and tact full facts that would be recognised in a male dominant world.

Below I have posted a video that I once saw of the 'Ali G,' (Sacha Baron Cohen) conducting an interview with a feminist, this cracked up. It also put forth some off the chauvinistic (in this case exaggerated) views that men can have too and about women.

Britney Spears unairbrushed Candies advertisments

On the 14th of April Britney Spears did something no other celebrity seems to have done before, by releasing the untouched original photographs for her Candies (the American fashion firm) Advertisments. Apparentley

'The 29 - year old singer made the extraordinary move in order to higlight the pressure exerted on women to look perfect.' -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1265676/Britney-Spears-releases-airbrushed-images-digitally-altered-versions.html

We all know images are used through out the media to sell an idea of perfection that people can then buy in to, in hope that they to can be just as perfect as the person in the photograph. Though to me the images Britney released don't seem to expose to much of a flaw on the woman. I would say the statement she was trying to make was one of ' look at me I don't need to be airbrushed I'm a fine figure of a female without all this retouching,' in response to the negative press coverage on her image over the few years. Rather than it being a way to highlight the pressue put on woman to look perfect.
The original photographs although with some flaws inact such as brusing to Britneys legs and a sligher wider waste line, still show a figure that is admirable and a very unrealistic representation of the average females figure. The images she has released don't address the point of a how manipulative the media can be through the use of technology; to a satistifcatory enough extent. Her photographs in now way show the extreme and vast way a image can be altered in order to achieve the unreachable perfection, that people are being sold.




Now when I heard about what she had done I expected something quite drastic in the case of re touching before and after. So I've done a little expermentating of my own and produced a different version of the images using Photoshop that I would have thought to have had much more of an impact if the idea really was to 'highlight the pressure put on women to look perfect.'



Now this would have been a real 'statement.' She still looks good, still has a slim yet curvy figure but just with a little more meat on her bones. A much more realistic image of a womans body for females to 'aspire towards,' or see the next time they open a magazine or on a lingerie or bathing suite ad. Becuase after all Britney's only 8st stone, so really how bad could she possibly look before airbrushing...?

Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin is a photographer whose work has been of much contoversy due to its context and credibility. Born in Washington D.C to a Jewish family and growing up in Boston, most of her work is documentary work based around the gay and transexuals communities.
A self proclaimed drug addict and alcoholic, Nan once didn't go outside for 15 years. Having mental health problms herself her life was spent in out of psychiatric wards.
Her photographs are a some what self portrait of her own view of life. Being graphic, raw and at times unpredictable no wonder they where a shock to the mainstream photographical industry of her time.
Like the photograph above, many of her images where taken of transgender males in and out of clubs but mostly in their homes. Goldin's friends were mainly gay or transsexual; drug users and alcoholics. But at that time drugs and alcohol such as cocaine and crack were blindly used for recreational purposes.
Goldin knew her subjects very well so her photographs are both a documentation of her life and experiences with the people around her. They are not planned and rarely contrived, being sometimes blurry and out of focus her photographical skills are made to be questioned by critiques. As to why these simple images deserve any technical credibility or recognition.
Though her photographs target the issues that other photographers were too scared to address such as gays and transsexuals and the HIV AIDS virus that was plaguing their community. Therefore being an eye opener to the hidden world of her time; painting a page in history that would have otherwise gone un noticed.