Sept. 23, 2010- Dali and Halsman

So last weekend for my best friend's birthday, we drove to Atlanta to see the Dali exhibit at the High Museum. I loved looking through each medium of art Dali engaged in, but--surprise!--my favorite part of the exhibit was a gallery of photography featuring photos from the famous Halsman and Dali collaboration. Halsman was famous for his portraiture of celebrities. All are more intimate and real than most other glamour photos from that era. However, I think Halsman's career really took off when he and Dali began to work together. This photo above, In Voluptas Mors, began as a sketch that Dali drew and wanted Halsman to create. They spent days building the structure to hold the girls and tens of hours placing the lighting and models. The structure of women looks effortless and elegant, a little unsettling because of their individual beauty, and yet the gruesome image they make up. Dali in the foreground is perfect, slightly out of focus, mustache a-flying, looking as complex and, well, surreal as ever.

This is Halsman's famous Dali Atomicus. Whenever I first saw most of Halsman's photos, I thought someone had taken vintage photos and photoshopped them to create all the effects his photography features. But no---far more impressive, Halsman created his whimsical scenarios and portraits through hours and hours of carpentry, throwing water (and cats), and making people jump over and over until things clicked. I was astounded by the dedication, time, genius, and eye for detail that went into every one of his photos (and here I was complaining about my 35-shot contact sheet!). I was also amazed by the rightness of their collaboration. Halsman seemed too personal and whimsical for strait celebrity portraiture, and I believe Dali brought out the best in him. And without Halsman, Dali would never have been immortalized or seen in the same way as one of the most bizarre and genius personalities of the modern era.

That said, I also love Halsman's portraits of all the famous figures of his day. They bring honesty through their off-coloredness. Face it--not every person is meant to be captured in the way that many portraiture photographers of the day worked- everyone was highly stylized, beautifully lit, utterly perfect. Those portraits are so beautiful that they are boring. And give little to no sense of the person's true identity. That's what the public really wants to see from portraits--the truth. They want the photos to reveal something no one is supposed to know about that person, or to see that person documented in a new way. This portrait above is of Tippi Hendron. It's a perfect example of Halsman's dedication to bringing whimsy and truth to each portrait.  

Sept. 19, 2010- All Roads Photography

National Geographic has a neat series of awards called the All Roads Photography Awards, and is "part of the All Roads Film Project, a National Geographic program dedicated to providing a platform for indigenous and underrepresented minority-culture storytellers from around the world to showcase their works to promote knowledge, dialogue, and understanding with a broader, global audience." Sumit Dayal, the photographer of both these photos, is from Kashmir, historically caught between Pakistan and India and the main source of conflict between the two countries. His story got to me because it combines my true loves- social activism, international affairs, and photography. His photo style is right up my alley, too. These photos seem like they could've come from a film camera roll shot in the early 20th century. I love pictures of people and situations and places I've never known even existed. Who knew that there are still entire floating markets in Kashmir? He has awesome tonal range and  a wide depth of field--you can view each man's expression. I love the photo below for some of the same reasons.

9/14/2010- Hockney!

I went to the swimming pool yesterday to attempt a Hockney-style photo for class, and I am incredibly frustrated, yet completely amazed at the skill required to take these composite pictures! It makes me enjoy the good composites once I come across them. This is actually one of Hockney's above. The quality of each individual picture is beautiful, with all colors and details standing out brilliantly. It is fascinating to behold the entire montage or the individual shots. His exposure is fairly uniform, too, which makes it easier to pass the eye over the composite and view it as a whole.

This looks like a composite I may be more capable of taking, although I still don't understand how to take 35 parallel pictures that aren't supposed to overlap! At any rate, I love this one because of the motion of the kite and children. It makes it look like a grand kite festival as a whole, until you realize they were simply running around with the photographer taking pictures of the different spots as they ran around. It's slightly curved and distorted from changing perspective, but not too much so. The exposures are less even in this one, but it's beautiful because most of the variation is in the blue sky, so you just end up getting to look at a pretty range of blues.

9/8/2010- Silhouettes

This was during some kind of ceremony in Japan during a festival. There are times when silhouettes, even without the detail you would normally have of the subject, capture something about the subject that could never have been exposed normally. Here, we are familiar enough with the form and dress of the geisha to know what we are looking at. But in her silhouette, she presents a certain grace, quietness, and flirtation that would have been lost partially with a higher exposure. We also see the beautiful textile in the background, whatever that it. I think it's textured wallpaper, making lines that seem to move when photographed.

9/7/2010- Boats

Another subject I love to see pictures of and photograph whenever I have the chance- boats and water. The one above combines several aspects of photography that I love: It's in black and white with beautiful tones, and there is, indeed, a boat in it. What I like most is that it tells a story...it makes you wonder, not about what the subject is, but about who this silhouetted boy is, what he is doing out in the ocean by himself, and whether something happened to his boat or if he has simply seen a large fish to jump after. It's graceful, unusual, and calming to look at.

Here is another boat-port sort of picture. I love this one because of its focus both on a harbor on a very beautiful night. Harbors are something you don't often think about except in their usefulness. They are not often seen as a thing of beauty. I love the perspective, the blue tint, and that the stars are crisp and glorious with a low enough shutter speed or aperture to see them without washing out the boats and water. I am very interested in using natural light to recreate a scene as closely to what my eye sees so that I can experience a scene I like over and over again.

9/2/2010- Photograms, baby!

Patrick "Paddy" O'Rourke is a New Zealander who does drawings and then turns them into photograms. I don't understand how, but they are incredible! He says, "Cameraless and computerless I work across disciplines to produce pieces incorporating photogram, carbon paper, graphite and ink." The above is just incredibly detailed and beautiful in its negative look.

 This is a layered photogram in a light box, which has an incredible effect, bringing out the details and contrast of the black and white. I'm pretty sure the layers are still all his drawings. This is titled, "Helen," which I like, because it seems like he captured her a bit in the left and then used the rest of the space to bring in memories, objects, designs that he might link to Helen. It's a beautiful way to do a portrait. Below, see a layered photogram of his that uses his drawings and other media, like a photograph and a badge.