Robert Frank

Robert Frank

Its fair to say that Robert Frank was easily one of the most influential photographers during the mid 20^th century. Frank is an American Photographer, however born in Zurich, Switzerland. Franks best known by his series called ‘The Americans’ but was a successful fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar magazine in Paris before he moved to the United States, where he experimented with different types of photography. Frank became the first non-American to be awarded with the Guggenheim Fellowship in photography, which funded his journey across the America. After Frank’s year long trip he had taken 2700 photographs. Which back then is a great achievement, especially with the sheer class of those photographs. Only 83 of those photographs were actually used in his book of ‘The Americans’

Franks photographs have an unique however strange style to them, there are characterized with bold composition. Because of Franks unique style, his photographs were not immediately appreciated and respected. At first art critics were far from impressed with his work for being ‘seemingly loose and casual compositions’ photographs were often with out of focus foregrounds and tilted horizons. Many people often refused to write about his work that’s probably why the book The Americans wasn’t so successful straight away.

Robert Frank- The Americans
http://www.steidlville.com/books/695-The-Americans.html

Martin Parr

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a tourist photographer for Magnum Photos agencies. He travels all over the globe for both commissioned and self set projects.

Ive been following the work of Martin Parr the last few years and have been extremely impressed with the sharpness and saturation of his work. I know that Martin doesn’t use a digital camera but I’m very interested in how he creates such well lit and sharp photographs.

I found out that Martin uses a ring flash on use film camera’s which to be honest they look like they would weigh the camera down a lot. Also I have heard rumours from an interview with Martin Parr that he uses a macro lenses on top of his film camera with a ring flash. I used macro lenses for long distance shots and everything that was not close was out of focus. However this may be different when using a film camera with a ring flash.

Anyways Martin is a huge influence to anyone who interested in urban landscapes and especially documentary photography. Also being a photographer from Britain he is an idol for any sort of up and coming British photographers.

http://www.martinparr.com/MartinParrCV.pdf

Modernism / Post Modernism

After researching about Modernism and Post Modernism I’ve came across a statement from some theorist of the twentieth Century that say the 20^th century is divided by the Modernism movement and Post Modernism movement. The movement of Modernism began in 1980 with people wanting the world to change with the use of science and technology. This started to change the way the world viewed such art forms such as music, art, literature and even photography. The meaning of ‘Postmodernism’ means after the modern. Postmodernism started after the seconded world war and started as a reaction to modernism and how it was influenced by the disenchantment brought the seconded world war. The developments in culture, the economy and the culture of the 1960’s were all impacted by postmodernism.

Man Ray is an Iconic modernism. An American artist however living in France Man Rays work would often be manipulated giving them a modern and surreal look to them. A close friend of Ray’s was Lee Miller who created the photographic technique of solarisation.
An iconic post modernist would be Martin Parr. Martins work is very ‘post modern’ he loves to document changes in the world, and always documents moments exactly how it is.

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/modernism/modpostmod.html
hl=en&lr=&id=lPUQrEbX_nwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&ots=7gzSdhxIK_&sig=U55lZaaml1R--IyRmWYUatj9yrE#v=onepage&q&f=false

Feminism

FeminismWhat exactly is feminism? Feminism is the belief that women should have the same rights as men and should also be treated the same within the society. We know in the past in the UK, women didn’t have these same rights and were unable to participate fully in our social arenas and institutions. I think it is fair to say a feminist is someone who wants to change that situation.

Before world war one, most women in the UK worked within the household being house wives. However during the war, all the men left their jobs to fight the war. Women took over their jobs but were encouraged to assume their roles as house wives after, or maybe its fair to say their were forced back into the roles of house wives. This brought a huge rise to Feminism, since many women believed that they should be able to obtain them.

There are two famous Feminist writers of that period, they go by the names of Alva Myrdal and Viola Klein who both started to question the possibility of women being able to combine home with outside employment. Many activist went through great length during that time to express their views on ‘Welfare Feminism’ which is the form of feminism back then is referred to.

http://georgepowell.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/feminism/
http://www.pwponline.org/page.php?page=about