HDR

HDR technique is something quite new and still not that popular although it gets more and more fans. I recenly had a go trying to create these pictures with dramatic atmosphere and not natural colour palette. First few attempts were not so succesful but i guess essential is to take a good shot and then by setting all features try to achieve best possible result.
HDR - In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple photographs, which in turn are known as low dynamic range (LDR)(also called standard dynamic range (SDR) photographs.Tone mapping techniques, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.

http://mathewfarris.blogspot.com/2009/04/topic-hdr-photography.html
http://www.hdrsoft.com/

Gothic Fashion

Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the Goth subculture; a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized fashion and style of dress. Typical Gothic fashion includes black dyed and crimped hair, black lips and black clothes. Androgynity is common, with both female and male goths wearing cosmetics, skirts or high heels. Styles are often borrowed from the Punks, Victorians and Elizabethans. BDSM imagery and paraphernalia are also common. Cintra Wilson declares that "The origins of contemporary goth style are found in the Victorian cult of mourning." Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.
Goth fashion can be recognized by its stark black clothing (or hair or makeup). Other distinctives are subject to interpretation.
I recently became interested in gothic fasion. Combination of outfits is amazing and dictinctive. Amazing is that this style was popular hundreds years ago but it is still considered by some people as something immortal.

http://www.gothicsubculture.com/

Philip Lorca Dicorcia

How amazing is fact that sometimes we do not know someone name but we recognize his art work and when we are looking for a specific artist suddenly one of the pics reminds us something. We can say that we have seen it somewhere before. It seems to be prdinary photograph but it is not. What would half-naked man be doing in front of the supermarket. Why someone took a picture of him? Was is an accident or the scene was carefully set up?
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Afterwards diCorcia attended Yale University where he received a Master of Fine Arts in Photography in 1979. He now lives and works in New York, and teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. His photographs would then give a sense of heightened drama to the passers-by accidental poses, unintended movements and insignificant facial expressions. Even if sometimes the subject appears to be completely detached to the world around him, diCorcia has often used the city of the subject's name as the title of the photo, placing the passers-by back into the city's anonymity.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/cruelandtender/dicorcia.htm
http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1997/Articles1097/PdiCorciaA.html

Daniel Boud

Daniel Boud...
here is part of an interview with him...
I love taking pictures. I’ve been doing it since i was a kid but it’s not something i took seriously until i bought my first digital camera. That was just a simple Canon Ixus V, but i used it almost every day, snapping ordinary things in my life.
I love seeing live music so would take my camera along and shoot pictures from the crowd.
I upgraded to a Canon 350D in March 2005 on a trip to Austin for SXSW. I wangled myself a media pass and shot dozens of gigs. SPIN and Rolling Stone magazine found some of my SXSW photos online and asked to publish them.
I’ve since been published again in SPIN and Rolling Stone plus other press including NME, Vanity Fair, The Sydney Morning Herald, Dazed and Confused, Nylon and dozens more. I used to work a lot for Drum Media and Mess and Noise.
I sometimes syndicate my photos through Retna.
I’ve got a BA (Media and Communication) from UNSW but no formal training in photography besides a short course in lighting from ACP.
My photography gear
The most common question i get asked is “what camera do you use?” I don’t think it matters a great deal, but if you’re curious, this is what i use.
* Canon 5D
* Canon 5D Mark II
* Tamron 14mm f2.8
* Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II
* Canon 50mm f1.4
* Canon 85mm f1.8
* Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS
* Canon Speedlite 580ex
* Canon Speedlite 580ex II
* Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home
* Crumpler Cork and Fork
Conparing my equipment to his I could say that I should be able to take picture of the same quality but there is something that cannot be seen. Hes got some extraordinary skills ability to capture breathtaking moments.

http://www.boudist.com/
http://www.musicphotographer.co.uk/
http://www.stevecarter.com/

Joana And Aurele In Bed

For the last few weeks my main focus was on contemporary art and intimate life and Nan Goldin became my main inspiration. Trying to capture amateur-like style but done by a professional was something very difficult. There is very thin line between these two sides and keeping balance was something what can prove that someone is an artist.
Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in an upper-middle-class Jewish family in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington. After attending the nearby Lexington High School, she enrolled at the Satya Community School in Lincoln, where a teacher introduced her to the camera in 1968; Goldin was then fifteen years old. Her first solo show, held in Boston in 1973, was based on her photographic journeys among the city's gay and transsexual communities, to which she had been introduced by her friend David Armstrong. Goldin graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University in 1977/1978, where she had worked mostly with Cibachrome prints.

http://www.art-directory.info/photography/nan-goldin-1953/index.shtml
http://photography.suite101.com/article.cfm/nan-goldins-photography

Sharad Haksar

The work of Chennai based photographer Sharad Haksar has already been popularized in numerous blogs. His ingenious cultural commentary and effortless transition between fine art and commercial photography deserves another mention.

In 2005 Mr. Haksar won the Cannes Silver Lion. That same year he was threatened with a lawsuit by Coca Cola for a billboard he placed in Chennai as an “expression of creativity”, despite having apparently received prior permission from the company. “The billboard features the ubiquitous red Coca-Cola wall painting, commonly found across India. Directly preceding the Coca-Cola ad, and part of the billboard, is a dry water hand-pump, with empty vessels waiting to be filled up with water - a common scene in India, particularly in Chennai. Mr. Haksar’s billboard highlights the severe water shortages being experienced by communities that live around Coca-Cola’s bottling plants across India. A community close to Chennai, in Gangaikondan, has already held large protests - protesting against an upcoming Coca-Cola plant. In the neighboring state of Kerala, in the village of Plachimada, Coca-Cola has been unable to open its bottling facility for the last 16 months - because the community will not allow it to. Coca-Cola is in serious trouble in India. A massive rural movement has emerged to hold the company accountable for creating water shortages and polluting the remaining water and soil.”

Why Women Live Longer...

This is certainly advertisement or at least was used to promote company`s product using stron semiotics. In real work situation like this has happened many times and this could another reminder that woman`s beauty is killing. The woman in the picture did not even notice what happened and even the sound of crashing car did not manage to get her attention.
Each man in the photograph who is distracted by the woman has a profession: guard, barber and gardener. This may be a signifier of the contrast of a middle class woman against a patriarchal working class background. For example, in figure 1 we see a smartly dressed woman placed against a dark and dreary underground station backdrop, and in figure 2 we see a pretty girl in a short dress contrasted against an enclosed and claustrophobic looking barber shop. The signified concept here is undoubtedly that when wearing Wallis clothes, you stand out.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/sar9502.html

1950s

I remember last year when Gary Winogrand`s work was shown to me as an example of harmony and obserwations. He could see what is gonna happen and in the right moment press the shutter button. But this picture is just stunning...It is unique and even if it was lucky shot then still makes an impression.
Garry Winogrand was born in 1928 in New York. There he studied painting at City College of New York, photography at Columbia University, and photojournalism with Alexey Brodovitch at The New School for Social Research. He photographed while in the Air Force, and did magazine work throughout the 1950s and 60s for publications like Life and Sports Illustrated. Winogrand has become known for a street-style of photography characterized by a wide-angle lens and 35mm camera, available light and unposed subjects, and countless exposures. Winogrand’s photographs have been widely exhibited, including a major retrospective organized in 1988 by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which traveled to the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin; Art Institute of Chicago; Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh; Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Winogrand died in 1984.

http://kopeikingallery.com/artists/view/garry-winogrand

We Can Do It!

J. Howard Miller's `We Can Do It!`, commonly mistaken to be Rosie the Riveter.
I can not really remember when and where I saw this poster first time but to me this would be an essence of feminish. It shows incredible power and determination. Typical mens pose and facial expression combined with colours work quite well. Perhaps no one would mess with that woman or even tried to say `no`. This is a perfect example of power and freedom.
Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military. The character is considered a feminist icon in the US.
Although real-life Rosie the Riveters took on male dominated trades during WWII, women were expected to return to their everyday housework once men returned from the war. Most women opted to do this. Later many women chose to return to traditional work such as clerical or administration positions.However, some of these women continued working in the factories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It_%28Liverpool_F.C._song%29
http://www.friesian.com/feminism.htm

Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore (born 1947 in New York City) is an American photographer known for his deadpan images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. Stephen Shore was interested in photography from an early age. Self-taught, he received a photographic darkroom kit at age six from a forward-thinking uncle. He began to use a 35mm camera three years later and made his first color photographs. At ten he received a copy of Walker Evans's book, American Photographs, which influenced him greatly. His career began at the early age of fourteen, when he made the precocious move of presenting his photographs to Edward Steichen, then curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Recognizing Shore's talent, Steichen bought three of his works. At age seventeen, Shore met Andy Warhol and began to frequent Warhol's studio, the Factory, photographing Warhol and the creative people that surrounded him. In 1971, at the age of 24, Shore became the second living photographer to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
First thought about this photographs was why this road is so empty? Where does it lead. It looks like one of these never ending, going across US states road to nowhere. I reminds me some classic american films.

http://www.madmaxmovies.com/
http://www.samueljohnson.com/road.html

Confused Woman?

From this comparison between modern and postmodernism, the distinction between the two modes of thought is clear. However, a clear distinction between the two creates a modern-postmodern dichotomy that undermines the very principles that postmodernism promotes. Postmodernism challenges `the appeal to the meta-narrative to legitimate foundationalist claims,`(Best and Kellner) but in such a challenge a postmodern meta-narrative is created.
I came across this image some time ago and at first I did not see anything special about it but there was something... something confusing so this may be the reason why I called it confused woman. After reading more information about Sherrie Levine and origin of this artwork it became even more complicated but there is something special something that I still try to figure out what was befind that facial expression and photographers intentions.
A Sherrie Levine and/or Walker Evans Photo. In digital form the relationship between the Levine and Evans photographs is further complicated. Are these images digital reproductions of Sherrie Levine works that are rephotographs of a Walter Evans photograph. Or, are these digital reproductions of Walter Evans photographs. It is impossible to tell because there is no difference between the original Evans photo and the Levine photo.

http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html
http://www.crossroad.to/charts/postmodernity-2.htm

Liquid Sculpture

This particular image is an example of harmony, life and can not be seen without recording it using professional equipment and some knowledge and skills as well. I remember that I was trying to get similiar result but without doing proper research and studying how to set up scene I failed. Perhaps I would be able to get the same effect.
Martin Waugh combines art and science to capture nature's infinite beauty.

Throughout history, water has calmed the soul, soothed the spirit and healed the wounded. Martin's free-flowing photography evokes images from rolling, rhythmic oceans to drops of water falling upon a lake, taking one on a spiritual journey bounded only by imagination.
Martin's creative uses of high-speed photography make it possible to capture the smooth and effortless curves of liquid, eliciting a childlike sense of fun and whimsy. Interpretations of his work often reveal as much about the viewer as the artist. His images are engaging metaphors for life and are as intriguing to the eye as they are thought provoking.
By varying the size, speed and position of drops, as well as the color, viscosity, and surface tension, Martin creates a panorama of color, movement and intrigue.
Martin received his B.S. degree in Physics from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He lives in Portland, where he has kayaked many of the gorgeous white water rivers the region has to offer. His work can be found in museum, corporate, and private art collections.
Martin writes about his techniques, and other musings at www.martin-waugh.com

http://www.liquidsculpture.com/fine_art/