Emily Adar - Photographer Paragraphs

Joyce Tenneson

Joyce Tenneson is an American, fine art, photographer. She was born in 1945 and is from Massachusetts. Tenneson went to George Washington University and got her masters degree in photography. Joyce Tennyson is one of the most influential women photographers because of her consistent and distinct style that is completely hers. Tenneson photographs mostly nude women with a 20x24 inch Polaroid and gelatin silver prints. Her photos of these nude women are anything but sexualized which is something that is too common in out society. Tenneson’s photos are mostly white and contain lots of light making her photos look almost angelic and even heavenly. It makes sense that Tenneson enjoys this sort of study of the ethereal because she and her sisters grew up on a covent and her parents worked for nuns. She often drapes her models in sheer white fabric that either extenuates or hides parts of the human anatomy. 

Michael Wesely 

Michael Wesely born in 1963, is a German art photographer who is most known for his experimentation and success with long exposure photography. Wesely’s photos are usually exposed for five minutes or more, but can be as long as three years. His subjects include flowers wilting (around a one week exposure), portraits (five minute exposure), and the process of buildings being built in Germany and in America. One of the most well known projects that Wesely has worked on was his photo of the process of the new construction of the MoMa in New York City. The project of the MoMa was estimated to take around three years. Using his special technique of his self built pinhole camera he was able to leave his shutter open for 34 months. The results of Wesely’s long exposure images can be described as ghost-like. He is basically just documenting time so a normal frozen subject has time to move creating a blurred effect showing time passing. Wesely’s photos used to only be in black and white, but he has since transitioned to color as new technology became available.

Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin is an American photographer born in 1939, Brooklyn, NYC and now resides in Albuquerque New Mexico. He studied sculpture at the Cooper Union in NYC, and received his MFA from University of New Mexico. Witkin’s work is weird to put it lightly. He goes where pretty much no other photographers do and explores the themes of death, decapitation, and people who look or act differently from what is considered “normal.” Abnormal beings meaning physically deformed, intersex, transexual, and even midgets. This somewhat desturbing content is usually displayed like a painting or still life giving it a very eerie quality. Witkins says that he draws inspiration from an experience he witnessed as a child where a little girl in a car accident was decapitated outside of his home as well as other family issues he experienced throughout his childhood. Mostly all of Witkin’s work is black and white with very high contrast. Witkin's plans every single photograph with a sketch and then usually takes a two week process to set everything up, find a model, take the photo, and develop it in the dark room. Witkin's prints usually look beat up and scratched which is a technique he applies during his process in the dark room which makes sense because of the disturbing and often scary content of his images.