John Pfahl
Born in 1939 in New York, John Pfahl is an American
photographer who spent most of his childhood in Wanaque, New Jersey. I had to
mention where he specifically was from because ironically, it is very close to
my hometown. Unfortunately, there is not much information about Pfahl’s
childhood other than the fact that he grew up in New Jersey. As a photographer,
John Pfahl primarily photographed landscapes. Not only did I want to mention
Wanaque because of its vicinity to where I am from, but also the town itself is
full of beautiful landscapes. There is a main road that takes you through the
entire town, and all you see is beautiful, lush greenery and pleasant bodies of
water. I go off on that tangent because it is very possible that Pfahl gained
his love for landscape photography based off his surrounding growing up as a
kid. His love for landscape is seen in his book “Picture Windows”. It is a
unique take on your typical landscape photography because changing the point of
view to looking out a window gives the images a new perspective. To him, Pfahl
saw the rooms and windows as a large camera itself looking out onto whatever
world was fixed in front of them. In order to achieve these photographs, he
would go up to strangers and literally ask them if he can photograph from
inside their house. He would remove curtains from the windows, clean the
windows, and if necessary, move around the furniture. If I had to describe
these images to someone’s mother, I would say that they are completely natural
with nothing staged to subjects themselves, only what was surrounding it. The
images were taken in fill color, but the only areas of the composition that had
color were whatever was one the outside of the window. The inside of the house
and window frame was completely black. He appreciated that his future image was
predetermined by whatever outside forces influenced it. Look out your window
right now. Whatever it is you see is exactly what Pfahl would photograph.
Sandy Sorlien
Sandy Sorlien is a photographer from Philadelphia born in
1954 who originally focused her work on fine art photography. She also worked for a model design and
development code company at the same time where her interest in the more urban
style grew. She photographed all across America, finding towns of all sorts.
She even taught a photography class at the University of Pennsylvania called
“The Photography of Urban Place”. I find it interesting that she uses the term
shooting when talking about taking her pictures. She has a really strong
passion for the architecture of preserving rustic style houses. When Hurricane
Katrina hit the Gulf Coast back in 2005, it really impacted Sorlien’s life. If
anything, I think it made her appreciation of the urban style and old-fashioned
houses even stronger. She usually photographs with film and a monorail view camera.
In her book “Fifty Houses”, each image was photographed using infrared. The
concept behind her book was to portray the ideal perfect house someone would
want to live in. The dream or image of someone’s perfect house is what Sorlien
wanted to capture so that if someone were to look at the photograph they would
think – yeah, I can see myself living there. Since she was such a traveler, and
as the title hints at, she traveled across the entire country and photographed
a house from every state. Describing these images, I would say that they are
black and white with a nice range of bright highlights and deep shadows though
not necessarily high in contrast. There is uniformity to them. The houses themselves
are isolated meaning there are not neighboring houses around them. They are
very remote, and one can even question whether or not these older houses are
abandoned.
Jorge Lewinski
Jorge Lewinski was born in 1921 in Lwow, Poland and grew up
facing the struggles of the Russian control. He eventually was drafted into the
Polish army and stationed in Britain where he remained after the war. His
interest in photography was sparked later than other photographers, for he only
started minimal photographing while working at a normal business. He eventually
began to become better known for his portraiture of artists, which was a very
popular forte of his throughout his entire career. He never had an interest in
photography famous celebrities but rather those artists who were not that well
known and could easily be forgotten. Photography has that ability to preserve a
moment in time so that things cannot be forgotten. In order to create his
photographs, Lewinski would go to the artist studio where the subject is in a
more natural habitat for himself or herself. His images were never primarily on
the artist themselves. A large portion of each composition consisted of the
setting itself. While none of his images were staged, he may have occasionally
asked the artists to move into different positions. He would only move the
artists into locations that helped emphasize the artist’s personal connection
to the studio. There was never a sense of hierarchy; the setting was just as
important as the artists themselves. Lewinski really wanted to get into the
minds of the artists he was photographing and try to understand what their
thought process was, which meant that it could take a couple hours to get the
right image. Describing these images to someone’s mother would sound kind of
boring. It is simply an artist in their studio space working on a project. What
make thee black and white images special are the facial expressions on the
artist face. They are very natural expressions and shows how devoted the
artists are with their work.
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