Hedi Slimane
Hedi Slimane is a French fashion designer and photographer, known predominantly for using his interests in the underground club lifestyle and rock music in combination with both his fashion design and photography to create his own personal style. Hedi has been photographing since he was 11 years old, but it wasn’t until the early 2000’s, after his move to Berlin to take part in a Kunst-Werke project that he began really developing and pursuing his own photography style. His early works range in style and subject matter, but they often have common themes associated with real portrayals of people/places, darkness/danger, intrigue, and even some sense of detachment. Slimane himself has said that fashion and photography are very different disciplines in his mind - photography being more sincere and authentic, which shows a lot in all of his works. These days Slimane is more known for his portraiture, some are fashion photographs, but the majority of them are centered around artists/musicians of the American subculture. All of Slimane’s major works are shot in Black and White - the form of the medium that he has always used - showing amazingly skillful use of contrast and shadow, especially in his more intimate portraits. His earlier works in Berlin evoke a great sense of disconnect with the culture, while still depicting the “scene” as it was, with no preferences or bias in the subject matter. Slimane’s more current portraits on the other hand are very intimate, often photographed in front of plain backgrounds with major focus on the direct subject he creates a sense of attachment to the subject, as well as an aura of his own personal investment in the photographs he is taking.
Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Meyerowitz is an American photographer from New York City, known for his work as a master street/seascape photographer, though his works have a wide range of subject matter. Meyerowitz was an early advocate of the use of color photography, eventually using it exclusively over Black and White. Using both 35mm and 8x10 format view cameras, encouraging the experimentation with format and color to help transform the artists’ way of looking at the world. Meyerwitz’s early photographs of New York City streets seems to be his most “defining”, but his investigation into color and format seems to be the most alive in his Cape Cod series to highlight the intrinsic beauty of the seascapes while bringing color photography to the forefront of serious art. Meyerwitz uses photography to capture “where [he’s] been and where [he’s] going”, showing not only the innate beauty of the world around him, but also the importance of the medium in capturing history (Meyerowitz, Afterword). Meyerowitz’s works evoke a sense of joy and appreciation not only for the beauty to be found in life, but also for the medium of photography itself. There is an overwhelming emotion in each one of his photographs - be it of beauty, happiness, wonder, or the enticing sense of memory. All of his photographs have a meaning and a feeling behind them, that comes through with his framing techniques and amazing use of color - using the camera to “interrupt time” and create a piece of the history of a place Meyerowitz is able to entice us to see the world in a new light.
Duane Michals
Duane Michals is an American photographer, most known for his revolutionary use of photographic sequences and handwritten text to incorporate external emotion and philosophy in his photographs during the 60’s and 70’s. Michals’ photographs range in subject matter, but are predominantly narrative works used to convey his own relationship with the world. His biggest influences are the events of his own life, saying “the simplest facts of your life are really quite amazing and exotic” - being one of the first photographers to try and “define the medium” rather than letting the medium define him (Reznik, 2014). A great deal of Michals’ work is focused on his relationship with his sexuality and some of the consequences of his religious parent’s/upbringing. Michals shoots in exclusively Black and White, often with minimal contrast and varying settings/subject matter. One of the definitive characteristics of Michals’ work is the presence of external text to work with the photographic medium to create a sense of frustration with either medium individually. Michals brings both mediums together to provide a more true sense of his vision for his work. Michals uses his own experience/curiosities/fears to create the dreamlike and often bizarre worlds of his photographs, often bringing to light the things that most people would rather keep hidden or ignore in their own lives. Michals “self-taught” ability to create scenes and bring his own dark/intense personal history to his works has allowed him to innovate the concept of photography and what it means to see people in new, provocative ways.
Works Cited
Reznik, Eugene . "Interview: Duane Michals on 50 Years of Sequences and Staging Photos." American Photo. N.p., 12 Nov. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. <http://www.americanphotomag.com/interview-duane-michals-50-years-sequences-and-staging-photos#page-15>.
Meyerowitz, Joel. Joel Meyerowitz, wild flowers: photographs. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1983. Print.
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