Historical Photographer Presentation: Gustave Le Gray

                        Brig Upon the Water- 1856.

             This photograph was an albumen silver print from a glass negative. It is also different in that it was made from a single negative, and later on Gustave Le Gray would use two negatives for one photograph so that he could get the proper exposure for both the sea and the sky. This photo was among the most famous and widely distributed photographs of the nineteenth century. It was popular in both England and France.

Born in 1820 in the Villers-le-Bel, France Gustave Le Gray was trained as a painter in the studio of Paul DeLaroche. He became recognized as a photographer, as photography was an emerging field at the time.  Le Gray established a reputation for himself with portraits, photos of the Fontainebleau Forest, and scenes of Paris. Gustave was also well known for his photography instruction manuals. He became one of the first five photographers to work for the Missions heliographiques, which was a government sponsored commission to document the state of repair of important French monuments and buildings. He also had a studio in France which was known for its lavishness. During the 1850's he taught many French photographers, many who are well-known today. In 1851 he was a founding member of the Societe Heliographique which was the first photography organization in the world. At his studio, Le Gray also offered printing services to other photographers. His studio had many wealthy clients but he ran up a debt with his studio, so between 1856 and 1858 he took more photos of the Fontainebleau Forest. These photos are some of his most famous. Eventually, the money he was making wasn't enough and portrait photography was no longer a venue for him so he closed his studio on February, 1, 1860. Portraits had become easy to mass produce and it wasn't something Le Gray was willing to do. By May of 1860 Le Gray took on a new adventure. Leaving his family behind, he set sail with Alexander Dumas to see famous places. Two months in, there was a conflict between the two and Le Gray was abandoned in Malta. He eventually made his way to Lebanon and then Egypt. He spent the rest of his life in Egypt-never returning to France- working as a drawing tutor to the sons of the pasha and continuing photography.

 Gustave Le Gray worked with the paper negative, and developed a wax-paper negative which gave him sharper focused prints. By 1851 he was also using collodion on glass negatives which increased the clarity of his prints further.

As for motivations, Gustave himself said: "It is my deepest wish that photography, instead of falling within the domain of industry, of commerce, will be included among the arts. That is its sole, true place, and it is in that direction that I shall always endeavor to guide it. It is up to the men devoted to its advancement to set this idea firmly in their minds."

Written Statement Part 2: Assignment 2

Interpretation: During critique there wasn't as much said about my images as I would have hoped for, but I am sure that had something to do with the fact that I was the last to be critiqued. It also means that nothing was amazing. If something would have been that great, it would have provoked a strong response- people would have felt compelled to really say something. Interestingly enough, people found that the photo of my back said more about the gender role than the other photo from that set. The realness of the bakery photos was something that made people like the photos I chose from that set.

Evaluation: For my images I feel that trying to candidly capture people is working. During our group critique I had a few more photos that I thought captured this well, but excluded because of no great response. Some of the photos I ended up choosing didn't have the same contrasts in lighting so I regret some of my photo choices now. I was trying to show them in pairs though, to not feel so all over the place. I think a lot of my photos had a grey range, but not a ton of white or great contrast. It wasn't large enough. I would try and change this in my photos next time. I would like to make my photos smaller when printing next time also. Or maybe have only one large statement piece. I was drawn to people's who were all the same size in critique.

Extension: All of the photos I took I could see my self extending into a larger project. I think it would be neat to try and capture the "essence" of more people in a series of portraits. I would also do another project working with distorting body images or capturing someone's sexuality/capturing the asexuality of the human body. With the right people and resources either could turn out neat. Manipulating the body in photographs is a neat gift which is slightly harder to do with something like a plant. At some point, you have captured all there is to a plant.

Blog Prompts #16-18

"I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways." - Duane Michals

    This quote reminds me of the photographs that you see that make you want to stare at them forever. It also reminds me of some of the photographs we have had hung up on our walls over the years/still do. There is one that still is up that is just of this girls shoes. From the photo you get a sense about what type of person the girl was though. It captures something neat. This quote also makes me think of the difference between the photos people have hundreds of that they post on facebook and the photos that people have that really meant something. The photos you were trying to take for photography's sake. It is a change in mindset. I think that this effort is what Michals is referring to. 


"I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see."- Duane Michals.

  I am not quite sure how to read this quote. I wanted to respond to it because I agree in the importance of imagination. I think the only times I have problems with things is when I become close-minded. When you realize you are not even using your imagination and only looking at the problem from one perspective you see how easy the outcome can be if you just do something different. The whimsical sense of childhood imagination is something that is always a devastating loss because I believe that it is what contributes to the happiness that kids have. Michals second sentence is what I couldn't decide upon though. I understand what he is saying in the sense of your imagination is full of things that aren't solid objects in front of you, and that it is important. But at the same time, if it is your imagination you can see it, and therefore it becomes a tangible thing for you to try and express if you chose. 


"Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer-and often the supreme disappointment."- Ansel Adams.

Adam's quote reminds me of all the historical photographer presentations that we have had. I think this  quote is even more applicable to an older era. Then, a photographer was tested physically just to capture a great landscape photograph- no longer in the safe haven of their studio. It was a greater test of skill and patience. With the unknown so large and so many added factors to their endeavor, I believe this is why he also refers to it as a disappointment.  I also think that even today there are challenges to landscape photography, because it is still an uncontrollable environment. There are always going to be endurance tests, lighting issues, and the fact that you are trying to capture something that could be gone in an instant or changed (sun, animals, wind, etc.), and you can't go back always and have the moment the same as the last. 

R03: Memory

For my re-creation I worked with a memory from elementary school. There was a boy in my class that got a cow for 4-H and I was jealous because I wanted a cow! I used the top image to show this memory with a girl taking care of a cow, to represent what I wanted. To make it interesting I also took the Animal Farm  play on my memory and replaced me, the one in charge of my cow and the other animals, with a pig like in the book. I tried to make the pig look evil and the cow look like "what the hell" in the second photo in comparison to the soft neutrality in the first photo. I used natural lighting coming in from the window for my photo.

Part 1 Written Statement: Assignment 2

           I chose to show my photographs in sets of two, showing two photos of each setting. One group was from the bakery across the street from my house and the second was from my set of photos that worked with gender. I liked the two photos that worked with the gender prompt better, probably because I worked with them more and put more thought into them, but the bakery photos have a candid, raw quality that I also love in photos.
   For the bakery photos I just had to work with the lighting they had, but it turned out well because the cases had great lights that added to the overhead lighting. I also couldn't plan very well because my subjects were either not paying attention to me, or unaware I was even photographing them. I thought these photos captured daily life well in an un-idealistic way. They just showed people for who they really are instead of who they would like to show. I went over to the bakery to take photos in the first place because it has a great atmosphere. A whole bunch of old women work in there and it is family operated. I have also been in there enough over the past 4 years to feel comfortable asking to photograph.
      For the body shots that I used to work with the gender set/prompt I primarily used only one light source coming from the right side. Coming from the right also was a bit of light sneaking through my window blinds. For the photo of my back, I was working with the idea of body parts that are generally asexual. I just find the body an interesting subject because of how you can distort it so readily-the meanings behind it as well. I was working with the curves of the spine and the body lines following the lines created with the chairs structure. For the frontal body photograph with the clutch I was trying to work with the idea of how open we make our bodies. I was trying to capture this in a not very sexually appealing kind of way. That is why I chose to have the photo revealing and yet not really showing more than you may see of somebody on the beach. It is more implied, because you know there is nothing there to cover. I found that the blue tint enhanced the shadows and did a good job of keeping a soft feeling to the photo.

Blog Prompts 11-15

#11____Memory of a Place:
    The place of my past that I thought of first was a house I lived in while in the first grade. I moved around a lot growing up, so houses we lived in are easy to think of as time capsules. I don't know if there are any pictures of the house on its own, but there are pictures of things like easter, etc. that went on in the house while we were there. If I were to go back and see the house, and photograph it, I know it wouldn't have the same quality or fondness as it once did. There may be remodeling, or it could be falling apart, and whoever lives there now would show through by however they have it set up. A photograph if I was looking at it would only show the changes. In the past, it was just a simple white house, with 2 stories that is off of a semi-main road. It is right in town. It has a huge bathroom upstairs that was carpeted. The bathroom is almost like a bedroom turned into a bathroom. The tub has claw feet and was fun to play in. My bedroom had a little seat in the window that looked out into the backyard. The backyard had two layers, and was fun to go sledding in during winter because you would fly off the first level onto the second. The living room had wooden floors and there was a swinging door off the kitchen. It was a good house to be young in. In many of the rooms I recall, I think of things that my mother and I did together in them, besides my room where I remember making up my own books. It was something we did in class and I would come home and make my own by stapling together printer paper. 

#12____Memory of a Photograph:
  When I think of the past, I think of early childhood, I suppose because I am not that old yet. I cannot think of a particular photograph that I remember more than another, but after responding to the prompt above, I am now thinking of a polaroid photo of my mother and I at church on Mother's day. We went to the church with my best friend and her mom, it worked out well because we were best friends and our parents were best friends. We would always go do girl things together. The photo is simple. It was at the pancake breakfast after the service, and my mother is sitting in one of those old metal fold out chairs and I am standing up, leaning into her. We are both wearing dresses and I have my hair in two french braids. The photo reminds me of the things my mother and I used to do together and how we used to be so close. I have changed in that I am no longer that little girl and my mom and I do not get along. I haven't been back to that church in so long, I am sure that it has been changed since. A re-enactment of the photo would not be as special, because the girlhood relationship I once had with my mother is lost. We would also look very differently because we are both at least 10 years older now. 


#13____Human-Made Space:
    I most frequently see people interact with the land in city life. I see people litter, walking through snow and slush, building new things where there used to be land...but my favorite place to see people interacting with the land, and to be myself, is the beach. At the beach, you still see littering, etc. but there is more. Now you have people in the water, getting seaweed goop stuck in-between their toes, building sand castles, digging holes, just laying on the sand, going for walks along the water, climbing on rocks...
  For a photograph I would probably make some kind of structure out of beach glass that is found along the beach. It would look great outdoors as a structure, and is something that has  become a natural part of almost all beaches. Also, it is a piece of the beach that is hard to come across, and takes real dedication to procure a collection. This I think would show some of the beauty found on the beach and focus back on the beach itself instead of the people on it. 

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space:
  To convey the difference between a faraway place and a familiar place I would include different subject matter. In the familiar place I would probably take a closer up shot that included familiar people doing everyday things. Possibly a shot from Christmas would work well, or family members doing daily activities. You would have to show the connection between the subjects and make the location feel close and lived in. For my faraway place it would be ideal to have no people in the photograph, but if they were they should be distant, and just be in the photo, not a part of it. I would also try and take a wide angle shot to capture as much of the image as possible- to really show the location. Small islands are what I think of when it comes to places that haven't really been touched by humans, or the middle of the jungle. I would try and capture these places in both a familiar and faraway way. First, faraway to capture it as a whole, and then in a familiar way to capture what makes it unique and special. 


#15____In-Camera Collage:
This prompt makes me think of my Grandma's house, and my fiance's parents house. I have/do spend a lot of time at both of these places, and they, along with the people in them make up who I am. To create this photo, I would try and include the people I am in contact with in both of the houses in the photograph to make the scene more descriptive. I am not sure how it would work to capture the essence of what both of these places have meant to me...

Contemporary Photographer Presentation

Mona Kuhn: Photos from her Black and White 1996-2002 portfolio

Mona Kuhn- Nude Photographer

Biography: Mona Kuhn was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1969 but is of German descent. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California but spends her summers in France. She received her BA from Ohio State University, then going on to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1996, and afterwards went to The Getty Research Institute in LA in 1999.

- the photos that I chose were from her Black and White 1996-2002 portfolio.

Significance: Mona Kuhn has become internationally recognized for "her alluring renderings of the human form."

Composition: Kuhn does a great job with placement and focus when working with multiple people for a photograph. She frequently has photos with three people in them- one in focus and the other two not. The two people out of focus in these photographs always seem to be important to creating the scene or mood that Kuhn has set up. She also focuses on hands in many of her photos. Each of Kuhn's portfolios contains nature scenes that complement her portrait scenes. They show you the atmosphere of the location that the portraits were shot at.

Concept/Motivation: "Mona Kuhn's work is figurative. She is interested in redefining ways of looking at the body, as a residence to ourselves."- www.monakuhn.com

Method: Mona Kuhn is said to create works that are sensual but never overtly sexual. I think she does this with modesty in some of her photographs and taking the focus away from the nudity in others. It is not a raunchy sex scene or Picasso like. Her photos focus on appreciating the human form or capturing people's emotions/actions while they just happen to be naked. The people that she photographs are a part of her life, not models that she hires and this is reflected in her work. Some of her work seems to be something that she is just doing for herself. Her recent portfolio from Brazil was a personal journey for herself as she revisited the place of her youth and tried to capture pieces of the past (while ending up capturing things new to her).

My Opinion: I think that Kuhn has a knack for capturing people in a natural setting without it seeming forced or unnatural. You are able to focus in on the emotion of the scene because the nudity does not always overwhelm her photographs. I do not think that her photos do a great job of capturing her concept, but it still doesn't take away my ability to appreciate them. I think that she has great raw photos. They do not seem to have been digitally altered, or at least not to any great extent. I like her photos that seem more setup with an artistic focus on parts of the human form in comparison to some of her photos that have a larger focal area.