Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts. At a young age her older sister committed suicide and she was forced to cope. In high school she was introduced to photography and focused her first show on homosexual and transsexual communities. Goldin began to photograph images that expressed violence and showed drug abuse. Her subjects usually past away due to their addictions. She focused her art on a culture of obsession. Goldin also photographed love, sex, and the multiple ways they can be expressed. Her artwork was often criticized but was in fact reality.

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson is a American photographer known for his photos of staged homes and neighborhoods. His photography was always elaborate and cinematic. His art was like a scence that had been ripped out of a movie. Crewdson was born in New York and attended Yale University where he got his masters of fine arts. His photography were very emotional for the people who studied them. The locations of his photos were of homey and cozy neighborhoods but created emotions including sorrow, anxiety, depression, and solitude. He was a part of several exhibitions where his art became famous including the Yale University Art Gallery where it all began. 

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was born in New Jersey as the seventh addition to her big family. She grew up in Long Island where she pursued her interest in painting. She felt limited as a painter where paint was her only medium and took up photography. Sherman is a well known American photographer and film director. She was best at taking conceptual portraits. She used costumes, makeup, and other things to create roles for her subjects. Sherman was a big contributor to creating a positive role in society for women. She had a wide range of photographs. She used several different mediums and ideas to portray her message.

Greek Life

This past weekend I was a part of my sororities initiation as a new member.  I would consider this to be a cultural event. As a new member you go through a process of ceremonies and rituals that make you initiated. They ask for your trust and friendship in order to become part of the sisterhood. These events happen all over the country for all sororities and fraternities in greek life. Although there are similar clubs and tribes in other countries that require initiations, they differ from greek life here in the United States.

A cultural event is unique to a specific culture or group of people. Initiation and the series of ceremonies required, are distinctive to the American culture. I was able to experience this cultural event with no background as to what it was all about. I learned a lot not only about my specific sorority but greek life and its ideals in general. I kept an open mind during the process and I have a higher level of respect for the process. It requires putting a lot of trust in people that you may not know as well as you should and gives you the opportunity to network and meet so many new people.

Keith Carter, the Photographers Series

I was absent on the day we watched the video “Keith Carter, the Photographers Series.” So, I did research on Keith Carter instead. Keith Carter was born in Madison, Wisconsin and raised in Texas. Carter taught himself how to photograph and is best known for his imagination. He began with commercial photography and personal projects on the side. Carter believes in that photograph is the writing of light like the Greeks do. He thinks of photography as documenting his life, as if he was making an autobiography. He photographs of places he has visited and people he cares about. This is his form of journaling his life as well as the people’s lives around him. Carter’s work was able to really stand out because of his ability to make it mystical and almost fantastical. In order to do this, he caught himself using a small view camera incorrectly before inserting his film. Carter would later purposefully distort the focus of his photographs.

Myhren Gallery

A couple weeks ago, I attended the Myhren Gallery with my first year seminar class. The Myhren Gallery is the University of Denver’s art gallery located in the art building on campus. The exhibitions change every few months and include art work from a variety of well known artists as well as students. Our class visited the exhibition, Changing Landscapes.

        

When I walked in, all I saw was a display of typical landscape paintings. But, as the guide began to explain and describe the meaning and significance behind the artwork the paintings grew into something more meaningful. He described to us how the landscapes created were very noteworthy because the lack of transportation in the countryside. These paintings allowed people the chance to “travel” to these places and see them in a new light.

Over time, the landscapes changes and evolved due to the transportation by train. The classic landscapes became more industrial. These new landscapes were used to symbolize the new ideas and things evolving in the world. These new landscapes were done with new painting techniques. An example of a new technique used was scattering dots all over the piece of art. This was done in order to create realistic dust and flies in the air.

This event really made me gain and understanding of artist’s intentions behind their artwork. I now have a higher respect for landscape artwork. I stepped out of my comfort zone at this gallery and really learned from a new perspective. This exhibit was definitely a cultural event because it forced me to think in a way I am not accustomed to.

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman was born in Denver, CO and pursued a career in fashion photography in New York City. She committed suicide before her work took off and was well known. Her work was not accepted by society. In general, Woodman's work was in black and white. She was known for using long exposures and creating a blur in her photos. Woodman's work influenced the "Victorian female protagonist," and their work. She worked with abstract subjects in simple and concrete representations and surroundings. It allowed Woodman to challenge reality.  

Robert Adams

Robert Adams was an American professor in California born on the East coast. He photographed mostly landscapes in black and white. He believed that photographs were contradictions between landscapes visibly transformed or scarred by human presence and the inherent beauty of light and land rendered by the camera. He won several awards for his work and had several exhibitions of his work. He wrote a book about the beauty of photography and celebrated with his artwork. Adams was a well known contemporary urban landscape photographer. 

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was a controversial American photographer. She photographed nudists, and transvestites and other radical things. Her artwork was not highly respected. She was known for a lot of work in magazines. Arbus used soft light to create more artistic images compared to her commercial work in magazines. Her artwork was known to be psychotic and the images were very powerful. Her artwork was compared to a child with a hand grenade. She committed suicide because of personal issues and her family did not want to release her work if it was not respected but later they changed their minds. Its possible that she was looking for herself in the oddities of photo's subjects.

Robert Frank

Robert Frank grew up in wealthy Jewish family and was born in Switzerland. He was notable for his American photography that presented an outsider's view on America and its society. He began with his work in photography and later moved into film and video. Frank, visited several cities in America to get a wider perspective where he took the majority of photos. 

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was born and grew up Hungary. He moved out at age eighteen with the goals of becoming a writer. He was introduced to the world of photography in Berlin and became more interested in art. He was known for his photography and photojournalism of the wars. Capa covered a wide spread of battles and five wars in total. These wars included the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, 1948 Arab- Israeli War and finally, the first Indochina War. Capturing violence in his photography created an impact on other photographers and amateurs. 

Henri Cartier Bresson

Henri Cartier Bresson was born in France and spent a lot of childhood interested in painting and music. His interest in photography began when he studied at Cambridge. He was the first Western photographer to photograph post-war Soviet Union and was well known for using the 35mm format which was the newer format at the time. Bresson was a fan of photojournalism and was also famous for creating street photography. He was able to capture a precise moment and tell an entire story from that one image. 

Margaret Bourke White

Margaret Bourke White was a part of a wealthy and educated family. She was raised by her father in New York City. She studied amphibians and reptiles and later began her career in photography. She graduated from Cornell and opened a studio in Cleveland where she sold pictures to students on campus. She was working for different magazines and was given a variety of projects. She was assigned a project on the drought and saw how people suffered. She was famous for being able to capture that in her art. White was the first female war corespondent and one of the first female photographers for Life magazine. She photographed World War II and survived a torpedo attack. Before she past, she wrote her famous autobiography. 

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was a photographer in California with her family and husband. After her divorce, she remarried a professor at Berkley and was hired by the government to photograph the depression and issues going on in the country. She was running on a low income and became an iconic for people who looked at her art for her ability to persevere and raise her family. She had a passion for exposing people's deeper emotion, beyond the surface images. She later moved on to photography of the pearl harbor bombing and the internment camps. She was struck by the imprisonment of these people because they were innocent. Her photography was emotional and really drove people to think.

Response to Susan Sontag

1 September 2011

How do we know that the mountains outside are “real” mountains? How do we know what “real” mountains are? We don’t. Just like the prisoners in Plato’s Cave never realized that the shadows they saw were in fact people, we have no way of being certain that what we see is real. Although we live in the 21st century and are exposed to a great level of technology, there is still a possibility that we live in an illusion. Maybe we believe in that illusion in order to create a sense of comfort for ourselves. On a daily basis I perceive the world to be real. I learn from the things around me, and I apply my knowledge to create change and growth in my life. As I read about Plato’s philosophy and how he questions reality, I began to inquire about the world around me as well.

This similar occurrence happens when one appreciates photography. The author of On Photography, Susan Sontag, states that we live in mere images of the truth. Sontag believes that these mere images are photographs. In other words, if we live in these photographs, then we are not necessarily living in reality. Photographs make things come into existence, but they are only capturing life through a very small lens. Even though you can learn from these photographs, as soon as the view is specified, the meaning changes. Interestingly enough, the only thing that changes is the meaning. The camera is what is separating you from the photo and the real world. It acts as a shield, and unless that camera is removed, you have no way of interacting. When we look at a photograph, we are seeing what is in that photograph. But, what we are seeing is not necessarily reality. Therefore, the only way to confirm what we see is without a camera lens. The camera lens does not question the existence of things; it changes reality and the meaning of it.

Again, due to technology, photography is becoming more and more popular. People take pictures to confirm that their experience was indeed real. They use their photographs as evidence of reality as if no one would believe what they saw really existed. It follows the same pattern as what I discussed earlier in relation to the mountains.  If people use photographs to prove what they see, it is possible that we use what we “see”, to prove that something is real as well. Even though photographs make things seem real, they do not give us a clear understanding of anything. They are left open for interpretation, and if you are the individual that took the picture then your understanding will be affected.

Whether it is a photograph or anything else, those mere images can change the way we perceive the entire world. When we look at photographs and see through that camera lens, we make a conscious decision of whether to believe in it or not. That choice determines the outcome of our actions and reactions. Plato’s philosophy states that this same effect occurs when you are not looking at things through a lens. What happened to the prisoners could be happening to us as well. The way we perceive the world and create illusions, make us feel in control, allows us to move on, and ultimately help us live our lives.  Sontag states, “Today everything exists to end in a photograph.” I agree with her statement and I would add on that we use those photographs to fill in blanks, to learn from, and to see new things. As each photo is added to our collection we create our own interpretations and our outlook on the world is altered.