Spanish photographer Chema Madoz is a true visual poet. He is able to melt ordinary objects together into something very unique. He teaches us something about looking. He does this as no other.
The minimalistic way of presenting us this surreal reality is just marvelous. By only showing what is needed, and by doing so in black and white, he plays with our visual senses.
The feeling of freedom, of enjoying that moment in time where nothing matters. Just you, your friends and nothing else. This is the feeling I get when looking at Ryan McGinley‘s photography. While looking at the photos, the song “All I Need” of the band Air, plays in the back of my mind.
We are all individuals. We all seem unique in our own special way. Yet we all share our uniqueness with other individuals. Whether it is our behavior or the way we are expressing ourselves.
Danish photographer Peter Funch shows us our uniqueness in his series Babel Tales. By shooting commonalities over a period of time and editing them into a single frame. Funch gives us a surreal look into our day-to-day lives. And with it the similarities we share with other individuals. Showing us we aren’t that different after all.
But we are different. At least in a way. Dutch photographer Ari Versluis and dutch profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek are focussing on the social groups we dress ourselves into. With their series Exactitudes (a contraction of exact and attitude) they give an overview on how different people dress in a simular way. And by doing so, you become part of a certain social group.
The way you behave or express might not be a conscious decision. But the mentioned artists do show us a typical human trade. We are all social beings. And social means to collectively co-exist with like-minded ones. And if by doing so you have to dress a similar way, well why not.
Just like 50 Cent and The Game once elegantly rapped: Hate it or Love it. I am talking about the works of Terry Richardson. He photographs with a style that can be described as raw. The technique he uses doesn’t make his photographs that special. He manages to ‘strip’ his subject to just that, the subject. With often not more then a white background. Your focus can only go where he wants you to go, to the subject. He makes them act crazy, act sexy or act both ways. It seems so simple, yet it is such a direct and graphically interesting way of shooting one can only applaud the success he has with it. Thumbs up!
We all try to live by certain standards. But we all live by certain rules. One of them is gravity. Without it, things would get pretty surreal. And that surrealism is exactly what photographers Li Wei, Natsumi Hagashi and Denis Darzacq share in their works. Floating or playing with the laws of nature captured in a photograph.
Light is the most important ingredient for creating a photo. The more light the better you would think. But some artists roam the nights. With only a few light sources they record a different face of places you probably normally wouldn’t even pay attention to. Carl Wooley and Todd Hido are two examples of artists that roam the nights to record what we normally wouldn’t see. Long exposures and light sources like streetlights and beaming TVs through a window make for some pretty wonderful photos.
Look them straight in the eyes. Close Up: Portraits by Martin Schoeller. He portrays the people we all know from the wonderful world of entertainment and politics. Or is that the same thing? This project gives you a chance to study the faces of the famous ones in great detail. Both the quality and quantity brings an interesting dimension to portrait photography. It is a wonderful appropriation of the works of Bernd and Hilla Becher.
