Edward Curtis [1869-1952]

A grade school dropout, this Pennsylvania kid began building his own cameras at a very early age. He is known for taking pictures of Native Americans and the American West.

On the Banks of Missouri

Amazing shot of a person's silhouette at the edge of a cliff. Very quiet, very still, very soothing to ponder in nature. I like the division of the horizon. THe image is almost divided into 4 squares, making for thought out and well balanced compositon.

Bow River-Blackfoot

This beautiful image of an indian hydrating his horse.  The way this is composed draws the eye into the indians hat and slowly falls into the water through the horse's head. The texture of the ripples in the water is very interesting. That's pretty big horse, eh?

Arikara Girl

Simple shapes, nice contrast and good lighting make for this breath-taking profile of a young woman of the Arikara people. I really like the way her nose peeks through and how shiny her hair is. The stones or shells spice p this other wise bland portrait.

Painted Lodges - Piegan

Repetition of shapes makes the image uniform. A nice transition from the ground up or from the sky onto the floor. I don't think it is all that interesting but i did like it.

Hopi Angel. 1905

Graceful little girl, titled as an angel and I can only defy it so much since she looks gorgeous in this photograph. her eyes and their gaze... wow. I wish the background was a little lighter but whatever, a very nice image.

Manuel Alvarez Bravo [1902-2002]

Running Boy. 1950's

The triangle of the boy's legs with that cable and post are quite nice. It's crazy how the his legs are pretty much at the same angle as the cable's...
 The door and the window have a rectangular  resemblance as well.

El Color 1966

I love the framing done of the person sweeping. It politely asks your eye like "Hey, come look at this real quick." The serpentine figure in the door on the left is interesting. The photograph it self is almost divided into 3 backgrounds, unified as one through the ground.

Flight Over The Sea. 1939

Amazing how the seagulls[?] are flying parallel to the sea and its waves. At first glance they were kind of hard to notice but since the eye reads this horizontally, the eye immediately cathes the birds alignment and is able to appreciate it. 

Lovers of the Fake Moon. 1970's

What I like about this photograph was this big moonlike shape, more like a concrete patch i think, and how it goes nice diagonally with the other elements in this image. Two boys walking down the street, the sign is divides into 2, there' asymmetrical balance of the big wall and the small ground... All factors of what makes this composition work so well. Nothing fancy, yet nothing less.

Eugene Atget [1857-1927]

Known for walking around big gardens like those of palaces and castles with a large format camera and outdated clothing. A very private man whose majority of work is available thanks to Bernice Abbott who rescued his negatives and printed quite a few of his work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJhDrGUpmFE

Marchand Abat-Jours 

A nice, straight forward and centered composition showing us how well diagonal lines work. Created but the buildings and sidewalks, these diagonal lines drag the eye into the center without force and make for a beautiful image that focuses on a man that seems to be selling lamp shade. I love the cobblestones on the ground, reminds me of Old San Juan. 

"Just got my ride pimped, whatchu think?" jk. 

Rag picker

I don't even think of this picture to be that great of a photograph but I really can't seem to discard it. He captured this man's life, almost. I can see straight into his pupils and feel a sense of weight and sweat. I like the depth of the photo, how he seems so much crisper than the background. There might be a little triangle thing going on, maybe an upside down one as well... jewish photography? get it, get it, get it? Anyways, simple geometric shapes are read by the subconscious at first glance, and depending on the element's positions, cohesiveness and fluidity make for a solid and legible composition.

This reminded me of my great grandfather who dresses like this man, well, the way his clothes fit is very similar. This man may have also be a vato. You ever know these days... not funny either? "man...." I like the fence kind of vanishing into repetition in the background. It was  nice time of the day to shoot, very cool and calm, yet energetic.

Street paver. 1899

That hat almost seems pasted on top of this image. That's their working clothes... interesting. I like being able to see some kind of progress in work methods as well as construction. Things are very different now a daze. There's kids in the background... playing in a construction site. Looks like a lot of fun if you ask me. And there's a black horse int he background, almost disappearing into the background. He looks like he's steering a boat. Rocking baggy clothing, something pop culture would later adopt through a different manner.

Robert Adams [1937-old]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljVVFKjN0Dc

He was born in New Jersey in 1937. His black&white photographs document scenes of the latter American West. Although often devoid of human subjects, or sparsely populated, Adams’s photographs capture the physical traces of human life... and it's almost monotonous voice.

River on left, ocean on right. 1990
This image caught my attention through the barrier of rocks rolling right down the middle out into the horizon between 2 bodies of water. I then read that it was actually salt water on right and river water on the left. Pretty cool, for me at least :P It's really interesting to see the water on the left very calm and cool versus the fury of salt water.

1990

This made me think of Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It's like you know they don't want to really go where they have but, there doesn't seem to be a choice. They tried explaining it to the kid once but he didn't get it; none the less, he has to come along. The light coming in from the left adds that dramatic hint of A-Bomb.The males coming out from the shadows in contrast to the female glowing in light.  The sky, empty as the space around them... very de Chirico.

1990


The intense like makes this a Stepford home, with the wife getting dinner ready. The figure pops right out, even lighter than the sky up top, which he may have burned. 

1970-74

I realllly like this, the repetition, the cut and dry angles and shadows, the white house+maybe dark red tops... desserted and interesting. The large difference between the floor and sky...

1970

Ansel Adams [1902-1984]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFs03oAx9ME

Ansel Adams, a native to San Francisco, decided to be a photographer instead of music around the 1920's. Being a devoted environmentalist, a lot of his work steered towards nature although his urban or architectural photography is well recognized and highly influential.

Science Lecture Hall - St. Francis Church

The balance, exquisite compositions and wide peripheral landscapes are still copied and attributed to Adams to this day. The one on the left makes me think of The Jetsons for its early 70's pad vibe with the widened architecture and the one on the right made me think of Sand People... :|

El Capitan Sunrise
A magnificent boulder, rock, mountain, "nature's steel" whatever you want to call it; among trees that are not even half it's height. The cast shadow of sun going to sleep going from dark to light from upper right to center really intrigued me. So many different tonal values within gray... I'm really enjoying the pine tree silhouettes. 

Roots - L.A. Freeway
These two images here are perfect representations of what I wish more minds would ingest. We are nature, another animal; yet, we strive to be mechanical like the machine. Perfection lies within the imperfections of nature it self, for it will always overcome the synthetic, or cease. In the turn of the 19th century, the influence of nature was imperative because they understood that it is a perfect example of ever flowing creation and substantial design. I simply thought that the resemblance between these two very different components was both ironic and beautiful in their linear attributes like shadow and texture as well as how similar they are even though they are completely different... If you squint your eyes, they almost look like the same subject.

Dogwood Blossoms
I just found this to be very simple, soft and well contrasted photograph. The composition is very nice, making they eye move freely without getting stuck on one particular item. Great balance of tone and surface as well as readability and aesthetics. It's like: "Yep, they're beautiful flowers." 

Mariposa Grove

I've had a thing for giant trees since I first realized that my body grows - somewhere around the age of 4. There is something in their majestic height and firm roots that gave me the assurance that no matter how much I grew up, I would always be a kid at heart. Like there was still something bigger than me. In this photograph, I like the harsh shadows exhibiting the texture on the trunks, the zigzagging movement between the trees make my eye dig in, kind of trying to figure out what's beyond this or deeper into the forest. I find that the scale being represented by the small figures in contrast to the trees to be very amusing and to hold a lot more in context.

Berenice Abbott [1898-1991]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaYy-ldpIXc

The photographer I chose this week is Berenice Abbott. This Ohio native is best known for her architectural photographs from the 1930's NY urban scene. I was a little bit confused as to what POINT OF VIEW actually meant within the context of a photograph. So, I kinda of just based it on the focal points being somewhat in the distance or through a tunnel of things that compositionally, caught my eye.

Cliff and Ferry Street. 1935.

I love how you can see the building in the distance, through the mist. The cropping makes the eye go up and down appreciating every detail rapidly. The streets are interesting, as well as the transportation methods. It kind of reminds me of that one scene in Inception where Ellen Page distorts the bejeezus out of the a dream, making the horizon curve up like a wave, placed on top of them as the sky. The building in the distance is either really cool and has a base and a tower with different colors or its just 2 separate buildings in front of another. 

Woman on Steps. Baltimore, Maryland, 1954

The repetitious sets of perfectly alined marble slabbed stairs vanishing into the distance creates unity and balance. Brick house exteriors are all parallel lines that make encourage your eye to move further into the depth of the image as well as the lines in the gridded plane on the cement sidewalk. Maids cleaning and sweeping [there's 2 of them and they're both working on similar tasks... balance.] An almost surreal photograph when taking into consideration it's element's placement and inter-relationship to one another. Exquisite shot, in my opinion. 

40th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. 1938 

This captivating photograph was the first one to grab my attention as I skimmed through many of her photographs. The clean edges express light and shadow, the sky holds on to a gray mid-tone complements the harsher black in the shadows of the building. I really like the shadow the drops down from the water container on the bottom right corner because it hovers in a wall with no windows which makes for a great spotlight. From a distance, it is almost a gradient going from black to white, coming from the bottom left corner to the upper right corner. I wish I could've seen more of the sky above the buildings, but all of the angular contrast of squares makes up for it.

Houses. Stonington, Maine, 1967

The first thing I saw in this was the post with the cables almost shining away from it. A focal point, in deed. The angles on the rooftops help the composition flow outward from the culminating point that is the pole. I like the integration of man on nature and how this would've been a beautiful landscape but we have al of these wires and wooden panels and nails and concrete... all of them derivate from nature itself but discordant, none the less. The houses do look interesting, very small and upright, 2 toned, very simple.

Pike and Henry Street. 1936

And this shizzzzzzzzzzznit is amazing! A beautiful crop with building shadows on the middle of the street with a lovely view of the ridge between the 2 edifices. The contrast on the buildings themselves really pushes the eye to ingest every detail with ease. There's a light post you can see underneath the bridge that for some reason, I really enjoy. Maybe its, shape and form, its dark and slim contrast on a foggy light background... I don't know, but it fascinates me. Great choice of weather and time of day by the photographer.

Richard Avedon [1923-2004]

Marian Anderson, 1955
A very strong and emotionally packed shot. Her mouth draws the eye quickly to it. Her eyes stand out just enough for you to acknowledge and keep gliding through the rest of the piece smoothly without rest.  I really enjoy how he contrasted the solid white background as it cuts right into her somewhat alluring hair.

Lew Alcindor, 1961
The focus of the lens on this photography is exquisite. It almost makes him pop out from the blurry background. I love to see the change in the athletic gear and clothing in comparison to the moderns. His long limbs, firm grasp on the basketball and undisturbed glance seems to reinforce time being paused for this shot to be taken.

Bernard and Annabel Buffet, 1959
Their coats tell me they belonged to the upper classes of New York.I like how she sort of leans behind him yet has one shoulder forward almost trying to say that she's no dumb broad. Their cynical expressions are wondrous, I mean, she looks to her right as he scans his left peripheral... it's like "we see the world for what it is."