Oscar Gustave Rejlander

There is not a lot known about the photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander, and what we do have is only from comments in conversation he made personally. Even then it is unclear any of it can be trusted, born in Sweden he studied fine art and moved to Rome to make copies of large renaissance paintings. When he discovered photography he quickly realised how useful it can be in the hands of an artist, he began taking pictures with sentimentality and strong theatrical, emotional elements with hints of humour. Given his studies earlier in his life he also gravitated towards a classical style of imagery with ornate, grand sets he recreated his favourite renaissance paintings and constructed some himself. I like the poses he has people stand in, they are very classic and have a narrative all of their own, with a contemporary look and classical poses I think I could use these qualities as a juxtaposition in my photographs.

Richard Tuschman

 

Richard Tuschman takes painting by Edward Hopper and recreates them in stunning quality and painter like effects. Edward Hopper has always been a huge influence on photography because of his subject matter being so similar. I am a fan of his paintings because of the loneliness and forlorn looks his figures have, I always wonder what they are thinking or going through at the time. Tuschman focuses more on Hopper's paintings of women looking forlorn or lost. Whats most interesting though is his attention to detail, in the images above the light and shadows are the same, the woman is represented the same way and even outside the window the same landscape is shown. The effects of the photographs visually is compelling aswell, you have to do a double take to check whether they are actually photographs because of the painting look they have so strongly. I don't think I will try to enhance the image to a painter like quality because I want them to have a modern day twist and associate with people nowadays.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2308563/Richard-Tuschman-Artist-recreates-famous-paintings-stunning-photographs.html

Explore and Experiment

For this project I want to explore the way photographers such as Jeff Wall and Tom Hunter recreate classic paintings in photography. I think its a really interesting way of giving new life to old paintings and even better when artists put their own style to the works, its like seeing a painting the way someone else sees it. I'm going to start by looking at how these artists have done this and visit galleries with classical paintings to understand that genre of art more. From there I will choose a few paintings that I like most and go about recreating them in photography in different ways. I will experiment with film, black and white, digital, drawings, paintings and other mediums. Ultimately I want to share with the viewer what I see when I look at a painting and what random thoughts pop into my head when I do. This can be anything from 'a figure in the background looks like someone I know' to 'this scene reminds of a scene from a movie I watched with my girlfriend', anything that gives my personal experience with a painting.

Shaun Samson

Risograph printing

A Risograph printer is an exciting piece of duplication technology. They create a thermographic master for each colour in your artwork which is then wrapped around a drum. Ink is forced through the voids in the master. The paper runs flat through the machine while the drum rotates at high speed to print each image on the paper. This means that they can produce high quality prints using special colour ink on a range of papers, quickly and inexpensively. Below are a few samples i have acquired of some risograph printing. I am considering using risography as a print process within the project, possibly as a means to printing the packaging/presentation

Personal letters

For my image and text I want to explore the personal things people send to each other through various mediums, such as here; letters. Its fascinating looking at peoples letters to each other in the past, how they worded things, how they wrote etc.

Alec Soth

Minnesota born photographer Alec Soth's book, 'looking for love',  is what I think Robert Frank would have photographed if he were single and lonely. The whole book circumnavigates the feeling of loneliness, that emotion we are all searching for and those who have it. In a magazine interview following the launch he describes his work as searching for the central point of quiescence and documenting the space between him and the subject -

You say you document the space in between the subject and yourself. How do you define that space, where exactly is it, how do you reduce the distance between you and your subject, lens and film, light and shadow? Do you kill or revive? Do they look at you or what do they see inside your lens?
I wouldn’t say that I’m trying to reduce the space between myself and the subject. I’m not trying to probe into their soul. We aren’t making love. I don’t really have any motivation other than to stare.

He also comments on the look he got from couples he was photographing, sort of a 'get back, this is mine' stare. Maybe its the emotion he is exhibiting that makes the images attractive, but the narrative and eye for a documentary photograph Soth has is commendable. He incorporates humour, sadness, irony and similarities between subjects like a real life theatre production, only the actors dont know theyre taking part.