Thomas Ciszewski

Paris-based photographer Thomas Ciszewski summons our inner pyromaniacs and creates human dragons in this set he titles "Hot Spot." The contrast between fire and the dark background is striking. One has to wonder how hot the scenes get and what type of flammable liquid they're spewing out. Ciszewski currently works as a creative director at a digital agency in Paris.

alec soth

When I first decided to do environmental portraits for my negotiated study I looked at the work of Alec Soth especially his book ‘Sleeping On The Mississippi’ in which Soth documents his road trip along the Mississippi river, he captures the everyday lives of the people in the towns and makes these little run down towns looks beautiful. The book has a mixture of landscapes, documentary and environmental portraits within it. The environmental images make the reader wonder who the people are and what their story is that he photographs. The Landscapes are of these little snowy, desolate towns and areas but Soth makes them full of character like the places speak for themselves. The documented images look at the living conditions and the decayed area surrounding it. Soths images are known for being religious or having a salvation theme in some of his images.

 In one Image (Image 1) Soth has taken an image of an area surrounded by trees and someone or a few people have dumped their old chairs and because of the way they are placed it looks like a typical American living room, the lighting looks natural and that it has been taken maybe before dusk or on a cloudy day because of the grey tones in the sky, there are no colours bright that jump out at you, which helps give its abandoned decayed atmosphere that Soth used to his advantage to create this image.

The next image (Image 2) ‘Preacher Man’ which is taken of a blonde haired  ‘Joshua’, who has a tattoo of a tear drop below his eye and on his collar stitched is ‘Preacher man’ with just looking at the picture alone, the viewer would be able to sense there is a lot of emotional behind ‘Joshua’s’ stern yet sad look and after reading the writing next to the image you find out he is serving a 42 year sentence for murder so in a way the writhing around his neck is like a fallen halo. The blue tones used mostly in the image create a cold atmosphere which helps gives the image more depth behind it and the fact that Soth has ‘Joshua’ in focus and the rest blurred makes it look like he is really alone.

In Image 3 ‘Charles’ which image also is featured on the front cover of ‘Sleeping on the Mississippi’ is of a man in a flight suite holding two model aeroplanes. ‘Charles’ looks like someone that has always wanted to fly a plane but because he can’t he builds models instead, puts his flying suite on and fulfils his dreams another way. In this image Soth has done a full length shot to get in the surroundings to give the image more character, Charles appears to be standing in the place where his planes take off from so the area is important. The building next to him is his workshop where he builds his many models. The colours in the image are quite neutral and don’t overpower even other so nothing stands out dramatically except his planes which are a bright red but they are important to the image.

canada

don't know whether to include this image in the book, i like it and all but i don't know :/ need a good think about it. any thoughts would be helpful

leavenworth

Heres one of the newest ones i have edited for the book project, i think am going for a square book theme but i like square images more it appears. but some of my images are rectangle? :S so ill have to have a look see maybe have some rectangle and put some text next to the images and just let the square images fill the page :)

Matt Stuart: Street photographer

A photographer i recently found on the iN-PUBLiC SITE (a street photographer/videographer site) called Matt stuart whose work caught my attention. Most of his work is ironic and comical. 

This shot is quite comical as the pigeon is walking in the same direction as the people going to work, making it look oddly like the pigeon is on the same path in life as the people. The image has quite monotone colours with the blacks, greys and whites.  

The image above is very cheeky and cunningly executed, with the man coming back to his car to find it clamped with a ticket which he is trying to sort out and the man dressed up as a devil watching the mans failing attempts to sort his car. The composition makes the image more interesting especially because Stuart didn't take a picture of just the man sorting his car, he took it with the devil included to give the image more of an edge and a better story behind it.

This image is taken sneakily, Stuart has managed to take a picture of the inside of a smart looking mans work bag, to reveal he has bad taste in magazines thankfully disclosing the mans identity. 

David Gibson: street photographer

Over the summer i have been looking at the work of david gibson a lot, especially his current on going project "Subtitles for life" which is driven by his fascination with graphics and words.

The image above 'Last few Days' is very ironic like a lot of the images in the project, catching an elderly man walking past a run down shop saying 'last few days' is also quite comical, he's managed to catch the man at the right point as well as you can see clearly the words written on the window. The focus of the picture is the words and the man but your eyes are instantly drawn to the words first and then the man i found. The  black and white tone gives the image a boring 'this is everyday' atmosphere. A good use of juxtaposition. 

This image 'Jack In The Box' is well executed as he just caught the mo-ped at just the right time, and even though the image has motion it still works just as effective because the text in the background is in focus, making it the main focus of the image. this image is high contrasted due to it being a black and white image.  

In this image 'Ahead' there is a play on the word ahead, 1) the mans head, 2) he's going ahead, 3) theres something ahead. Gibson has composed the image so theres more road in the image, which i think was the best decision, because if there was more pavement or it was taken landscape i think the image would have a different overall atmosphere and feel.     

This image 'Why?' is quite though thought provoking, maybe the cleaner is looking and wondering why? why is it there? why are they there? 

for Faye

saw this music video on mtv and it made me think of Fayes book project at the minute.

Song: Do Your Thing
Artist: Basement Jaxx

hope its helps :P

i love faye <3