Camilo Jose Vergara. I've bookmarked this guy so I can look through his stuff more in depth later. He focuses on poverty and the inner cities and ghettos. One of his big projects is returning to the same spot and recording a building/ area's decay or growth. I think its a grand idea. A lot of patience and passion to do a project like that.







http://lightbox.time.com/2013/07/09/from-the-inner-cities-to-the-white-house-photographs-by-camilo-jose-vergara/#1

So who came before Ansel Adams? Joseph Nisbet LeConte. He was born thirty years or so before Ansel, and was taking photos in the Sierra Nevada Range before him. He was a jack of all trades really, photography being just one of his interests. He was a mechanical engineer, so his fascination with the camera itself surely had a lot to do with him picking up the hobby. Carrying the equipment then was a burden, so simply being the first to get images of certain things made his work fairly famous. That doesn't mean the work wasn't good however. Adams himself is quoted saying "Never intentionally 'arty', most of his compositions reveal a sensitive reaction to the finest moments of the mountain scene. It is this quality that differentiates between a mere record and a creative, sympathetic statement." He loved mountaineering. He was a member, even president at one point, of the Sierra Club, a map maker for the area, and played a big part in carving out the John Muir trail.

His work isn't nearly as easy to find as Ansel Adams, and he's not nearly as famous, but Adams met Leconte, and was certainly inspired by him. He was exploring his home and photographing many of the same places Leconte had before him. Leconte's work isn't by any means better, but I feel that it deserves more recognition.(He did get a few things named after him in the park though, so there is that.)

I've avoided doing a post about Ansel Adams the whole semester, because I have technically heard of him before. I know that he's one of, if not the, most important and influential photographers of all time. However, by avoiding him, I think I was doing myself a disservice by not exploring such an accomplished artist. And beyond that, his work covered much of the same scope of things I point my own camera at. So, with my mind on Yosemite still, it seems like a fitting time to list Ansel Adams.

He was born in San Francisco, in the early 20th century to a wealthy family, though they we're knocked down to near poverty at one point. He became very fascinated with nature at a young age, becoming a follower of Ralph Waldo Emerson's work and philosophy. Joining the Sierra Club while still a teenager.  In 1916 he was given his first camera while in Yosemite Valley, like Shawn Reeder would years later, and his affinity for the art grew from there. The effects of the valley.

He had a 60 year career, expanding many subjects and mediums, but his work of the mountains in the Sierra is what fascinates me the most.

http://www.anseladams.com/

Multiples Assignment

Shawn Reeder is the most impressive outdoor photographer I've found so far. I've seen thousands of pictures of Half Dome, from all different angles, and this one really stunned me like no other one has. Photography and travel, that's his bag. He has a short vid on his site as a little bio. He basically took a trip to Yosemite when he was 18, used his buddy's point and shoot that he was neglecting, and then made a career and a home. He shoots landscapes and people; hikers, climbers, random tourists, and even weddings. He gives tons of praise and credit to Yosemite for making him what he is. He says the place is magical and beyond words and I have to agree with him. I went to the valley last summer and it was like nothing I'd experienced before, it is hard to explain. Props to him for submerging himself in it. He's expanded to other places, New Zealand most recently, but Yo is still where he calls home. I can't say enough about how stellar his work is.

http://shawnreeder.com/

Ok last graffiti centered artist. For a while at least. This guy's name is Ozkar Gorgias. He's European. I'm pretty sure German to be exact, but I can't be sure. I Know Germany has a huge graffiti scene. It's really something else. I've scene docs where they hit trains or a building in large groups and blow up the spot in a matter of minutes. It's a unique thing to watch.

Ozkar is more focused on the activity rather than the art itself. He captures the people he's with squeezing through drain pipes and cracks in wall. Lots of scaling buildings, sometimes via ladders, sometimes more creatively. Also, a large amount of the work I've seen are shots from rooftops. I think he may see that as the fruit of his labor. Sitting on a rooftop where you're not supposed to be, looking over a giant sleeping city is a very soul lifting experience. And I get the feeling he really tries to capture that feeling.

The piece in the art show that really drew my attention was a found object sculpture title Bored. It is a marked-up, hacked-up large dictionary. The hard red cover and simple letters make me think the dictionary itself is from the 70s. The art screams of that decade as well. In a school today, there is no way a kid could get away with vandalizing a book like this, but 40 years ago... maybe. The cover is lifted just slightly and you can clearly see a DeadHead drawn on the title page. The rest of the doodles are more jumbled and less clear, but the Dead emblem stands out and there is no mistaking it. The skull carved out of the corner of the pages is the center piece and obviously the artist's main focus/challenge. It shows incredible precision and talent as well as patience and vision.

Now for a piece that I wasn't too fond of. I don't want to totally lambast someone's work not knowing what the exact assignment was, but the one I really found lacking was titled Terror Ride, from an illustration class. I found it to be simple and lacking detail. The lines ran together and didn't seem to take the most effort. The piece looked like a page from a coloring book really. But with the class being illustrations, maybe that was the goal.

Found another graffiti photographer. I actually found one of those top ten lists (because what doesn't have a top ten list). I've been going through them all, but I don't want to flood the blog with them. Probably just one more after this maybe. The dudes name is Keegan Gibbs. I really like his stuff in the graffiti scene because he focused on the taggers and the adventure more than the art. He did a great job of capturing some moments, and that feeling of being out in the middle of the night creeping through the city. There's a lot of grainy stuff, black and whites, shots where he obviously used a telephoto and got guys scaling buildings from across the street or from down the block.

He has other good work, but not much that interested me as far as subject goes. Surfing mostly.

http://keegangibbs.com/

The shoot I did in the train yard last weekend was one of, if not the most fun shoots I've done yet. It was similar to most trips I take with my camera, being in a more rundown area where most people wouldn't go. Trying to see things most people don't see, or notice. This was different though being that I had a more specific subject to shoot. Being able to shoot the graffiti artist instead of just the art made it different. It was the same dumb hood-rat kind of stuff we did when we were kids, but somehow legitimized by making art. Each of us. It's a world and a culture I want to try to capture more of.

That being so, I went on a search for photographers after the same thing and found one of the most impressive people I've come across yet. Martha Cooper. I've kept an eye out for more female artists but (ignorantly) didn't expect to find one here. I'm not sure why.

Her dad owned a camera store in Baltimore and gave her a camera in 1946 when she was a little kid. So shes been making photos for half of the life span of modern photography, as she reasons it, since the first Kodak in 1888. So do that math. Shes in her seventies and is huge in the street art world. I love how old people can surprise you. Her big book was Subway Art, published in 1984. Her work really shows the feel of the graffiti/ hip-hop/ Bboy scene in the cities in the early 80's. Buy beyond that stuff, her older work, Street Play, done in black and white is killer. Showing kids in NYC's lower east side making the most fun out of a poor neighborhood. Playing with tires and jumping off fire escapes onto mattresses. It's another culture she was able to make you feel like you're in through a few images.

She's by far one of my favorite artists I've come across so far, but without a doubt she's the one I would like to meet the most. I imagine hanging out with her for a day would be a blast.

http://www.12ozprophet.com/index.php/martha_cooper/

I've been a little slow with the blog lately. Spending my time looking at the work of artist linked to in moodle. They've been great artist, and informative. I've found a few that way that stole a large chunk of my time. I may make some entries based on one or two of them, but I need to get back in high gear of exploring artist on my own.

Kurt Markus is where I'll start. The one photographer who's work I covet and spend the most time on is Jimmy Chin. Recently he teamed up with Markus on an assignment. For NatGeo maybe. He's shot travel and climbing like Jimmy, but he's really a jack of all trades. He did work with an array of athletes, not just climbers. He does landscapes, fashion, nudes, portraits, musicians, and anything else that he can. He does film and writes as well. He's really all over the place and uses wide range of tools and mediums.

The work shown on his site is limited, but he gives in depth descriptions on his take on each type of work. His idea of portrait taking was really insightful for me, and pretty in line with how I feel about it. Wanting to many times surrender control to the subject.

http://www.kurtmarkus.com