JUST FUN

Well, it's not that I like this sort of silly tests, but this one was forwarded to me by a friend, and turned to be much fun. It's not a serious thing, of course, but rather peculiar. You can find out which famous photographer you are ;p
http://www.youthink.com/quiz.cfm?action=go_detail&sub_action=take&obj_id=164.
Found out I am supposed to be like Joel-Peter Witkin. The guy I always thought to be the freakiest photographer ever. Really surprised and should inform you that I don't like shooting decapitated bodies and dwarfs...hm. but yeah, I like dealing with bizarre people and things.
and I like Witkin's idea that
"When I produce a photograph that totally satisfies, a part of me actually dies. And I think that death is an aspect of myself being burned away or dissolved, because that part of what I had to work out is taken care of."
Ugh, I have told you this test is not a serious thing, haven't I?

INTERESTING RESOURCES

I have just found a very interesting resource, that might be useful, I guess. They have 'the Story behind the Pictures' section that tells how this or that photograph was created
http://www.all-art.org/history658_photography13.html
and there is also a Photographer's Dictionary, that can help when describing things and getting ready for 30 October assignment. Thay have listed names, biographies and works of most famous photographers in alphabetic order
http://www.all-art.org/20ct_photo/20century_photo1.htm

Assignment 1. Architecture and Still Life. 19th century.

Thomas Annan(1829-1887) is supposed to be one of the first photographers who started to record life of poor people. In 1866 he was commissioned by the Glasgow City Improvement Trust to photograph slum areas in the old part of the city before urban renewal took place. As a result a remarkable set of pictures ‘Photographs of Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow’ (1868-1877) appeared.
Let us have a look at ‘Close, No. 193 High Street’ photo. Thanks to the low key light the author managed to create an extremely fascinating scene with almost a chiaroscuro effect. Choosing to shoot from the level of the washing (which is the place a bit above the pavement) not only helped Annan to preserve the one-point perspective and show how the street is running far away, disappearing in the background, but first and foremost, this vantage point let the photographer show the world of poverty somehow from aside, from the place where, presumably, he considered the Glasgow City Improvement Trust would be.
Despite it was the very dawn of photography, Thomas Annan managed to make the picture look very dynamic. It is not only the way the photographer combines vertical and horizontal lines in a mysterious equilibrium, but also the objects and their color, that he chooses to include into the frame. The clothes hanging all along the street undoubtedly produce a strong rhythmic pattern. And the alternation of the black and gray colors of the washing creates an impression of some imperceptible inner movement. All that leads very logically to the visual climax of the picture, which is the light from above in the very end of the dark street.
This photo looks very symbolic to me. The way Thomas Annan framed the image leaves much place for a contemplation concerning the underlying meaning of the whole scene. Dark foreground, some very shabby clothes in the wind, the high wall on the left and almost black windows seem to be very static, stable and hopeless. However, the stairs on the right, the playing kids, the flare reflected in the dirt on the pavement and the circle of light oozing through the leaden clouds, all that being opposed to a massive negative space looks like the photographer had hope for those people (For their kids at least). As if after the reconstruction the look of the street could change and the future would be much better. Quite a Utopia, certainly, but a superbly created one.

The Mad-Hatter Library

Portraits
I don’t know about you, but I adore portraits. I believe that a human being is the most interesting creature in the world. And I collect all sorts of information concerning portraiture.
When they teach you to draw they make you copy works of the great masters. It not only gives you an idea of proportion, lines, tones and colors but first and foremost shows you your own way for further development. I guess, with photography it is quite the same thing. If you want to be better, read more and watch more and definitely learn from the great ones.
Certainly each of you has his or her own preferences in portraiture but here is my list of those whose works seem to be interesting. Probably it will be of some help for you, too (in case you are also interested in portraits).

Richard Avedon
David Bailey
Cecil Beaton
Harry Callahan
Julia Margaret Cameron
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Bruce Davidson
Robert Doisneau
Elliott Erwitt
Walker Evans
Anne Geddes
Nan Goldin
Philippe Halsman
Lewis Hine
Horst P. Horst
Yousuf Karsh
Dorothea Lange
Sally Mann
Robert Mapplethorpe
Mary Ellen Mark
Steve McCurry
Arnold Newman
Erwin Olaf
Irving Penn
Herb Ritts
Jan Saudek
Mark Seliger
Cindy Sherman
Alfred Stieglitz
Jock Sturges
Jerry Uelsmann
Hiroshi Watanabe
Edward Weston
Joel-Peter Witkin
Nadar
Albert Sands Southworth
Julia Margaret Cameron
George Hurrell
Yousuf Karsh
Philippe Halsman
Arnold Newman
Richard Avedon
Cindy Sherman
Diane Arbus
Peter Lindbergh
Herb Ritts
David Hamilton
Robert Mapplethorpe
Rankin
Bettina Rheims
Annie Leibovitz
Mary Ellen Mark
Hiroshi Watanabe
Reneke Dijkstra

And as a bonus. A book on how to take extreeeeeemely classical portraits.
http://jzportraits.home.att.net/

The Old Curiosity Shop

What a Colorful Life.

It is well known that color film appeared only in 1935 (when Kodak introduced Kodachrome). But does it mean there was no color before? Does it mean that the world of photography was black and white and sometimes sepia? Definitely NOT. You remember the Lumiere brothers don’t you? And what extremely invigoration entrepreneurs they were. However, let us be frank. Let us admit that color photography has several fathers. Sounds like blasphemy, you think?

Well, let me tell you a story. A colorful story, indeed.

Once upon a time in France… (Have you noticed that most of the turning points for the history of photography are connected with France? Guess, there must have been some conspiracy)

Louis Ducos du Hauron (1837–1920). In 1868 he patented the three-color photography technique (RGB – sounds familiar right?) – the first practical method to capture color pictures, actually. Well, to tell you the truth that was not him who brought up the idea of three- color photography. Nevertheless, the aforementioned Monsieur du Hauron was the first to use it for practical photography, which deserves some respect, doesn’t it?

The idea itself was proposed by James Clark Maxwell – a Scottish theoretical physicist. He tried to make three separate black and white negatives through first red, then blue and then green filters. Later on Ducos du Hauron made his first color separations on three separate sheets of paper. However, there is no happy ending here, because the sensitivity of emulsion to the red part of the spectrum was extremely low and poor. Monseur Hauron had to wait for hours while exposing the scene to the red filter. Just think what pain in the neck it must have been.

And here step up two more legendary figures. I would call them saviors… no, no Saviors. They managed to tremendously improve the sensibility of the emulsion to the red light. Ladies and gentlemen, Mesdames et Monsieurs, comrades, let me introduce…

Professors Vogel (1834–1898) and Miethe (1862–1927). Two German guys who were the pathfinders, the messiahs, the (your noun could be here) To make a long story short they let the color photography move on. Especially Miethe, who also developed quite a good design of the triple-color camera. The camera used a negative plate 8x24 cm.

And then, there was a spy. There should be always a spy in a case of a good detective story, right? Why can’t I invent one? Would a Russian guy do as a spy?

Oh, well, though it is less exciting, but I’ll give you the facts which you are craving for.

Yes, there was a Russian. A Russian scientist and photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944). He worked at Miethe’s laboratory and he became one of the most devoted disciples of the technique called ‘Dreifarbenphotographie nach der Natur’ (three-color photography in natural colors, pardon my German).

Mr Prokudin-Gorski became so obsessed with this sort of taking pictures that he devoted all his life to the development of this technique. Most of his color pictures were shot between 1904-1916 (Yes, I do remember that the Lumiers patented their method in 1903, but as I said, I want to tell you a bit more about other members of the color photography clan ;)

Prokudin-Gorsky’s enthusiasm was so contagious the Tsar Nikolai II decided to somehow participate. He made Prokudin-Gorsky an official photographer of the Empire and asked the man to travel across Russia (1907-1915) and picture everything that seemed to be interesting.

The process of shooting was the same: three RGB filters involved. After that a contact triple black and white positive was printed on a glass plate and then projected through a special triple projector. Each of the three positives was projected on the screen through a different filter.

Unfortunately, classical methods of reproducing three-color images are quite expensive and time-consuming. That was why until recently Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii ‘s pictures have not been seen by the public. The advent of digital technology made things easier and the color images could be composed from scanned negatives (more than 1,900) in the computer and then printed as color digital photographs. The first book ‘Photographs for the Tsar: The Pioneering Color Photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii’ by Robert Allshouse appeared in 1980. And in 1986 the US Library of Congress exhibited a small collection of Prokudin-Gorski’s works to the public.

Now you can compare those works by the Lumiers and Prokudin-Gorskii yourself.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/p?pp/prok:@field(NUMBER+prok)::SortBy=CALL

and here is some more infomrmation about Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii (just in case)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokudin-Gorskii

Well, you must be really tired of my story. But haven’t I proposed to introduce a spy and you preferred mere historical facts?

Of course, I could tell you a bit more about, for example, John Joly but I am afraid it will not be as jolly as it sounds. So my Old Curiosity shop is closed for today.

Introduction

Call me Lucy. (Would be a good start for a novel, wouldn’t it? However, I am afraid someone has already used it ;)

But, really, how did it all start? Well, as every mental disorder, I guess, this one is also rooted in childhood, when mom and dad taught me to use their film camera.

Nevertheless, it was only about two years ago that the first symptoms of a serious (and I am afraid contagious) illness would appear. My colleagues presented me with Nikon D50. I had taken pictures before, but I had never thought about photography seriously.

And then there was Nikon.

And then… a secret life.

From 10 am to 5 pm I was a PhD person working as a project manager for an international executive search company. After 5 pm I turned into a student and ran to my first photography school, or to one more workshop on studio lighting, or attended a lecture on history of photography. In a year I got completely obsessed and hopeless.

I left my job, and my boss cursed the day my colleagues got me the camera.

Well, here I am. Having no gift (and knowing it for sure) to be like Cartier-Bresson, or Leibovitz, or Avedon but stubborn and self-assured enough to hope that one day I’ll manage to become someone in this profession.