Sunday 13

Jeanne Dunning

Jeanne Dunning was born in Chicago in 1960 and continued to get her education from the Oberlin College. After receiving her BA in 1982, she went to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she earned her MFA in 1985. Her first show was at the Feature Gallery in Chicago in 1987. After that she had many shows in the US as well as in Europe. Her solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the James Harris Gallery in Seattle. "Chicago artist Jeanne Dunning investigates the human body to create color photographs that question issues of identity, sexuality, and the interior and exterior self. Drawing from a variety of sources, Dunning’s images appear to be other than what they are: a piece of fruit resembles a human orifice; a woman’s head appears to be shaped like a phallus; a human hand takes on a smooth yet lumpy intimacy." The Los Angeles Times stated that her photographs fascinate and disturbm yet attract and repulse.

Gallery: http://www.jamesharrisgallery.com/Artists/Jeanne%20Dunning/dunning.htm

Interview: http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=489

Thursday 13

Expression




"Waller's affinity for abstract and complex photography has brought statewide recognition to the 17-year-old Hayfield Secondary School senior."

Tyrell Waller is a seventeen year old student at Hayfield Secondary school and he was recently awarded second place for a photograph he'd taken. Youths in Virginia ranging from ages 12 to 21 were asked by The Creative Vision of Virginia's Foster Care to submit photographs, writings, or other artwork that illustrated their personal experiences they've had in foster care. "It's a chance to express themselves while also making a statement about the system," said Mary Dunne Stewart, policy director of Voices for Virginia's Children, a nonprofit child advocacy organization that sponsored the competition. His second place photography titled "My reflection" was taken on an outing with Fairfax Families4Kids which is a program in the Department of Family Services. Its an opportunity for the foster kids to actively participate in the community and social activities which may lead them to possible adoptive families.

Orton, Kathy. "Contest Fosters Artistic Expression". WashingtonPost. 20 Nov 2008. 30 Nov 2008..

Sunday 12

Aaron Siskind

Aaron was born in 1904 in the heart of New York City and he spent his whole life there . He attended the City College and earned a B.S.S. in literature. After his honeymoon in 1929, he received his first camera as a gift given by his wife Sidonie Glaller. In 1943 and 1944 he began creating abstract photographs based on discarded objects found on Martha's Vineyard. Later, he taught photography in New Jersey at Trenton Junior college as well as at Rhode Island School of Design with Harry Callahn. Aaron had many achievements including founding the Society for Photographic Education , becoming the Co-editor of Chief Magazine, and being the founder of the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester. He received numerous awards such as the Gold Star of Merit award from Philadelphia College of Art, the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and the Governor's Prize for the Arts in Rhode Island. His work focused on the details of architecture and nature.

Gallery- http://www.mfah.org/home.asp?par1=1&par2=1&par3=1&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=0&eid=&currentPage=

Website- http://www.aaronsiskind.org/

Interview- http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/siskin82.htm

VMFA

Thursday 12

Fuzzy




"I've been doing this for eight years and after eight years we get there at once," - Macintosh

The first photographs have been taken of planets outside our solar system. Two astronomers were sent to photography these four planets that resemble a tiny speck of white. These planets are trillions Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images captured by two teams of astronomers. The pictures show four likely planets that appear as tiny little specs of white. These "giant gaseous" planets are hardly like Earth and are remotely habitable. Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab led one of the two teams of photographers. He says, "It is a step on that road to understand if there are other planets like Earth and potentially life out there." His team decided to use two ground based telescopes and the second team chose to rely on photos from the 18 year old Hubble Space Telescope to create pictures of the " exoplanets" which are planets that don't orbit our sun. The research was published In the Thursday's edition of the Journal Science. These photos are important says Ed Weiler, NASA's space sciences chief. He compared it to a hunt for elusive elephants: "For years we've been hearing the elephants, finding the tracks, seeing the trees knocked down by them, but we've never been able to snap a picture. Now we have a picture." The picture above looks fuzzy because the star is 100 million times brighter than its planet.

The pictures taken of these four planets resemble the work I've been producing this semester. Macro photography is becoming used in other fields and photographs are becoming such a useful tool. The colors in these images are beautiful and the photographers were really able to document these planets well.

Borenstein, Seth. " First Fuzzy Photos of Planets Outside our Solar System." Yahoo News. 13 Nov 2008..

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Sunday 11

Lennart Nilsson

Lennart was Born in Strängnäs in 1922 and is a pioneer in medical photography. With the help of advanced equipment, he has been able to document the inside of man " down to the level of a cell". In the mid 40's he started his career as a photojournalist and published photo essays in Swedish magazines. It was on his first assignement that he took his first pictures of the human embryo. The pictures were publisehd and he contiuned shooting the origins of man. From 1965-1972 he was under contract as a photographer for Life Magazine. During this time he produced stories on heart attacks and microscopic views inside both the brain and body.
He was under contract as a photographer for Life from 1965-1972 and produced stories on the heart and heart attacks, the microscopic view inside the body and the brain. He has been able to establish a reputation for his films internationally on the human body. His work can be found in collections including the British Museum in London, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum and the Modern Museum in Stockholm. An award has been presented annually since 1998 in recognition of extraordinary photography of science and is sponsored by the Lennart Nilsson Foundation.

Article- http://www.lennartnilsson.com/q_a.html

Website- http://www.lennartnilsson.com

Gallery- http://www.britishmuseum.org/

Thursday 11

Internal


"He has made a hitherto unseen world of the human body visible and photographed objects measuring about one millionth of a millimeter." - Rune Hassner, Ph.D

For decades Lennart Nilsson has taken breathtaking photographs of the human body using a powerful scanning electron microscope. He has been declared a top photographer in Sweden and he is proud to have two of his photographs engraved on the back of the current Swedish 100 kronor bill. He began taking unique and terrifying images of the HIV- virus and " killer cells" using this microscope. In the mid-1950s Nilsson started to experiment with new photographic techniques that allowed him to focus on sea life and ants. A coulpe books including Myror written in 1959, and Close to Nature in 1984 were published by Nilsson revealing these macro studies. Fortunately, a specially designed endoscope was developed in the 1960's and it made it possible for him to photography blood vessels within the body. He was also able to shoot cavities inside body with the necessary depth of field. In 1970 a scanning electron microscope was used for the first time and it greatly enhanced his work.
"It is interesting to follow how he, with every advance in equipment, step by step, has closed in on smaller and smaller objects in his studies of the world around him, as more powerful microscopes have become available and opened new fields for his research.
Behind his quiet and somewhat shy exterior, there is an iron will—and a streak of fanaticism that seems to enable him to overcome all obstacles in order to get the picture he wants."
Nilsson has received numerous awards including Over the years, Lennart Nilsson has received a number of awards, medals and other forms of recognition for his achievements, including the Art Directors' Club Award in New York, 1965, 1972 and 1976; tthe Emmy Award 1982, 1983 and 1996, and The ICP Master of Photography Award, New York 1992.

Hassner, Rune. An Unseen World. 11/12/08..

October Lecture 2

Garth Johnson


Mr. Johnson's interesting attire let me know that this lecture was going to be interesting. He was young and down to earth and I enjoyed hearing him speak about his creative project ExtremeCrafts.com. Coming from a family full of crafty people, his mother being a master quilter and his father working with wire, crafts never escaped his mind. He attended the art school at the University of Nebraska and later received his MFA at Alfred University. He currently designs at Perkins+Will architects in Atlanta. He created Extremecrafts 4 years ago and it's popularity has skyrocketed.
In the lecture Garth mentioned that he sees extremecrafts as A compendium of art masquerading as craft, craft masquerading as art, & craft extending its middle finger. I thought that was a very bold way of putting his thoughts out there. This website contains work from a bunch of DIY artists ( Do It Yourself ) . Tracy Emin, Ai Kijima, and Sean Samoheyl are some of the artists represented on his site that I really enjoyed. Ai Kijima creates these beautiful fabric collages from found bed sheets, t- shirts, blankets, curtains and any other fabrics she can put her hands on. "Kijima's works incorporate familiar pop culture iconography in ambiguous, often poetic, ways." Another group shown on his website was called Booze and Yarn which is one of the many existing knitting circles . I feel that Garth knows a lot about both the business side of art and that's really important for his Carree. This amazing archive of artists will continue to grow over the years and Ill be interested to see its progress.

http://extremecraft.com/

Sunday 10

Born in New York, Carolanne grew up competing in gymnastics and continued her passion into her teens. After making it through the painful training at the pre-Olympic level, she found her real interest was in the human body. She focused on taking photographs and painting after she left her athletic career for good. Ms. Leslie received a full scholarship to the German School of Photography and also had training in the Fine Arts Department at Adelphi University. She has worked as a re-toucher for many years and is an illustrative photography in the book cover industry. Her series titled The Corruption of Flesh uses digital photography, illustration and painting too. Her work has been shown in many galleries in New york including the Sous Les Etoiles Gallery.

“Difficult experiences can ravage us, destroy us or force us to build a thick shell that we clamber around in like a turtle…or these difficult experience can inspire us on an inward journey, one in which we strip away the hardened exterior and find peace and new wisdom in living in the moment. Either way,” the artist says, “a transformation occurs in us on a daily basis: cells die and cells are born; new memories are added and old memories dissipate.”

Website
http://carolanneleslie.com/

Represented by Sous Les Etoiles Gallery
http://www.souslesetoilesgallery.net/index.asp

Thursday 10

"If it were not for a digital camera and a computer, I would not be a photographer"
- Riva Berkovitz

Seventy-nine year old Riva Berkovits recently moved to Brookline Massachusetts where she decided to buy a digital camera. Her inspiration for the purchase came from living near Grigg Parks . She felt that its natural beauty could not be captured with paint so she explored photography for the first time. Her first camera did not come with the type of lens she wanted so she purchased a special close up/ macro lens. Berkovits has realized that equipment varies in sophistication as well as complexity and price." At first, Ms. Berkovitz thought she had stumbled onto the ultimate in low-cost close-up photography. Using Adobe Photoshop Elements software, she simply cropped small sections of flower photos taken with her Canon point-and-shoot camera." She was wrong. When her images were looked at on a monitor, they looked relatively good to the untrained eye. After making prints she noticed her pictures lacked sharpness and the noise was exaggerated because of the extreme cropping. The large diameter professional lenses can cost up 800 dollars and that's just too expensive! Macro lenses tend to provide their best results at close range.

I work very close to my subjects and my lens just doesn't cut it. I'm afraid that when I print these large, the noise will be so obvious. Right now I don't have access to a macro lens but I think its important for me to have if i want to move forward with this project. I have had to throw out almost two thirds of my images every time i shoot due to lack of sharpness and I would love to eliminate that problem.

Austen, Ian. "Macro Photography, Microscopic Details."New York Times. Dec 2007. 2 Nov 2008.