Andrew Zuckerman

I first saw Andrew Zuckerman's photography while in Anthropologie. One of his books, entitled "Bird", was for sale and I decided to flip through it. I was immediately in love with his photography. His pictures are cut so that there is no background, only the bird flying through empty space. The photos have an almost unreal quality to them which makes you initially questions whether they are photos or drawings or paintings. One of my favorite images is the back of a parrot as it is taking flight. The colors of the bird are amazing and the wings are stretching out forming an almost heart-like shape as it takes flight. Another image that I love is of a brown eagle with yellow eyes staring straight into the lens. His mouth is slightly open and he seems to have a look of "what are you doing?" on his face. The detail in Zuckerman's images is exquisite. In each photo, it seems as if the bird is right in front of you, literally within 2 feet from you. I really like his technique of cropping out the rest of a photo so that you focus on the bird alone and the background of the image does not take anything away from that.

Source: "Bird" by Andrew Zuckerman, copyright 2009

Andrea Camuto

Andrea Camuto is a photographer who intends "to give voice to those who have been made silent by circumstance and war". Her one series focuses on Afghan refugees returning to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. In each of her images you can see a story of the people that are in them. My favorite image in this series is entitled "Broken Mirror" and it shows the reflection of a man holding his child in a broken mirror. On the sides of the photo are some sort of box and what appears to be a small container of alcohol. To me the image shows grief and hurt from seeing the destruction of a home upon return to it. However, the image also portrays hope in the little boy who will be able to grow up in a better time. Another image that I like is of a little girl holding the head of a baby doll, with no body attached. My favorite thing about the image is that it is mostly light and the little girl appears very dark as the focal point of the image. She appears to be comforting the doll head, telling it that everything will be okay. One image that I like which is not from Afghanistan is "Children Make Scrambled Eggs on Soda Cans", taken in Cambodia. I like this image because a group of about 15 children are all gathered around in a small area making their own food. To me it resembled a Girl Scout camping trip from when I was younger, experimenting with ways to make food and learning that not everything worked out as planned. The children seemed determined in their quest, and overall it is just an enjoyable image to look at.

Source: Black & White Magazine, Issue 71, December 2009

Jin Peng

After an earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, Jin Peng went there, to his home country, to photograph the destruction. Instead of photographing the chaos and rescue efforts, he captures the silence of the ruins in a very beautiful way. Some photos show destroyed buildings and rubble, but others include statues and wall art, portraying a sense of beauty and hope in overcoming the destruction. My favorite image is of a brick building with a giant crack in it. The photo is a close up showing only one section of the building. There are sculpted leaves on the building and other artistic elements which show the beauty of the building winning out over the crack of destruction. Another image shows a bridge that has fallen in half and has water flowing over it in the center. It looks strangely natural, as if the scene was a piece of artwork in and of itself, not something that had been destroyed.

Source: Black & White Magazine, Issue 71, December 2009

Simon Norfolk

When I first looked through Norfolk's images I was in love. They are mostly of nature, with man-made things mixed in. One image in particular that I was drawn to is of 4 people who are standing on a very green mountain/hill. There is even a lake in the image which appears to be a dark emerald color and draws you right into the center of the image. The colors are incredibly vivid, and at the top of the image they meet with white clouds, providing some balance to the image. Another image that I love is of an old, run-down airplane that looks as if it's been dumped in a desolate area of sand.In front of the plane there is a man holding a bird cage with what appears to be a hawk inside. To me the image is just beautiful...the bird in the cage is trapped and unable to fly just like the run down airplane, and this makes me wonder if the man in the image feels the same way. The next image in his series is similar, there is a man-made structure in the background and a man standing in the forefront of the photo. The color palette is the same gray/tan, but the man is holding a large group of very brightly colored balloons which seem to make the entire image. It seems strange for the balloons to be in such a desolate place, and yet there they are.

Source: http://photography-now.net/simon_norfolk/portfolio1.html

Lewis W. Hine

For my next photo project I am photographing things that people do with their hands that they feel are unique. I researched photos of hands and came across Hine's work. The image of his that I like most is entitled "Hands Turning Wheel". This image fits very well with my project because it basically follows the same theme. I like that you can't see who the person is, you can only try to guess who they are by looking at their hands, which adds a little bit of mystery to it and it also helps you to focus more on what the hands are actually doing. Hine also has a group of photos of people hand sewing. These photos do include the person's face, but you are still drawn towards their hands and what they are doing. Additionally, he has images of people using hand presses, loading hay, and with a hand puppet, among other things. The images are in black and white, and I think that the lack of color also helps to focus the image towards the hands. I plan to make my images for this assignment black and white and I think that it worked well in Hine's pictures.

Source: http://photography-now.net/lewis_hine/portfolio1.html

Ron Van Dongen

Ron's photos are all of flowers and plant-life. He has both color and black and white images, and while the black and whites are beautiful, I am much more drawn to the color images. I think that looking at a flower without seeing the color just takes something away from what flowers are. I like the way that he coordinates the background color with the color of the flower, it almost creates a colorless color effect in some of the images. One of my favorite images is of a brown tulip on a black background. The colors are extremely vibrant at the center of the flower, and at the tips the dark brown of the flower begins to blend with the black of the background, almost like they're melting together. I really enjoyed the variety of plants that he used, half of them I had never even seen before! There was one plant that looks like it has a bunch of little eyes on it, and I must say I'm very curious to figure out what exactly that is!

Source: http://photography-now.net/ron_van_dongen/portfolio1.html

Jill Greenberg

Jill Greenberg has a collection of animal and children's pictures on Photography Now. I love that although the photos are set up the same way, with the subject in the center and a fairly plain border surrounding them, each one is unique by way of facial expressions and different colors of the subject. My favorite image is of a black bear that appears to be in some kind of room. He is clearly not in his natural habitat, and  it seems that he is very saddened by this due to his slumped way of sitting in the photo. To me it provides a powerful message that animals should not be kept in captivity. I also love the 2 images she has of children crying. The color in the photos is beautiful and she is capturing such a raw emotion. She also includes many images of monkeys, which seem to be making a wide variety of facial expressions. I like this idea of showing expression with non-human subjects, and I can click through the photos and name the emotion that each monkey is portraying.

Source: http://photography-now.net/jill_greenberg/portfolio1.html