Week Five

Ralph Gibson (born January 16, 1939) is an American art photographer best known for his photographic books. His images often incorporate fragments with erotic and mysterious undertones, building narrative meaning through contextualization and surreal juxtaposition.

This is my favourite work out of all. I love the way the lines reflected on the body of the model. The contrast between the bare skin and the cast of lines forms an interesting shape similar to zebra prints. I felt that having the models to be naked is intentional as it would make a difference if the models were wearing clothes, the lines reflected would not be smooth as the texture and form of clothing affects the outcome of the image. 

From my observations, Ralph Gibson's image subjects are mostly women. His likes to have a model/subject to portray his images. He plans his images rather than waiting for the right time for people to appear. His images mostly consist of lines, shapes and forms. I like the way the images are planned out however, still seems like its was unintentional. He focus on women's body and brings intimacy close to his images. I felt like he is trying to show that women's body is a work of art too. 

Week Four

Ho Fan (Chinese: 何藩) He was born in 8 October 1937 and passed away on the 19 June 2016. He was a celebrated Chinese photographer, film director, and actor. He won over 280 awards from international exhibitions and competitions worldwide since 1956 for his photography.

ABOUT HIS PHOTOGRAPHS

His images are taken during 1950's–60's and printed during the 50's–70's. During this time Fan Ho was a one man working studio. He would photograph late afternoon, process and print his film at night and do it all over the the next day. Giving a sense of history, some of the images have awards stamped on the back from competitions he entered. The images have no sizes vary, each and every pieces are one of a kind. 

This is one of my favourite out of all his works. Firstly, this image's ration is perfectly balanced, there is a balanced contrasted between its subject and the surrounding. I actually applied such style in my first project. 

Fan Ho captures the life of Hong Kong. His images are all similar in terms of composition, layout and form. He makes use of silhouette of humans and form a nice composed image. A simple image of everyday life in Hong Kong. His images are definitely strong enough to tell the stories of how living in Hong Kong feels like. He covers all types of people, emotions and occupations of Hong Kong. I appreciate his works a lot as they are beautiful histories. 

Week Three

Henri Cartier-Bresson

ABOUT HIM

August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004 

A French humanist photographer considered as a master of candid photography. He was an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and conceived of photography as capturing a decisive moment. His work has influenced many photographers.

This is my favorite photo taken by him. I actually chanced upon this photo once on the social media. However, I did not find out who the photographer is. Until I researched on Henri Cartier-Bresson. This photo caught my attention. I could feel the affection between the sailor man and the lady. This photo is so candid it felt like as if a scene from a classic love film which I initially thought. 

Henri is very good at capturing candid shots and he shoot it with his film camera. Which I felt is the most skillful part because a film camera only has manual setting so in order to capture the perfect shot at the right moment is challenging. However, he manages to capture every image with feeling and meaning to it. He also made use of the golden ratio to frame his photos which is visually balance when looking at it.

Week Two

Hiroshi Sugimoto (杉本博司, Sugimoto Hiroshi), born on February 23, 1948, is a Japanese photographer. He is currently working at Tokyo, Japan and New York City, United States.

His images are surreal and looks like a painting rather than a photograph. He has an eye for details in everyday life which I got inspiration from for my first project - extraordinary. He observes his surrounding well and keeps his images simple and clean. Yet tells a story behind every photographs. He also brings nature up close to his audience and felt like those images shows more than just animals. Instead, the message brought across are feelings and emotions of the animals and nature.