Monday, November 16, 2015

Photographer of the week (16)

Annie Leibovitz
For my final photographer I wanted to recognize Annie Leibovitz. Out of all the photographers I have learned about this semester, she is by far the one who has made the biggest impression on me. Her journey as a photographer and even as a person really fascinated me. I loved watching her documentary, Life through a Lens, and as a matter of fact I watched it again after we viewed it in class. She is such a remarkable human being with such an eye for detail. She is an inspiration and is incredibly creative. She seems to capture the attitude of every person she photographs so perfectly. She understands that how you capture and edit a photo has the power to change how a person looks at it. She hasn't had an easy life, and nothing was handed to her, she has worked very hard for and earned all of her accomplishments. She has devoted her life to her work and never really had time to have children, so at the age of 51 she allowed herself to slow down enough that she could maintain a personal life aside from her work and had her first daughter. In 2005 with the help of a surrogate mother, she had 2 more daughters, twin girls. She started her professional photography journey with Rolling Stone some 45 years ago and has shaped the way we think about the magazine today. After  10 years of being chief photographer at Rolling Stone, and going on tour with the band, she decided it was time to get out of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll scene. She switched gears in 1983 to begin working for Vanity Fair.  By the 90s she started to focus more on her personal endeavors and has since published books, a documentary, and became the only living photographer to be featured in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC where they featured 200 of her prints. Through out her life she has gotten to photograph some of the most influential people of our time and be apart of something much bigger than herself. Annie Leibovitz is one of the most sought after and revered photographers of our day. She has certainly made an impression on the lives of many, many people and will always be thought of as an incredible artist.
Sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/annie-leibovitz-9542372#rolling-stone-magazine
http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/artists/35-annie-leibovitz/biography/
http://www.vogue.com/slideshow/photographer/annie-leibovitz/#133877


 





































Sunday, November 15, 2015

Photographer of the week (15)

David Hockney
David Hockney is a British artist known for his photo collages and paintings of LA swimming pools. It was not until he moved to LA in the 1970s that he really started focusing on photography. He is considered an expressionist artist and in 2011 was voted the most influential British artist of the 20th century. His work is often very bold, colorful, and playful.
Sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/david-hockney-9340738
http://www.hockneypictures.com/home.php











photographer of the week (14)

Jennette Williams
Jennette Williams has a masters in photography from Yale and now teaches at the School of Visual Arts. She has won several awards for her work, been featured in many publications, and published 3 books of her own. One of which is titled, The Bathers in this book she photographs many nude women, of all different shapes and sizes. This is what she has to say about this book: "I wanted to honor the subjects that I was photographing, which were women who were very comfortable in their bodies, which I was not or had ever been. . . . The Bathers questions what makes for beauty in women. I don’t really have an answer to that, but I know that it has something to do with an acceptance of one’s form, being within a community of women, and living in, rather than fighting against, your body.” I think she hit the nail right on the head, and so many women struggle with body image issues today, so I felt it was so crucial to include her work in my blog. 
Sources: 
http://firstbookprizephoto.com/jennette-williams-2008/
http://jennettewilliamsphotography.com/about/