Roni Horn

Dictionary of Water
Still Water (The River Thames, for Example) is a series of fifteen large photo-lithographs of water, printed on white paper. Each of the images focuses on a small area of the surface of the river Thames. The colour and texture of these watery surfaces varies dramatically between images: colours range from black to blue and from dark green to khaki-yellow, and in each case the water’s texture is differently augmented by tidal movement and the play of light.

“The Thames has this incredible moodiness, and that’s what the camera picks up. [I]t has these vertical changes and it moves very quickly. It’s actually a very dangerous river and you sense that just by looking at it … [E]very photograph is wildly different – even though you could be photographing the same thing from one minute to the next. It’s almost got the complexity of a portrait.” (Quoted in ‘Roni Horn Interview: Water’)

Horn’s work, which has an emotional and psychological dimension, can be seen an engagement with post-Minimalist forms as containers for affective perception. She talks about her work being ‘moody’ and ‘site-dependent’. Her attention to the specific qualities of certain materials spans all mediums, from the textured pigment drawings, to the use solid gold or cast glass, and rubber.

Sigfried Hansen: Hold the Line  

Street photography exploring colour, shapes, geometry

Siegfried Hansen traces visual compositions from graphics and colours and creates street photography the main point of which is not body’s or faces, but graphic connections and formal relations. It shows the aesthetics of coincidence in a public area, which is full of surprises.

Siegfried Hansen’s Hold the Line is a playful examination of the city as a graphic playground of color, line, and form. Filled with bold geometric images and brightly colored pages. The book’s key design elements echo the graphic content of the images and give it rhythmic presence. Color pages are interspersed throughout, accentuating the bold colors that dot the city and contrasting the city’s monochromatic stone.

While people are present, this work is not entirely about the dynamism of the street and its inhabitants in a way that typifies classic street photography. Instead, it is about the city as a graphic force and how it not only shapes the way we move, but also frames what we see.

I chose this photographer to look at to generate ideas as his work reminds me of the photos I produced in the ‘Future of St Helier’ project where i focused on bold lines and bright colours. Looking at this photographer in this project could develop the style of work I was producing then, looking at industrial structures and the shapes they make to address the theme of variation and similarity in buildings.

Li Hui

Li Hui is a young Chinese photographer based in the city of Hangzhou, capital of the province of Zhejiang, China. Since 2009 she has used photography to see a different world and get the courage to “explore things her own way.” Her images are a blissful mix of sensuality and purity that disclose a unique artistic sensibility. She expresses her feelings through her sensitive personality. Mostly influenced by cinema, music, nature and human body, this photographer keeps learning by experimenting the ideas that cross her mind.

The “leit-motif” in your work seems to be sensuality (through light, details and feminine lines). What motivates you to capture this subject and what do you want to say through it?

“I have a great interest in simply observing, I can be very quiet just looking at the sky, the water, a plant, or an animal for hours. I would like to motivate myself more to shoot this themes because they are just all around me. ”  I am mostly inspired by my natural surroundings, such as the patterns of a flower, the shape of the trees after a strong wind, thick clouds in the sky before a storm, the rain hitting the ground, the sun and the way its rays shine on my hand and the palm of my hand becomes transparent. I am touched by these subtle things. “- Li Hui

“I think watching films is a way to improve the overall aesthetic of my work. But music can also evoke images that float around in my head. Different types of music have different associations.”

She doesn’t show her models faces in her photos as she wants the viewer to find their own feelings and experiences in them. She says it’s ‘interesting to hear different opinions and what different people take away from the pictures’, leaving the story up to the viewers imagination. What people take away from an image depends on their personality and their own background.

I particularly liked this photographer when I came across her work as I liked how she focused on beauty in landscape and her use of movement and light. If I were to take inspiration from her in my project I would focus on producing images that looked at light and delicate shapes that expressed a specific emotion.

Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi’s work is characterized by a serene, poetic style, depicting the ordinary moments in life.
Kawauchi’s art is rooted in Shinto, the ethnic religion of the people of Japan. According to Shinto, all things on earth have a spirit, hence no subject is too small or mundane for Kawauchi’s work; she also photographs “small events glimpsed in passing, conveying a sense of the transient. Kawauchi sees her images as parts of series that allow the viewer to juxtapose images in the imagination, thereby making the photograph a work of art^[ and allowing a whole to emerge at the end; she likes working in photo books because they allow the viewer to engage intimately with her images.

Her attention to small gestures and coincidental details enables her to cast a gaze of enchantment upon her daily surroundings that is always fresh and new. With her camera, she captures elementary and casual moments, all with the same passionate concentration.
Rinko Diary is a visual diary that includes photographs of everything from sandwiches and Patti Smith to the poignant butterfly/flower/leaf set against a concrete pavement. 

I like this photographer and think I will take inspiration from her in my project as I like how she portrays casual moments with a lot of meaning. I also like how she views nature in her photos, emphasising the sunlight and beauty. She ‘creates compelling portraits of everyday life, rendering the mundane as sublime through her lens’ (ignant.com) which is an aspect I would like to interpret. Her works radiates a sense of fragility and emotion.