Lyons is most famous for his book called “The Bikeriders”. In this book Danny did not just photograph American bikers, rather he became one. He joined the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club where he would take his camera out on rides with the club and take many photographs for his study. Lyons said the photographs were “an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bike rider.” The series was very popular in the late 60s and 70s. So popular that he was invited to join Magnum photos which was a prestigious photography club that originated in Paris and expanded to form offices in the New York, London and Tokyo. He never became a full member.

Matthieu Venot is a self-taught French photographer whose pictures capture the urban environment in a most graphic and transformative of ways. Focusing on the part rather than the whole, his photographs abstract his surroundings into colourful graphical vistas turning the quotidian into the iconic.

https://www.yatzer.com/matthieu-venot#:~:text=Matthieu%20Venot%20is%20a%20self,the%20quotidian%20into%20the%20iconic.

Focusing his lens on architectural details and adopting fairly constructivist angles, the artist succeeds in creating abstract geometric images. He only photographs when the weather is incredibly good and thus Matthieu uses the immaculate sky like the background in a studio. This, he maintains, is his way of not disturbing the composition of his pictures : simple and graphic. Lines cross over and overlap. shapes stand out from this blue background and have us forgetting what we are observing : a roof, a wall, a railing, a balcony.

The blue sky background also enhances the colours. Colour is, in fact, of the utmost importance in Matthieu Venot’s photography. Excluding the Breton greyness, the photographer transforms the town and has us thinking more of California or Florida. According to the artist, the choice of pastel colours is a way of transmitting, through his photos, his own personal optimism.

Venots images are all taken during a sunny, bright day without any clouds. I think he does this to keep the pattern of the lighter shade of colour to create contrast between that and the sky. By using such vibrant colours allows Venot to capture the finest details with defined lines and exquisite geometric shapes.

Image Analysis:

I have chosen to analyse this image due to the different approach of Matthias Venot by capturing this image in a slightly later time throughout the day, producing more colour. Instantly, you can notice the simplistic style Venot has attempted to follow. The image only contains around 5 different colours, all creating a great contrast between one another. This differs from Venots usual images as the sky is not completely blue, but rather displaying some colour from the sunset. The use of the colours from the sunset create an effective formation of the building due to the sky being a similar shade of colour. It seems as if Venot has positioned himself and his camera beneath the structure and heavily zoomed in. The full moon makes the image much more powerful due to it creating the sense of completion and transformation.

Rinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer with an incredibly unique photographic style, especially within her book Illuminance, which explores light, shape, and colour through a variety of mainly abstract images. The images are placed in the book without any kind of titles or explanation given to the reader, instead allowing them to interpret the compositions on their own.

Her images are often soft and dreamlike, sometimes overexposed, placing a focus on the way lighting is used throughout the project. By using a film camera, Kawauchi is able to create timeless images, capturing immense amounts of detail and creating a physical attachment to the images created instead of the cold, methodical creation of digital images.

In Masatake Shinohara’s essay for Aperature regarding Kawauchi’s work, she says, ‘Her act of photographing is less a way of referring to the appearance of everyday reality than it is a revealing of the luminous open space within which sensuous elements are free-floating. That is to say, in her practice, a sequence of photographs does not fix the appearance of everyday events, but rather evokes the realness of ambiguous ether that existed prior to the fixation of the predominant worldly setting.‘

This is one of my favourite images from the series, a simple shot showing sunlight reflecting off of the sea. I especially like the colours used, with the light yellow sun contrasting the shadows of the dark purple shadows created, making a harmonious and visually pleasing colour scheme. It is slightly blurred, once again tying into concepts of memories and dreams and parts of surrealist artwork. This image is from Kawauchi’s book Aila which was published in 2005. It explores the line between life and death through abstract photography, capturing everyday scenarios in breathtaking detail. In an article written by Christy Lange, Kawauchi’s intentions are analysed further, ‘by photographing them, Kawauchi makes the fleeting moments of life even more fragile – not less so – because she makes them static and visible for us. We can see them as we would in our mind’s eye – with the blurred and imperfect vision of memory.‘

Mood board of Paul Outerbridge’s work –

I think that these images represent the selection of Still Life work which Paul Outerbridge had created within his career, it ranges from simplicity to complex abstraction. I really like the simplicity of many of these images because many of them feature one or two objects as the main focus of the photograph, which I want to incorporate into my work as well. He also uses lighting well within his work because he is able to use it to create spotlights on certain objects, such as his egg work, or uses lighting to create bolder lines and shadows in his still life photos.

Research on Paul Outerbridge –

• Born in 1896, and served in the US Army in 1917.
• Started as an illustrator and designer before he got into photography.
• Enrolled in the Clarence H White school of photography at Colombia University in 1921.
• Worked with different publications such as Vanity Fair and Vogue.
• Moved to Paris in 1925, and befriended many different artits/designers such as Edward Steichen, where they went on to build one of the largest and well equipped photographic studios of all time.
• He returned back to New York by 1929, where he opened his own studio producing commercial and art photography, this was where he was also able to start experimenting with colour in his photography using the tri-colour process.
• By 1940, he published a book called, ‘Photographing in Colour’.
• Retired as a commercial photographer in 1943, where he moved to Hollywood and married, but later died in 1958.

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3 Key quotes –

To gather further information on Outerbridge’s still life photography, I used this website for reference as well as this website. This first website provided me with an extra insight into how and why Outerbridge may have created some of his images as the rise of still life photography grew, and the second website was an online article from the ‘New York Times’ written by Ken Johnson who offers a different view towards Outerbridge’s work which I will use in my image analysis.

1.

“A photograph, Outerbridge wrote, “should do something to its beholder; either give a more complete appreciation of beauty, or, if nothing else, even a good mental kick in the pants.””

This quote explains how Paul Outebridge explains what effect that a photo should have on the people who are viewing it, it could either be visually appealing or creating a distinct message throughout it depending on the context of the photograph. I have chosen to use it because this is the effect that I also want to create within my work, from taking inspiration from many of Outerbridge’s still life work as he experiments with black and white/colour abstraction well within his work.

2.

“Even when platinum and palladium emulsion materials became scarce in the years after World War I, Outerbridge insisted on using them to craft prints whose tonal depth and warmth trump the more meagre materiality of conventional processes.”

This quote explains the photographic process that Outerbridge used within his work to create coloured/black and white photographs, this is because colour was still quite a new concept in photography which many photographers were yet to experience well with. The use of this photographic process is highly evident within his work as you can see how he experiments with tonal depth within his photos and I have chosen to use this quote because I also want to experiment with the different black and white tones within my photograph in my photoshoots as I can use the black and white technique inputted on the camera and further edit it within Lightroom.

3.

“Throughout the 1930s, his riveting photographs of dining rooms, tabletop still lifes and displays of necessities like sandwiches and toilet paper—commissioned by clients that included House Beautiful, McCall’s and Scott Paper—attracted attention by offering up heightened visual experiences that bordered on the hyperreal.”

This quote explains the range of images, regarding the theme of still life, that Outerbridge created throughout his career and the impact which they have had on society. This is because the quote explains how many of his photos have provided people with a range of different experiences which are hyper realistic in how many of them appear, especially in his abstract still life work. I have chosen to use this quote because I think that it successfully discusses the impact of Outerbridge’s work towards others and how many of his works border along the lines of dreamlike still life photography.

Image analysis –

This photograph taken by Paul Outerbridge in 1927, as a part of his ‘American’ collection is an example of his still life images which he has created throughout his career. This image features a glass and bottle and experiments with different techniques such as the tonal depth which can be seen in the background of the photograph as it is shown to be quite dark which creates a heavy contrast against the bottles which are appearing to be light in how they appear as they are most likely clear. These bottles stand out further through the use of the shadows which fall beneath them in the photograph too, I really like this effect because the shadows create these unique patterns on the surface which they are on due to the unusual and unique formation of the bottle as well. Referencing Paul Outerbridge’s work for inspiration in my own work, where I will be focussing on how the light creates different reflections and shadows in glassware/different kitchenware, I will consider how the light falls on the bottles and the shadows which they will create through what objects I decide to use, I will also experiment within colour and black and white because I think that the use of coloured glasses could create patterns that are abstract in how they appear on the background which I will use. Other works by Paul Outerbridge such as ‘Images de Deauville’, produced in 1936 which hold an abstract view in commercial photography have been criticised and in an online article from the ‘New York Times’ written by Ken Johnson, which I referenced above, it discusses Outerbridge’s career and journey throughout time. The article begins by saying that Outerbridge was amongst some of the most successful commercial photographers in his time but as times changed there are many critiques towards Paul Outerbridge’s work. In 1973, the Museum of Modern Art director called John Szarkowski wrote a book called “Looking at Photographs”, and this is where he called Outerbridge’s work to be referenced towards “commercial illustrations” and Johnson says that many people argued that colour photography appear to be ‘tacky’ as it didn’t hold the uniformed and organised look that appeared to be seen in many black and white photography. By the 1970s, the popularity of colour rose up again and Outerbridge’s work began to come back into focus as and he was regarded as one of the 20th century’s most successful photographers for his work.

Alec Soth (born 1969) is an American photographer, based in Minneapolis. Soth makes “large-scale American projects” featuring the midwestern United States. New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a “photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers” and photographs “loners and dreamers”. His work tends to focus on the “off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America” according to The Guardian art critic Hannah Booth.

hen he photographs people, Soth feels nervous at times. He said: “My own awkwardness comforts people, I think. It’s part of the exchange.” When he was on the road, he’d have notes describing types of pictures he wanted taped to the steering wheel of his car. One list was: “beards, birdwatchers, mushroom hunters, men’s retreats, after the rain, figures from behind, suitcases, tall people (especially skinny), targets, tents, treehouses and tree lines.  With people, he’ll ask their permission to photograph them, and often wait for them to get comfortable; he sometimes uses an 8×10 camera. He tries to find a “narrative arc and true storytelling” and pictures in which each picture will lead to the next one.

Soth has been photographing different parts of the US since his first book, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was published in 2004. His second book, Niagara, was published in 2006. One of his photos is of a woman in a bridal gown sitting outside what appears to be a motel; he describes having made an arrangement with a particular wedding chapel in Niagara Falls which let him take pictures of couples getting married, by photographing them after their weddings.

Link to my project: Throughout my future project, I would like to include some portraits of myself and my dad, brother and mum. I think that deciding to attempt to take images in Alec Soth’s style will make successful and creative outcomes and I can link them to other image that will be in my project, as I would also like to include old family photos. Considering the layout of my final photobook I would like to place photographs that have been inspired by Soth next to old family images that have been found in albums, this will be to show the affect time and environment has had on my family.

Sleeping By The Mississippi

Much has been written about Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi. First published in 2004, it is a landmark publication in the Magnum photographer’s career, which propelled him to international recognition and notoriety. First editions of the photobook are highly prized items today. At a talk in London in 2017, in conversation with Sean O’Hagan, Soth reflected on the work, almost 15 years on, and how he began to make what would eventually become the tightly-edited tome, Sleeping By the Mississippi.

“I was a morose, introverted young man,” says Soth of his early years, identifying with a version of a Midwestern American sensibility that was “dark and lonely”. Working in a photo-processing lab on other people’s pictures throughout his early 20s, he had (almost) given up the ambition to become a famous artist, yet it was this very relaxation of his personal ambition that eventually allowed him the degree of freedom necessary to accept the influence of the American tradition of road trip photography in his own work – to stop pretending he was reinventing the wheel, to carry on the tradition and make it his own. More detailed images of this book can be found: Alec Soth | Sleeping by the Mississippi.

He began to follow the Mississippi River in his car, driving from place to place, letting himself progress towards locations he had vaguely researched and “using the river as a route to connect with people along the way.” These were the early days of the web and the development of his process ran parallel to the growth of the internet. “It was like web surfing in the real world” he says, “it was like trying to ride a wave.”

“A miraculous time in my life,” is how Soth describes this process. He felt warmly welcomed in the region; he was allowed into the intimacy of people’s homes. Hyper-alive to the world, Soth had in fact just spent an intense month-long period with his mother-in-law, who had become very ill. He lived with her in her house as she died.

Image Analysis: In my opinion, this is one of Soth’s most successful images of all time, this is because of the clarity and message behind the image. I like the feeling of isolation within this image, as it makes the viewer focus on all different parts of the image within time, the fact this image has a sense of quietness means that all different aspects/ areas of it can be appreciated and analysed. Along with this, the coolest tones within the image mean that there is a sense of loneliness and isolation, and this is added to by the fact that there is no people or animals in this image. I really like how the focus of the image is on the gas station itself and how the brighter lights contrast with the title of the book. The lightness contradicts with the word “sleeping”, as they are not associated with each other, this creates contrast of the narrative of the book itself, and comes away from the original concept of the book.