Mordzinski is a photographer with a very specific niche in black and white portrait photography of latin American authors.

Each photo is very individual and impactful in his portal of the authors, because he is so consistent in his style and niche he is extremely specialised and talented in this style of photography, he always manages to produce an image that invokes emotion and create a sense of personal undertanding towards the author he is potraying.

Although more renowned photographers such as Arnold Newman and woody Allen are extremely talented and in the world of portrait photography considered the best in the game, with some very thought provoking and emotion enduring work i personally find Mordinzski’s work and commitment to his very specialised area more impressive in many capacities, not only is his ability to stick to such a specific personal style a clear representation of his love and personal devotion to his project the ‘Human Atlas’ that love and devotion always shows through his work.

All of his photographs have a depth of personal character and emotion that is very hard to capture without a long personal history with the model this is inspiring to me for many reasons not only is he extremely talented and consistently produces high quality photography but he also evokes deep thought and consideration in his audience.

For the route i want to take in my experiments with environmental portraits photography i believe he is the best photographer for me to draw inspiration from.

The Human Atlas

Known as “the writers’ photographer,” Daniel Mordzinski has been working on his ambitious “human atlas” of Iber-american literature for 38 years.  The Argentine photographer, who lives between Paris and Madrid, has created portraits of the most important figures in Latin-American literature.  The author of numerous books, Mordzinski’s works are continuously exhibited in Latin America’s most important museums and are included in the best collections of contemporary photography.  He is an important literary festivals photographer.

the set up i used for this individual project, over head lighting using a ladder to get proper Birdseye view photos.

the photos above i attempted to take in the style of walker Evans

above i used the photos i took in the style of walker evens and used photoshop too edit them inspired by darren Harvey

“The Beauty of the Common Tool”

Darren Harvey Regan was greatly influenced by walker Evans, they both took great care in there photos light levels, exposure , composition and what they photograph.

walker Evans believes these tools evoke emotion and create sentiment for the normalcy of everyday tools in himself and others.

walker created set of photos with at minimum 22 separate photos

Walker Evans was an American photographer and photojournalist known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression.

Born:  November 3, 1903,

Died: April 10, 1975,

Definition: The Design, Composition and Lighting are dominant over Subject Matter. The photographer becomes a visual designer whenever a frame is captured.

The main components of formalism are:

symmetry when two halves of an image hold the same weight and give a perfect balance between two sides of your photograph.

my first experiment with editing photos and adobe Lightroom.

here i have experimented with a few different types of effects on still life’s i took earlier in the week if i need to achieve similar effects in the future i will refer to this post.

above I attempted to use adobe Lightroom too create a soft grey scale image, I believe I achieved this effect well considering its a first attempt utilising the recourses shown above.

due to the nature of the objects in this photo i wanted to create a vintage effect in the images above and bellow.

in the image above i went for a grey scale effect and although i managed to create an image with depth it didn’t provide the “coming off the page” effect i wanted to achieve with this vintage style of edition so bellow i experimented with still giving the perception of a grey scale photo but attempted to bring forward some duller colours to bring to image into more of an interesting colour rage to perceive and think about.

here i worked to create a blurry an almost out of focus effect with Lightroom in order to make the war related items seem far off and hazy to represent the death throughout war and bring forward a “heaven” like effect.

above is a still life with war related items,

i wanted to create a dulled image as if yellowed with time and experience, i also brought forward the sharpness if the image to give almost a “grainy” effect as if taken with a poor quality camera .

above i began experimenting with creating more abstract edits with my images, i really enjoy the style of this image and think i will begin to incorporate it in more of my word if appropriate, i enjoy the alien effect of the image.

above i continued experimenting with tints to create an abstract effect although i find this image interesting it is too flat to the screen.

The term “still life” describes a work of art that shows inanimate objects from the natural or man-made world, such as fruit, flowers, dead game, and/or vessels like baskets or bowls. Looked at another way: still life’s depict things that are “still” and don’t move.

The earliest known still life paintings were created by the Egyptians in the 15th century. Funerary paintings of food, including crops, fish, and meat, have been discovered in burial sites.

During the Middle Ages, artists changed the still life for religious purposes. In addition to incorporating symbolic arrangements ( a Lilly for purity and innocence) , they also used them to decorate manuscripts. Objects like coins, seashells, and fruit can be found in the borders of these book.

Northern Renaissance artists popularized still life iconography with their flower paintings. These pieces typically showcase colourful flowers “from different countries and different continents in one vase an blooming at the same time” and often do not feature other subject matter. These paintings rose to prominence in the early 17th century, when artists grew increasingly interested in creating realistic studies of everyday items.

Dutch Golden Age artists took this fascination in detailed floral art a step further with their vanitas paintings. Vanitas paintings are inspired by memento mori, a genre of painting thats Latin name translates to “remember that you have to die.” These pieces often pair cut flowers with objects like human skulls, candles, and overturned hourglasses to comment on ‘the fleeting nature of life.’

As still life’s continued in popularity throughout the ages modern day photographers began to experiment at first because of the nature of the photos being ‘still’ and easier to capture with less advanced cameras but quickly became a popular classical style of photography.