A while back, I visited the Musuem of Photographic arts in San Diego with a few friends. I must say it was a touching experience... If you're in a hurry you can get through and see all the pictures within five minutes, but if you take the time and examine each artist's work you could spend anywhere from an hour to a few hours in there. It's amazing how you get to see a collection of people's work alltogether side by side and see how different each is. For me i found each work really interesting and each having their own message. I remember a while back attending the same musuem but the theme of the photos were about hispanic migrant workers and the life they led. So when I went in there I was expecting the same type of experience. This time it was a little different. I didn't know anything about the photographers going in except they had different stories. There wasn't a collaborate theme. I saw some amazing photo's but there were two in particular I liked the most. I wanted to choose two completely different photo's. I could have stuck with the same theme and chosen people and how the artists decided to portray them in my opinion... but for this project I decided to choose two that were alike in the color of the photo but other than that I didn't seem to find any similarities.
The first photograph I chose to examine was Still Life with Melon by Douglas Mellor, and it was printed in 1994. I personally love this picture. It reminds me of something you would see in an old art history book except it wouldn't be a photograph it would be more of a painting. I love how Douglas Mellor does that with his choice of lighting and the way the objects are placed on the table. When I was reading the information about the picture i noticed it said it was a "silver print." Because I was unfamiliar with what that was I decided to look it up. "A generic term referring to all prints made on paper coated with silver salts. Most contemporary black and white photographs are silver prints." It makes me realize photographs are really versatile. They can be put anywhere that has a surface. I also liked how he takes such simple elements such as fruits and makes them so beautiful. I wanted to do my photobook on foods and all the elements of it, but I found it a challenge to know what to do with it. I love his play with light and it reminds me of Caravaggios still painting of something really similar. It's crazy to think how the one on the right is a painting versus the one on the left that is a print. Both their uses of light is an inspiration to me and I hope to be able to play with the lighting in my future pictures to get the same types of affects they had.
The next photograph I wanted to look at was Leon Levinstein's Coney Island. Again another black and white picture. It makes me feel like an ant looking up at the human world and the world around me. The man looks so peaceful and almost deadlike. It's hard to judge an artists work without knowing a bit about him. I really liked how in class we got to see or hear stories about where the artists come from. But this mans work one of my favorites. It shows the beauty of life and how it can seem so at ease but that there is more behind the scenes going on by the man walking behind the man lying down. It makes me curious as to what's going on in the surrounding areas.For me black and white pictures are my favorite. They are simplistic yet are very artistic. They're not overdone by color and yet get the artists view across.
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