Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore is an American photographer that is known for his photographs of banal scenes and objects. He is also known for his use of colour.
This photograph is of a radio in somebodies house, I really like the composition of this image as it looks quite busy, whilst still not looking too filled, I think that the newspapers on the side really help this as they make the image look more homely, it makes the photograph look like it was just found like that rather than having been posed in that position.
In addition to the composition, I really like the colours in this image, it is very pastel, which I really like because it doesn't look too saturated. The only thing contrasting the pastel colours is the newspapers as they are quite a bright white colour. Although, this still works well in the image as the pastel colours would look quite boring without anything to contrast against them.
This image was taken at some sort of restaurant, as we can tell from the credit card on the plate, this image is a lot busier than the last photo, although I still think it looks good, the bottom half of the photo is a lot emptier than the top half, I think that the photographer chose to do this because if the whole photograph was cluttered then it wouldn't look very good.
I like the use of colours in this photo, it is mostly white colours but with slight contrasts like the black tea, and the brown cigar. I like these contrasts as they attract the eye towards them.
I like this image because the colours all fit together really well, the yellowy colours of the food matches very well with the pink colour on the table. Again we still have the bright whites to contrast the pastel colours.
This photograph looks a lot less staged than some of the other photographs because it is quite messy, the edge of the table is in shot which means we can see the floor below, this is quite odd as it makes the photograph look like it was taken quickly, without the photographer thinking about where to pose everything.
This image is of a radio on the wall, the image is composed so that the radio is in the centre of the photo. I like how he uses very faded colours with a black/white contrast for his photographs. Many of the colours are light browns or yellowy tones, and in the centre of the image is a very bright white radio with black details.
I also think it is interesting how he has composed it so that there is a lot of things on one side and only one or two things on the other.
Andre Kertesz
This image by Andre Kertesz is focused heavily on the composition of the image, it looks very simple but uses the shadows in the photograph to make it much more detailed. The light is shining from straight above because the forks shadow is a direct copy of the image, it isn't warped in any way from the direction of the light. There is also a shadow of the fork on the bowl, which is a bit warped due to the shape of the bowl as it isn't flat.
This photograph is also looking at shadows and how they can show a different image than the object normally, due to the stairs and the position Kertesz took this photograph from, the shadow is very angled in places and looks like a zigzag pattern. I also like how the photographer has taken this image with the handrails on one side not in the centre, whereas the shadow is in the centre because it is definitely the more interesting part of the photograph.
This image is quite interesting, it isn't focusing on the shadows as much as the previous two photographs are. I like how this image is laid out as it brings a lot of focus to the flower because there is black surrounding it and it is a bright white colour in this photograph. The staircase is also quite interesting because of the shape of it, it is curved round which makes it look quite interesting, we don't know where it is going as we only see a very small part of it.
This image is of some chairs that are leant up against a fence, I really like this image because of all the lines in it, it looks quite messy, however the shadows look quite clean and we can see it a lot clearer because there aren't other things in the background.
Chairs are an everyday object and they can be quite interesting to take photographs of as they are all very different.
Brock Davis
This image looks like a normal watermelon on first sight, but as you look at it properly, it is actually some flies on a watermelon, I like this photograph because it looks so innocent first, when really it symbolises death and decay. Flies are usually associated with death and decay because they only eat dead things, like dead meat etc. So them being on the watermelon gives the connotation that the watermelon is decaying away.
The lighting used in this image also gives a decaying connotation.
This image is of a pair of glasses, I really like this photograph because it is so simple, the background is very plain, and this is contrasted with the glasses that are quite dark framed. I like how this works because the glasses are posed upside-down when normally they are posed the other way round.
This image uses a wishbone to make it look like a flip flop, at first glance you might not notice this at all as it uses the wishbone very subtly. I like how this looks because it is incredibly simple, the background is completely plain as it is all one colour, it contrasts with the colour of the flip flop as it is a bright purple colour.
This image is meant to look like a lightbulb, I like this image because the photographer has chosen to use a white colour for the background which makes the lightbulb look very bright, like it has been turned on. The image is very simple and this is what makes it interesting, the photographer has made us able to know what it is with so few things, he is only using one object and somebodies hand but we know exactly what it is straight away.
Irving Penn:
This image is good because it has a lot of different shaped objects in it, I like how the photographer has used so many differently shaped objects as it means that it has a lot of different tones on it.
Further, due to the time he took these images, the photographs look quite grainy, I like this and I think that it creates an interesting effect that I would like to research into.
This photograph is really nice, Penn has taken photographs of old cigarettes that have been smoked or at least partly smoked. I love how this looks as there isn't a high amount of contrast which means that the colours are similar. I think that Penn has probably used a macro camera as he has got very close to the object to take photographs of them.
There isn't much shadowing in this photograph which is good because it means none of the cigarettes are difficult to see.
This is another cigarette image by Irving Penn, I love this photograph because it shows so much detail, in contrast to his earlier photograph, this is focused on two cigarettes rather than five like in the previous image. This means that we can look at the details of the cigarettes in this image. Again, there isn't much shadowing which I think looks good.
This image is of flowers, I love this photograph because it is so bright and colourful, whilst still using deep colours, especially when you look at his previous shoots that use black and white photography, he has made a big step in using colour photography and it has worked well this time, I think he must've edited this image as the colours are so rich.
Peter Keetman
This photograph by Peter Keetman is of stacks of chairs, I really like this image because it isn't clear what it is straight away, this photographer uses a technique like this for all of his photographs, it is a technique where you can't always tell straight away what it is, it takes a bit of concentration to work it out. I think that this looks good because the way this is lit means that it all looks very 3D rather than flat and boring.
This is another image by Peter Keetman. I like this image a lot because it definitely isn't very obvious what it is, it is a car part from his series on Volkswagens, I think that it looks good because it looks quite like a flower shape, and he might've photographed it because it was so similar. Furthermore, it has been repeated a lot and isn't only in the foreground, it is in the background as well, he probably did this because it looks good when it has been repeated over and over.
This photograph by Peter Keetman is of metal pipes, I really like this image because there's a lot of different sizes as some of the pipes are closer or further away, I also like that the holes at the end of the pipe are black, but because of the shape, the light has hit them and the end of the pipe surrounding the hole is white, this contrasts heavily with the actual circle being black.
This is part of Keetman's Volkswagen series, I like how this is the same car in lots of different colours repeating, this image is really good because although it is the same thing repeating over and over, it isn't boring to look at because of all of the different colours, also the way that it is framed.
