Links to Well Known Photographers: Portraits and Street Photography (Exercise 8)

Below I have listed a number of well known photographers. Some of the photographers work exclusively with portraiture while others work with a range of subject matter. For exercise 8 I want you to focus on photographs of people.

Each group should choose a photograph by two different photographers, one from the Early and Modernist Photographers group and one from the Contemporary Photographers group (if you are unfamiliar with the photographer’s work glance over the Wikipedia link and search for them on Google image).

Working in groups of 3 or 4 answer the following questions:

1. Start by looking at a photograph (don’t read the caption or explanation). What do you know about the person in the photograph (if there is more than one person, choose one)? List everything you see or can guess about that person.

2. What type of lighting, depth of field and shutter speed do you think was used? How did this effect the image?

3. Where was the photographer standing? Do you think the photographer interacted with the people in the image? Do you think the photographer added lighting, objects or directed people within this image? If the photographer did not stage the image then how did he or she capture this particular moment?

4. Was anything done to the image after it was taken to alter it (either in the darkroom or digitally)? If so how does this change the meaning of the image?

5. Read about the photographer. Is there anything in their biography that would help us better understand this image? Is there any historical context we need to know about the image?

Early and Modernist Photographers:

Julia Margaret Cameron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Margaret_Cameron

Jacob Riis:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis

Alfred Stieglitz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz

Edward Steichen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichen

Walker Evans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Evans

Edward Weston: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Weston

Lewis Hine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine

Henri Cartier-Bresson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

August Sander: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Sander

Dorthea Lange: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Lange

Contemporary Photographers:

Diane Arbus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/meatyard_ralph_eugene.php

William Eggleston: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eggleston

Cindy Sherman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sherman

Christian Boltanski: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Boltanski

Barbara Kruger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kruger

Thomas Struth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Struth