MARY ELLEN MARK

Some of you may have heard about Mary Ellen Mark passing away on May 25th. Some of you may even know a little about her and her amazing work. But those of you who do not, here is a little snippet into her amazing career.

Mary Ellen Mark was an American photographer, she did all kinds of photography from photojournalism, portraiture to advertising photography. She's been in museums worldwide and has 17 published books of her photography, not to mention the many awards she received throughout her career. She was known for being the "a snake charmer of the soul" as she was able to capture people so intimately.

A little about her life: Her first camera was a Box Brownie which she received when she was 9 years old. But all throughout high school and college she focused on painting and art history. And in 1964 she received her Masters Degree in photojournalism. Right after college she received a Fulbright Scholarship to photography in Turkey, where she also traveled around to England, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain to photograph. In the mid 1960s she moved to New York City to document the demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War, the Women's Liberation Movement, Transvestite culture following themes of homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. Only a few years later, she was a unit photographer on movie sets for movies from Mike Nichols' Catch-22, and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and over 100 other movies.

Mary Ellen Mark, Laurie on Pike Street Seattle, 1983, Gelatin Silver Print

Mary Ellen Mark, 1983, Life Magazine: Streets of the Lost, Runaway kids eke out a mean life in Seattle, Gelatin Silver Print

Mary Ellen Mark, The cast of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Oregon State Hospital, 1974, Gelatin Silver Print 20x24 inches

Mary Ellen Mark, Woody Allen on his balcony, Manhattan, NY, 1979, Gelatin Silver Print

COLLAGE ART: SURREAL IMAGERY OR SIMPLE BRAINSTORMING?

Collages are sometimes linked with childhood art projects, but how about collages that bring flawless surreal imagery together?

The idea of collaging is often a way to put all of your favorite ideas or thoughts together. But what about thinking out of the box and creating something completely new and imaginative... without just using Photoshop. Painstakingly cutting and arranging images found from encyclopedias to magazines can lead to some amazingly creative works and creating worlds that bring up issues or thoughts some of us may have never even thought of before.

One artist named Sato Masahiro, or Q-TA, uses both digital and analog techniques to create nostalgia based imagery. When in an interview with Revolution 360, the artist says "The reason that the majority of my work has young children is that I would like to show a new way of thinking by offering the audience, children’s view of the world and also placing children in those worlds." Just take a look at some of Q-TA's pieces for example:

  

But lets step back a second, haven't we seen innovative collaging before? Man Ray? John Stezaker? Hannah Höch? 

Man Ray for example was a significant component to the Dada and Surrealism Movements. He considered himself a painter over all but he also dabbled in photography and collage. He uses collage in two different ways (mainly photographic): in camera collaging and photogram collaging, which he appropriately called "Rayographs". Both forms of collaging but approached differently. In the top photo, Observation Time: The Lovers, Man Ray sets up the entire scene in front of the camera and takes a photo. In the other he uses random objects and sets them on top of the emulsion to create the shadows.

Man Ray, Observatory Time: The Lovers, photograph, 1936

Man Ray, Rayograph, 1922, Silver Gelatin Print, © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Either way collages can be attempted in various formats and mediums. Some artists use it as a way of planning out their creations or simple brainstorming, others use it as their actual medium. Sometimes they are used to create surreal worlds, or they are used to create an aesthetically or even psychologically pleasing work of art. Any way you look at it collaging leads to a very simplistic form of creating. So, you you're ever lacking ideas start a collage and see where it leads you!

Sources/Related Articles:

http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/3318/Top_10_Collage_Artists_Hannah_H%C3%B6ch_to_Man_Ray
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/sato-masahiro-q-ta-collages?context=tag-art

ARE TEENAGERS THE NEWEST SURREALIST PHOTOGRAPHERS?

Have you been keeping up with what is going on in the art world? Possibly not. Possibly yes. Either way have any of you noticed the new trend of young teenagers becoming famous over their surreal photographs? Maybe it is because they are learning more Photoshop in school than cursive, maybe it's because TV Shows are now a lot more creative and surreal than ever, or maybe the internet is just allowing us to see their success a lot easier.

Two photographers, both 15, have been brought to my attention recently: David Uzochukwu and Zev Hoover. One has an eye for deeply moving and emotion photography and the other has great talents at seeing things as fantasy and surreal. We will start with David Uzochukwu, a Belgium-based photographer who has been taking photographs since he was 10 (so 5 years).

Uzochukwu is able to put a moving story and meaning behind such simple images. He doesn't push things too far and slam you over the head with the meaning, but he does slam you over the head with the emotional reaction you will get from looking at his pieces. He has said "I love to tell stories and to convey certain feelings and emotions in an image. What really intrigues me is that photography—like all other art forms—can be so universal that you can be touched by a picture that someone else has created. Furthermore you can make the images in your head become reality. This amazes me again and again."

 

 Another 15 year old photographer, Zev Hoover attains a different sort of surrealistic photography. Hoover has been taking photographs since he was 8 (so for 7 years) and he is based out of Massachusetts. The fantasy elements of his photos really feel like you are reading a classic fairytale. The soft images are very skillfully edited to seem strangely realistic.

Hoover describes, "What's really cool about shooting my pictures is that it's a totally different world: Kids sitting on acorns; rafts made of popsicle sticks; floating down a stream on a playing card. I like putting my eye near the ground because you see a totally different world when you are thinking from the point of view of something smaller than you."

Both of these talents kids were on Flickr's 20 Under 20 List, which I suggest checking out because of amazingly talented, skilled, and mature these kids are. But don't let it get you down that you weren't a recognized photographer before the age of 20, keep letting your passion for art push you into the life you desire.

David Uzochukwu: http://www.daviduzochukwu.com/

Zev Hoover: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fiddleoak/

Flickr's 20 Under 20: https://www.flickr.com/20under20

BEAUTY IN DESTRUCTION

Recently at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C. they held an exhibit about destruction. Everything on that level of the museum was extremely obviously about destruction. But, majority of those pieces of art lacked something beautiful.

Yes, the artists were trying to get their point across about the destruction and how drawing it, photographing it, making a sculpture to represent it, creating a video showing the destruction of an object, or even having a performance piece all about destroying something beautiful can be a necessary and beautiful act or even leave a beautiful mess. But something that I have found over and over again that I just clumped into this same pile of beautiful destruction was the actual act of creating something more beautiful by destroying something.

Not sure if everyone who reads this will completely understand but I find a very large difference between the two (well not very large difference, but a difference still). Let me try and give some examples...

Monika Sosnowska, Stairway, metal and PVC handrail, 2010, 222.4 x 98.4 inches

This sculpture by Monika Sosnowska titled "Stairway" might just be a destroyed staircase, but the actual final product of the crumpled up staircase compared to the before of a typical spiral staircase seems so much more aesthetically pleasing and beautiful. In connection to the destruction theme, yes this definitely can apply for both themes especially once reading her statement: "Monika Sosnowska was inspired by an emergency staircase, built in 1971 at ‘The Museum of History of Tel Aviv’, which she discovered during a residency in Israel in 2008. She documented the stairwell with a photograph, just before its deconstruction. This image creates the point of departure for her own fabricated interpretation of the found architectural object by removing it from its original functionality through dismantling, twisting and squeezing the main elements. By changing the stairway’s direction Sosnowska challenges our perception. She captures the site, abstracts and freezes the space and creates an optical illusion leading our gaze upwards the spiral." But, she takes the destruction of this piece even further when she flips it upside down, it's not just a destroyed staircase anymore it's a piece of art.

Ted Basdevant, mixed media, 2014

Another artist that I found on Tumblr was Ted Basdevant. This work really caught my eye for the exact reason I was trying to explain above: this photograph might be a great photograph, but once he added the destruction aspect of the paint/ink it goes beyond just an image and creates a beautiful piece of art. Not only does the entire mood and attitude of the piece change with the destruction aspect but it changes the meaning. It isn't just a girl posing anymore, it's this hidden creature now and we need to start asking more of the "why?" questions. (Which in my opinion is what makes great art, art.)

Interestingly enough we find that photographers gravitate towards destruction more than any other form of artist, maybe because gorgeous photographs of landscapes have already been done (and done well... I mean come on Ansel Adams). Therefore photographers have to find some sort of beautiful twist on the world that can either document something that is now completely apart of our lives or make up their own destroyed version of reality (through either Photoshop or sculpture). One example is Michel Le Belhomme who creates these beautiful sculptures or environments and photographs them. I would post some of his photographs here but they are copyrighted to him so go check out "The Blind Beast" series (http://www.phmuseum.com/michellebelhomme/series/the-blind-beast). Now whether or not he was going for the beautiful destruction theme he nailed it.

As artists we find beauty in everything, so it makes sense when we can look at something that is completely destroyed and still thing there is something cool about it. I want to backtrack a little bit and say that there still is great beauty in looking at something that was once beautiful and now is a broken mess on the ground and yes it does speak widely about us as humans. So in either aspect of literally creating the beautiful from the destroyed or seeing the beauty in something destroyed, I applaud us as artists for finding the silver lining and being in awe of things that most people would run and hide from.

Citations:
Monika Sosnowska - http://www.capitainpetzel.de/exhibitions/stairway/

PHOTO LABS: WHY THEY ARE IMPORTANT

Recently across the United States, many high schools and colleges/universities have been shutting down their dark rooms, companies stopped selling film, and people just stopped learning about film photography or photo processes. A lot of people either don't know why this is happening. A lot of people don't care and don't think it is important. And for some reason a lot of people are against having photo labs running. 

In high school when the dark room was being closed down, I didn't care. I was a digital photo kid, not a film kid. I still am, but that doesn't mean that I don't support it and find that the results people get from film photography is stupid. It's gorgeous. I have taken a few classes about the historic photo processes: cyanotypes, van dyke browns, salt prints and work in the photo lab. I think that if you are going to call yourself a photographer, or I'll even go to say, if you are going to call yourself an artist you need to take a photography class. Any kind of photography, digital or film, you will learn so much about composition, tweaking a final image, and critiquing that will be amazingly helpful in whatever process you do.

What made me want to write this post was mainly because many people don't realize the amazing prints that can come out of these processes. There any so many techniques that are so much more amazing when done by hand than by digitally editing an image. For instance, this 35mm film print is a double exposure. It's not just laying two images over each other with 50% opacity in Adobe Photoshop.

Ryan Teed, Alley, 35mm Double Exposure & Sequentially Toned

Other historic processes like Cyanotypes, Van Dyke Browns, Salt Prints, and Gum Prints create beautiful hand made prints that are literally one-of-a-kind. These processes are not being taught as broadly anymore and are quite rare to find, therefore their worth goes up, but popularity goes down. Here are just some examples to make you in awe of the gorgeous types of photography people are missing out on:

Aisling Housel, Flowers 5, Cyanotype

Leyla, Van Dyke Brown

Ryan Teed, Mask 1, Gum Print

 Most of these processes include mixing the emulsion in a dark area, and painting it on, exposing it, and then developing your print. There are many ways to change the image during the process to create weird effects that are worth it in the end. It's all science so experimenting and testing things out is what is the most fun about it, just don't forget they're also chemicals so you have to be really careful!
Slaving over a perfect print for an hour versus clicking a few buttons? All depends on what it's worth to you. But the ending result is something amazing and valuable.

Photo Cites:
Film - Alley: http://rnteed.wix.com/teedphotography
Cyanotype - Flowers 5: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aisling-Housel/207239936104721
Van Dyke Brown - Leyla: http://leylaphotography.com/#/van-dyke-brown/
Gum Print - Mask 1: http://rnteed.wix.com/teedphotography#!historic-processes/c14ak