Artist Analysis: Cindy Sherman

Untitled #424
Clowns collection

This is a self-portrait of Cindy Sherman, like all of her photographs but she is in clown makeup, clearly. Sherman states that she feels like clowns have an "underlying sense of sadness when they are trying to cheer people up." I feel like she was trying to show the person underneath the clown facade, the funniest people are always the most miserable inside. All of her photos are self-portraits. She likes to play around with different personas and be completely different people in the photographs. For me personally, it is a clown and clowns are supposed to be happy but I feel sad when I look at this photo. So in that sense, Sherman really got the emotion she was trying to portray. I think it shows that no matter how much you try to hide what you're really feeling inside that it will always shine through.

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Sorry it's so tiny!

Artist Analysis: Morimura Yasumasa

Self-Portrait – After Marilyn Monroe, 1996

Gelatin-silver print

Morimura Yasumasa is a Japanese artist. He took famous pictures and inserted himself in a reconstruction of them by putting on costumes, wigs and makeup. He posed as iconic movies stars and he was interested in the idea of fame. In this case he is posing as Marilyn Monroe. He said that all people had the desire to transform into other people. He liked to draw people in with the familiarity of the people he captured. I think that this image is really beautiful in it's construction. I'm not sure if this was his hope but it shows that really anyone can be made to look beautiful with the right settings and props. Obviously, he doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe but you know automatically who he is portraying.

Artist Analysis: Nan Goldin

Nan One Month after Being Battered, 1984

 

This is actually a self portrait of Nan Goldin taken a month after she had been beaten by her partner. This image is part of a larger body of work, " The Ballad of Sexual Dependency." In this body of work she wanted to document sexuality, drug use, domesticity and the sometimes violent relationships of Goldin and those she hung out with. She started out using prints but then she switched to using slide shows to showcase her work. This image stood out to me because Nan managed to make something so awful sort of beautiful in a way. I was a little surprised that this was a self portrait. I like that because I know how awkward it was for me to do a self portrait that showed something personal and that was just for my class to see, I can't imagine showcasing that for the entire world to see. I find that to be very admirable.

Artist Analysis: James Nachtwey

 

This image is of a patient coinfected with TB and HIV that is given a daily injection at Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, Manzini, Swaziland. In this photo the man became agitated and had to be restrained. Nachtwey is a photojournalist that takes images of conflicts and major social issues in many countries. In this photo series, he is trying to get a message out, the message that TB is not just a disease of the past, this man is infected with a very serious form of TB and many other people in developing nations are infected as well. Nachtwey wanted to break the story of this disease and show that photographs could be really powerful. 

In all of the photos in this series Nachtwey captures this sense of pain and sadness. This picture in particular stood out for me because I can really feel this man's pain and after reading the description of this photo i felt it twofold. I feel like I really understand him, I've seen someone go through something similar and I can see how he would become agitated. These photos really make you feel something and I find that to be beautiful

Photo A Day

 

For this project we had to take a photo everyday. Most of mine are from my Grandma's house. I was going for sort of a vintage in the modern day appeal. I was also trying to capture the feeling of emptiness that I feel there after my Grandpa's passing.

Robert Adams: Artist Analysis

Robert Adams
Sally, Weld County, Colorado
1984
 gelatin-silver print

"No place is boring, if you’ve had a good night’s sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film." -Robert Adams 

Robert Adams focused on the changing landscape of the American West. Adams moved to Colorado in 1964. His photos, although some may be free of humans, his images show the impact humans have had on nature. In this image, there are no humans but you can tell that humans are not far because of the house cat wandering down the road. I think that these pictures are beautiful because Adams captures something that is slowly dwindling. I know, in my mind, I can picture somewhere like this that I have been but I'm not sure that many people can.