My pic for this week is Phillip-Lorca diCorcia.
He reminds me of Bruce Davidson (heathers pick) in a couple big ways. One is that they both shoot in new york city. Also, they shoot strangers mostly without them knowing. This infact is Philip- Lorca diCorcia's claim to fame and somewhat of a downfall as he is being sued by this guy on the right.
What Philip- Lorca diCorcia does is hide lights in the pavement so that when a stranger walks into his frame that captures his interest he take the picture. This lighting and technique isolates the subject from everyone else on the street providing the photograph with a strong sense of drama and realness. This realness is a product of them not knowing that there picture is being taken. Very voyeristic.
Another interesting aspect of his photographs is the way he titles them. He titles them Head# and then the number. So even his title holds no individuality and shows no relationship to them. Totally impersonal and stranger like.
Speaking of strangers. Katy Grannan, who studied under Philip-Lorca diCorcia while a graduate student at Yale, photographs strangers by putting an ad in local papers across the country.
So, whats interesting about her work is not so much the photographs(although they are beautifully shot and really successful) but the stories of each individual person. IN making the photograph, Katy explores the reasons why people want their photograph taken. She leaves most decisions up to them allowing them to decide what they wear, if anything, where it will be taken, usually there house or some isolated location, and the type of portrait that will be made.
I have looked at a lot of her work and question is the end result, the photograph, is a photograph about how the subject see's themselves or how Katy Grannan see's the subject. I think it can go both ways but is an interesting question to explore.
1 comment:
It is amazing how dramatic Phillip-Lorca diCorcia can make pictures that the people photographed don't even know about being taken. The man is really great! He is being sued by him? I wonder who won!
The second artist you talked about, are those her pics at the bottom? If so, then they are very much about their lives (the people in the pictures) About their cluttered houses about the fact that she still nurses her children that society may say are a little too old for nursing, etc. I can see why these people want their pictures taken; to show how they differ from the rest of the world. I think that is what makes them successful.
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