Through the beginning of the Spring 2020 semester we performed three exercises in order to learn new photographers, their respective styles and techniques, and to familiarize ourselves with our cameras. The three photographers we learned abut were Lorna Simpson, Imogen Cunningham, and Francesca Woodman. Each photographer had a different style, and they were each unique.
Lorna Simpson had a way of making her art a collage or including aspects of other mediums besides photographer into her work, it is multifaceted. Most of her work has a focus on identity in some form, however, some of her work touches on race, gender, desire, culture, and history. Her photography work focuses on identity, race, and culture. She tends to either make her photos so close that they take up the entire space, or she places them in a way that leaves a lot of space and makes her work the singular focus of the piece.
Imogen Cunningham’s work focused on botanicals, industrial landscapes, and portraits. Her work tended to focus on repetition in some form, usually, this was presented in her botanical work. Later in her career, she went back to nude photography and took a deeper focus into patterns and repetition found in nature. Cunningham was apart of a group called the f/64 who focused on getting sharp images and great depth of field.
Francesca Woodman’s technique was to use long exposure to capture blur and movement. On some occasions, she was even able to capture the effect of disappearing or what seemed like merging with her surroundings. Often times she would use very bare surrounding which would bring the objects of her photos in center focus. Many of her pieces gave an ominous or eerie feeling, which seemed to be her style, along with offering symbolism to the female body. She often exhibited this style through photographing her own body or being nude in her photography.
Looking at these artists and the exercises that were used in order to help hone the skills learned in order to help mimic the artist’s photography style, a lot was learned through the beginning of the semester. I learned that while I can see the vision other photographers had for their photos, I can take that same concept and go an entirely different route with it. I feel that as a photographer I have grown in the sense of acknowledging the vision I’ve in my head and seeing it through. Critique helped me to figure out that while at times I may second guess my ideas for photos ultimately, they end up being good choices. They (critiques) also helped me to see that other people were able to grasp the concept I tried to show with my work.
