ryan mcginley's world is more beautiful and more strange than yours

when amy stein came to give a lecture at my school last year, she took a small stab at ryan mcginley and his work. this was after she spent most of the lecture going through some of her images from domesticated and stranded, and explaining what went into making these images and the stories behind them. it wasn't until after i heard the stories and ideas behind them that i kinda appreciated her work, so for me i don't think her work is very successful, due to the fact it took her lengthy explanation for me to particularly appreciate her work. but back to the main point of this post, near the end of lecture made a backhanded comment about mcginley.

stein said something to the effect that she really didn't know why mcginley was so popular right now due to his semi snapshot style. it seems to me that stein's major quarrel with mcginley's work is he doesn't put enough work into his images because he doesn't set up a scene like she did with her work in domesticated and doesn't lug a large a camera around like she does, hence her description of mcginley's work as "snap shot style."

recently i came across stein's website and i was surprised to find several posts involving mcginley's work. i found this strange due to the fact her comments at the lecture gave me the impression that she possessed a real fan of his work. i do believe that my interpretation of her opinion of mcginley is correct though, due to this post from stein's blog...

'The other day my husband asked me, "what's the significant difference between the work of Ryan McGinley and Spencer Tunick?"

He continued, "they both construct nude-filled landscapes."

At first I laughed, but the more I thought about it...

Is the difference a sense of order versus the illusion of spontaneity? Or, is the difference merely that Ryan McGinley chooses hotter models?'

regardless of stein's opinions of mcginley's work, i really love it. even though mcginley may use to a snapshot style or snapshot methods to create his work i don't mind. for the most part i do find snapshot photography very troublesome, but when it produces images that appear to be from another world, i think it's completely acceptable.

so now, prepare yourself for a large amount of mcginley's work, due to the fact i found it very difficult just to choose a couple of mcginley's images...

you know you cast a long shadow on the ground

with this only being the second or third week i have ever dealt with setting up lights and working in a studio, i have find it hard to write about something i barley know anything about. (unfortunately, for my craft II class it is required i post something related to lighting) with that being said i really enjoy angela boatwright's incorporation of shadow when shooting on a blank or solid color backdrop, which sometimes can be a a little boring.

something else i enjoy about boatwright's use of lighting is her going to the other extreme of side lighting. instead of having one side of the fact completely covered in shadow, she has it completeley engulfed in light

The Importance of Saturation

A big part of color photography is taking into account the colors inside the frame and their relations to each other, before taking the picture. Observing and considering these are important, but they are not the only things you should take into account when creating an image with your camera. Now i know what you're are thinking, "What else could you possible have to take into account besides the colors and their relations to each other?! Won't you please tell us!? WE HAVE TO KNOW!!!

Well, my answer to you is this... READ THE TITLE OF THIS POST!!! That's obviously the answer to your question, I mean did you just skip right over the title because you thought it was important? IT'S THERE FOR A REASON! Why wouldn't you read it? Would it really have been that harmful to your existence to read the title of the post? Maybe you thought that reading the title was pointless because reading the actual post would give you the main point of the post. But what would happen if you read the post and then you were left with a bad taste in your mouth and felt like it was a waste of your life? You would probably feel the need to blame me for wasting your time and then be compelled to leave me terrible comments to convey your disdain. Now if this is the case, it is perfectly fine to come to the conclusion that this blog post is a waste of your time. However, it' is completely unacceptable to blame me for wasting your time because it could have all been avoided by you taking the time to read the title. One final reason you might not have known the answer to the hypothetical questions presented in the previous paragraphs is that you read the title and then fail to connect the dots after reading the opening paragraph. If this is in fact the case i suggest that you stop reading this post right now, in order to avoid anymore misunderstanding, confusion, and/or headaches. Now for those of you who made it through this last paragraph and do not fall into that last category, yes the answer is color saturation.

Color saturation is very important to take into account when taking color photos. The reason this rings true is because the saturation of the colors in your photographs can affect the feeling and/or message you are trying to convey with your photograph or photo series. With that being said, I was very impressed with the use of color while observing the work of Allison Sexton. Her photos seem to be mysterious, and sad, and the colors match perfectly.

The Use of Flash

I was recently looking at some photos, by Victor Cobo, from a series entitled "Remember When You Loved Me." While looking at these photos I began to question his (and just about every other contemporary photographer's) use of flash. I'm not sure if Cobo's or these other photographers use of flash do anything for their photographs. Do they bring something to the photograph that couldn't be achieved with carefully place lights? Is the use of the flash an act of laziness or a very conscious decision? The answers to these questions are unknown to me, but it is very apparent to me that this use if very common amongst the snap shot style photography that is popular right now. Perhaps the flash is there to achieve this look of snap shot photography. This leads me to my finally question, does this snap shot style photography even produce successful images? I still can't decide...

some of Victor Cobo's images from "Remember When You Loved Me":

Garry Winogrand

in regards to a request to use his pictures for a work on the history of street photography...

"There's no such thing as street photography and even if there were, it isn't what I do...I photograph animals. That's it! If you want to do a history of zoo photography, I'll participate."

"...who we are and what we feel and what is to become of us just doesn't matter. Our aspirations and successes have become cheap and petty. I read the newspapers, the columnists, some books, I look at the magazines. They all deal in illusions and fantasies. I can only conclude that we have lost ourselves, and that the bomb may finish the job permanently, and it doesn't matter, we have not loved life."

INTERVIEW: "An Interview with Garry Winogrand (1981)"