HU200 Humanities and Photography For Eminent Photographer Eugene

Questions:

1. Explain each photograph as though the reader has never seen it. What do you see?
2. Describe the image and the style in the photograph from the chapter. Then, do the same with your modern selection.
3. Assess the two photographs in comparison with each other and share your perspective. Why did you choose to analyze them together? What can one indicate about the other? Why did these photographs stand out to you?

Answer:

Analysis 1

There are two photographs here. These two photographs are from two different streets. One is from the text book and the another one is clicked by me. These two photographs depicts two different views in a busy street. One is captured in the daylight and the another one is captured in the evening. Both of the pictures contain a scenario of the street life of a busy urban area. There are people in both of the photographs and these pictures are portraying the essence of two different places but they have lots of similarities and difference.

The style that both of the pictures are included is The Modern Eye. The second picture, which is already given in the textbook, signifies the idea of the modern era. It is a picture from Los Angeles, this picture is clearly showing the life style of the place that is very much new and happening, and urban but in this picture in the left, the person on the wheelchair is giving a contrasting idea of this affluent society and the environment of the place. Like that in the first picture clicked by me is clicked in an urban area. The focus is manly given to the sky and the unfinished bridge in the background. In this picture, it is clearly visible that it is a place filled with wealthy cars and automobiles though people and children are walking on the footpath. Even though the first one is a color photo and the second one is a black and white one. It can be said that there is a story reflected in the second photo. The first one shows a normal view of a city where two parents is going on a walk with their child. However, the second one gives a more deep appeal with the three women and the man of the wheelchair. The women are the visualization of the rich and the daunting whereas the man on the wheelchair gives out an image of the poor and the helpless (DeCoster & Dickerson, 2014).. These pictures belong to the genre of modern photography and this genre of photography has a strange aesthetic of quickly taken photographs that are instinctive and unplanned. Both of the pictures appears to be primitive, spontaneous, and accidental. However, there are some differences like the first picture is a color photograph whereas the second one is old and black and white. There is a subtle contrasting idea but in a different manner and metaphor but they both display the aesthetic of modern photography. These two photographs are not very much alike to look at but the concepts can be matched with each other. Despite the locations are different, they still capture the same essence to the style of photography. 

Analysis 2

These two photographs are pictures of two different buildings. As the previous pair the first one is taken by me and the other one is taken by eminent photographer Eugène Atget at Trianon in Paris between the year of 1923–1924. The pictures contains two buildings, both look like they are abandoned and lonely. There is a sense of isolation and dejection in both of the photographs. The first one is taken in early evening and the second one is taken in early morning. Both of the photographs have some subtle elements that help to give a sensation of the ambience of both of the place (King, 2014).

These type of photographs are included in the genre The Documentarts. This genre has a unique philosophy that tells to capture the world that is disappearing so quickly people cannot see it go. Henri Cartier-Bresson used the phrase “the decisive moment” to define that crucial interaction of shapes and spaces, formed by people and things, that tells him when to snap his shutter. In this genre photographer takes photographs in a way of documenting time place and the ambience of a certain things and as the time passes the photographs become the visual proof of the contemporary time and the atmosphere of a place. It is like a live documentation of the current circumstances in still images. The place or the time can be changed but a person can know from the photographs what have been changed in the meantime. These two pictures have differences of color, place and grandeur but they consists a dramatic feelings of out of the way. One can look at these two photographs side by and can come up with a story as per their imagination. The forest surrounding the large building in the first photograph indicates isolation from the society. The person whosoever lives in the building is distinctive and prefers his solitary. The second picture on the other hand shows that the refection of the building on the water and an object that is in the water.  Like the directive of this typical type of capturing time there is a beautiful balance and contrast in the visual elements in the pictures that made both of the pictures very much intense and cinematic. Despite these are two different locations the theme is rather the same. 

References

DeCoster, V. A., & Dickerson, J. (2014). The therapeutic use of photography in clinical social work: Evidence-based best practices. Social Work in Mental Health, 12(1), 1-19.

King, D. (2014). Axis-A Theoretical Approach to Allegorical Pictorialism, Minimalist Ideologies, and Expressionism in Contemporary Photography.