Jörg Photobook Review: Mona Lisa's of the Suburbs

The Real Mona Lisa

One of the "Mona Lisas" from the book

This was an interesting book and concept.  The authors approached young women who weren't outright beautiful but were interesting looking in 5 cities around Europe.  They weren't superficially beautiful but had a mystique about them like the original Mona Lisa.  The models posed on a specially constructed chair that had a headrest. There are also a few landscape photos throughout the book but these coincide with the idea because they are portraits of the city itself.

All the photos in the book are framed well.  The subjects are surrounded by a background that doesn't compete with them but adds to the photo.  Each person is posing in a different way as well and doing different things with their hands and their faces.  None of them are actually smiling but it shows how different each of these people are by showing the different things they do with their bodies.


Mona Lisa's of the Suburbs

Through the Looking Glass: Evolution of Self Through Reflections

This portfolio is about reflections and the evolution of the selfie.  With all different types of photo editing software you can totally lose who you truly are in an image.  This portfolio shows that idea as the progression of the reflection overtime becomes more and more blurry.

The American's Robert Frank

           Robert Frank was an American photographer born in Switzerland in 1924.  He also dabbled in filming and video editing later in life but he was most know for his photos particularly the book The Americans.  Frank learned photography to escape the confines of his business-oriented family.  He trained under a few photographers in Switzerland before immigrating to America in 1947 where his real career began and where he started his journey for his most famous book.

Robert Frank began his photo tour for his book The Americans in 1955 after securing a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation.  His idea was to travel across the United States and photograph layers of society.  He took 28,000 photos during his time but only 83 were selected for the book.  It was published first in France in 1958 and in the USA the year after.  His book was different than other photographers at the time because of his technique.  He used unusual focus, low lighting and cropping style that was not usual for photographers of the time.  His book was popular because it showed a different kind of America.  It showed that not everyone was living the American “Dream.” His book became an important part of American photography history and became his defining work.

War Photographer

Emily McNally

War Photographer: W. Eugene Smith

            “Photo is a small voice, at best, but sometimes - just sometimes - one photograph or a group of them can lure our senses into awareness. Much depends upon the viewer; in some, photographs can summon enough emotion to be a catalyst to thought.”  This is one of the most famous quotes taken from the late W. Eugene Smith in an essay he published in 1975 called Minimata.  Smith was known for his photo-essays as well as his war photography and Minimata just happened to be his last published project.

            Smith was born in Wichita Kansas in 1918.  He learned photography from his mother who would photograph pictures of the family.  For this reason he began photographing at a young age and had already published for many magazines by age 21.  He went to college at Wichita’s Notre Dame University for a year before moving to New York to continue his studies at the New York Institute of Photography.  He went on to his first job working for Newsweek magazine but was later fired for creative differences. 

He received his big break when he was assigned to cover World War II in the Pacific.  He threw himself right into the action of the war, photographing everywhere from land to sea and following the American army as they island hopped to Japan.  He was not afraid to get up close and personal with the war and the soldiers as long as he got his shot.  In this way he was a perfectionist.  However his trip was unfortunately cut short when he received a severe injury and had to undergo surgery and take a two year break from his work.  Frustrated that he was unable to work for so long he began taking photos of his children, which is where one of his most well known photos “Walk in Paradise Garden,” arose.  This photo was so peaceful and unlike many of the other images that Smith had taken before that it has become an icon of family photography.

After he recuperated, Smith went back to work for LIFE magazine, one of the magazines he had been working for during the war.  The war was over at this point so he began a series of photo-essays where he would immerse himself in the life’s of his topics and get the most intimate stories and photos.  He worked very differently than he had in the past as he tried to reveal the real core of his topics.  This proved to be effective and had a positive response from the public and the editors.

Even with his success, Smith soon tired of taking restricting magazine photos and quit LIFE to work on his own.  He worked for a while in his college town of New York where he would photograph a collection of different subjects, even taking a bunch of photos from his window to the street.  After a few years of this he moved on to his final project, the Minimata essay.  He moved with his second wife to Japan to cover industrial pollution victims in the town of Minimata.  This is the essay where many of his famous quotes have surfaced.  Soon after he finished his project in Japan he moved to Arizona to teach where he ended up suffering from a stroke and died in 1978.

Smith’s photos covered a large range of topics.  If one were to look through a slide show of some of his most famous works you would see everything from a picture of his children walking in the garden to the KKK to a car on the side of a road with the sign “Dream” nearby.  His work is not only interesting but also moving.  It is incredible that someone is able to take such a wide diversity of photos and have every topic look just as good as the last.  This is the likely one of the reasons why he was so successful in his life.

W. Eugene Smith devoted his whole life to photography.  He not only gave up his family for it but also put his life in danger to take the best photos possible.  Because of this dedication he was able to give us some of the best photos seen during World War II.  He refused to compromise his practices and was not afraid to show the most brutal photos he took during the war.  His photos depict the sights that only the soldiers were able to witness themselves.  His images are powerful in the way that they are composed and in the subject matter.  For these reasons his work is still admired today and he some think of him as one of the greatest war photographers to ever have lived.

Word Count: 795

Works Cited

"Magnum Photos." Magnum Photos. Magnum Photos, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013.

"W. Eugene Smith About W. Eugene Smith." PBS. PBS, 18 Apr. 2002. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.

"W Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult (1989) Full Length." YouTube. YouTube, 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.

Photo Assignment

Shallow Depth of Field

Shallow Depth of Field

Large Depth of Field

Slow Shutter Speed

Fast Shutter Speed

Fast Shutter Speed

Panning

Panning

Project Proposal

Through the Looking Glass: Self Through Reflections

It’s almost human nature to look into any reflective surface as people walk by. I know I catch myself looking at my reflection in store windows, shinny surfaces, even at my job in the freezer window every time I pass.  I don’t understand why we have this weird obsession with looking at ourselves.  Is it because we want to make sure our hair or our makeup isn’t out of place? Or is it just because we’re narcissistic?

The idea of narcissism dates back to Greek Mythology and the story of Narcissus.  He was led to a pool where he saw his reflection.  He was so memorized by his beauty that he fell in love.  He ended up dying at the pool because he was unable to leave his image in the water.  This is an extreme case obviously but still us humans do a similar thing even if it is just a glance for a brief second.

I’m going to be doing my project on reflections of myself in these little “mirrors” that I look at myself in daily. Whenever I catch myself looking in a window or a shiny object and remember to I’m going to take a photo of the reflection that I was seeing in it.  I wanted to do this because I just want to see all the different places where my narcissism begins to show.  By taking these photos I can see what is happening in the reflection around me too.  Usually I only focus on myself and pass by but it will be interesting to see what the rest of the world is doing around me as they are also reflected in the image.

I took a couple photos of myself in reflective images in the past that have always stuck out to me and I’ve never forgotten about so I’m going to be adding those to the selections just to show what originally got me started on the idea.  These photos were the main reason that I chose to explore this topic more thoroughly.  However, the majority of the photos are going to be new from the beginning of my time in Dublin until the end of the semester when the project is due.  From all of those I will sort out and pick the best looking representations of what I’m trying to show in my portfolio.

Reflection photo I took that influenced me to photograph this topic

I’ve decided to photograph only reflections of myself because this way maybe I’ll learn the rational behind why I glance at my reflection so often everywhere I can.   I also think that it would be a lot harder to get good reflections of other people unless you ask them if you can take it.  But the downside of asking them if you can take it is you can’t really get a natural photo.  They would try to act unfazed by the camera but would still have a different pose than if you would catch them in the act without them knowing.

As for the look of these photos I always like to edit photos a little bit because I think there’s always something you can do to make a photo look better than the original print. However for most of these reflection photos I want to edit them to look more like a dream-like photograph or like mystical.  Just to kind of go along with the idea that the mirror shows a different image to every person and at every moment which makes it seem like it’s another world inside the reflective surface.  By editing my photos the way I plan it will add to this idea of a different world being seen in these mirrors each time they’re looked into.  Once all these photos are taken and put together its going to be interesting to see what patterns arise and what things are different in each and how the entire look has changed over time.

James Nachtwey Documentary Questions

1.) What kind of personality do you think photojournalists like James have? What kind of person do you think can do a job like that?

To be able to do such a emotionally taxing job like Nachtwey does you have to try to be emotionally detached but also to be able to empathize at times.  One of the people in the film said that to do what he does you can't be devoted to two things you have to kind of be single-minded and a loner that way nothing holds you back from getting the best work.  He is able to stay focused in the field but when he has to take photos of people he is able to show empathy towards them, enough so that they are accepting that he is there documenting the tragedy that occurred in their life.  It's something that you have to prepare yourself for subconsciously to be able to get through.

2.) What do you think of his approach of photographing people?

At first I was shocked at the fact that he was getting right up in the faces of these people who had lost everything or loved ones and snapping photos.  But then I saw how great these photos would turn out and understood that to take a shot like that you would have to do that.  None of the people seemed to mind that he was there, it was almost as if he was a ghost because they acted so natural and didn't even notice him.  After he said that people accepted him because it gives them a voice and shows the rest of the world what they're going through and the right and wrong, I was a lot more okay with his technique.

3.) What kind of subjects does Stem Magazine cover?

Stem magazine covers real new stories and puts the reader right in the action where James is.  It covers the tragedies from wars that are happening in the world. 

4.) What conflicts did he cover in the film?

Two of the biggest conflicts that stood out in the film were from Rwanda and the train-track segment.  James said Rwanda was the most intense war he'd seen.  He didn't understand how people could have such fear and hatred towards each other and how they could harm each other like that.  After that war ended the losing side spread out to nearby countries and soon after there was a cholera epidemic which James also covered.  He said that he was likely taking pictures of people dying from the disease who just a few years earlier he had taken pictures of killing people in gruesome ways.

Another story that stood out was the one he covered at the train-tracks.  I don't remember where exactly it was but people would come in from the countryside to try to make a better living for their family in the city.  They would build houses out of boxes and other things they could find and live rent free by the rail-road tracks.  One of the men he covered was missing a leg and an arm from a drunken night getting hit by a train.  Despite his disabilities he still cared very much for his kids and went off to work everyday.  These people lived in dangerous situations but they worked so hard for their families they cared so much about which was very moving.

5.) What pictures ended up being used?

The most dramatic pictures are always the ones that end up being used.

6.)Why did he become a war photographer?

He made the decision to become a war photographer in the early 70’s when he was in Vietnam because he was witnessing history and through photography you could document it.  It was dangerous but also adventure and you got to feel peoples’ emotions.    Photographers tell a different story than what political and military leaders tell and he wanted to tell the truth.