Research Blog

Adam Ferguson was born on October 1978, in Sydney, Australia. In order to fund his passion for photography, he travelled on a boat on a crew. Eventually, during 2009, he went to Afghanistan to take pictures of the US-Afghan war. His pictures went on the New York Times and even the National Geographic, further propelling his career as a well-known photographer. He also won multiple awards from well-renowned organizations as a result from his work. He mainly focused on portraits, but he also dabbled in other forms of photography.  This picture was taken during the bombing of ISIS, and this is what I presume to be an American soldier. I like the gloomy feeling of the portrait.  The background is completely dark which brings all the attention towards the face. It looks like the light was pointed at the lighter side of his face because the shadow and postproduction completely block the other half. I like this picture because it emphasizes his expression and more importantly, his ey...

Irving Penn is the still life photographer I want to talk about in this post. Born on June 16th, 1917, he was known for his photography in still life's, portraits, and even fashion. Throughout his long career he had many accomplishments, most notably he volunteered with the American Field Service to take pictures in warzones during World War II. He visited and took pictures of soldiers and their lives in both Italy and India. Eventually, he came back to America and continued to work with Vogue magazine and even founded his own studio. He was most well-known for his fashion photography as he took many pictures that continue to be praised long after he died, which was in 2009.  The picture above is one my favorite still life works from Irving. There are a couple things that stand out to me in this photograph. The first is the color. I think the extreme contrast between the white background and the black faucet really creates a good focus on both the faucet itself and the water drippi...

 Lee Friedlander was born on July 14th, 1934, in Washington. His main focus was on documenting urban life. He would take pictures of stores, buildings, signs, and more using reflections as his main photography style. Due to his achievements, he has won numerous accolades and even had his work put into multiple museums worldwide such as the Museum of Modern Art based in New York and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Personally, while I do find some of his pictures pleasing to the eye, I don't really see any deeper meaning or a new perspective he's trying to convey. All these pictures are to me aesthetically pleasing noise, nothing groundbreaking or transformative.  One example of what I mean is this picture above. It's a black and white picture showing a man inside an older-looking car holding onto the steering wheel. Behind him shows a nice view consisting of many homes. I think that this picture is very interesting and visually appealing. I like the fact that ...