Hello Everyone!
I hope you are all having a good time shooting your projects and being oh so productive.
Just a reminder of what we are expecting here on the old blog- and it's pretty simple- just read the chapter in the Cotton book, check out the corresponding blog post, and write an insightful, interesting comment!
You will need to register for a Blogger account but that is quite simple.
SO, for our first post and discussion-
Michael Kimmelman, NY Times, 9/14/2001
Since the mid-1990's Mr. diCorcia has helped to redefine the tradition of street photography (Walker Evans's subway pictures, etc.) Nearly a decade ago he began photographing strangers caught in his strobe light. The ''Streetwork'' series turned pedestrians into unsuspecting performers and the sidewalks along places like Sunset Boulevard, and in Tokyo and Paris, into ad-hoc movie sets, the strobes picking passers-by out of crowds the way spotlights isolate actors onstage. The lights gave their gestures a sudden, baroque gravity and made everything around them seem contrived and weirdly portentous.
For the new photographs a strobe was affixed to scaffolding in Times Square; Mr. diCorcia stood farther away than before, using a longer lens. The result: crisp and stark portraits picked out of murky blackness -- just heads, no longer cityscapes, the surroundings now blocked by the scaffolding. They are simpler images and more intimate, the paradox of standing farther away being enhanced intimacy.
The cinematic quality stays the same, though, especially because Mr. diCorcia, like many photographers today, makes big, poster-size prints: 48 by 60 inches each, high-resolution digital scans. He took thousands of pictures from the end of 1999 to earlier this year to produce 17 photographs, 13 of which are in this show. The strobe functions like the light of revelation, a high-beam from heaven, and as usual, by stopping time, the photographs incline us to look at what we see every day but fail to notice, although the longer we stare at these people the more extraordinarily impenetrable they seem.
Unaware of the camera, they are absorbed in thought or gaze absently; they are how we act most of the time, walking down the street, in a crowd, focused on something or nothing. But enlarged and isolated, their expressions become riddles, intensely melodramatic and strangely touching.
Mr. diCorcia's pictures remind us, among other things, that we are each our own little universe of secrets, and vulnerable. Good art makes you see the world differently, at least for a while, and after seeing Mr. diCorcia's new ''Heads,'' for the next few hours you won't pass another person on the street in the same absent way.
10 comments:
They're interesting, i think the more self-conscious the person is, the more they appear to be struggling for somewhere to look where they won't make any visual contact with anyone. in the picture with the group of the 4 teenagers, they are all competing for space, compared to the old rabbi (billy gibbons?) who doesn't really seem to care.
The last photo by Lorca Di Corica is nice. The detail at the old man's face is pretty neat. I also like the background, It makes you wonder what is it? However, the interesting point to me is that red dot. It is the only color I found at the image, so the man to me is not the only focal point to look at.
I really like the image of the four teenagers, where the girl is the one in the light. They all seem so absorbed in their own thoughts, but the way the light is hitting her and her hair is being blown up at the same time seems to exaggerate the fact that she is being isolated. It just seems like a very powerful image.
The entire idea behind this shoot is great. Taking candid shots of on-going pedestrians from afar is a great way to stand away and just shot till you capture that moment thats going to make an extrodinary large print. It's priceless moments like those in the last 2 images that really capture a persons esence. Portraits taken with long lenses and short depth have always been a favorite of mine because if focuses on the subject.
I also enjoyed the girl's hair in the photo of the teens.
The kid in the Yankees hat was pretty neat too. It's like, did the yankees just lose or something? SMILE, its not all bad!
The most interesting thing about these photos for me was where my mind went when I looked at them. It was like each one was its own little story (s'pose thats the cinematic effect I read about). I wanted to know more about these people.
I like the idea of this project. The only way to capture a person in a completely natural state is to not let them know they are being photographed. These photographs show how oblivious we can be. We all have our own little worlds and all the dramas that are going on in them. This shows the struggles, fears, and joys that we go through everyday just in our heads.
i really like this idea. it captures just the person 'being'. i really like the last one of the older man; there's something very penetrating and piercing about his eyes. He's the kind of guy i'd like to ask, "so, whadda-ya know?" i really like the Di Corcia's photo in the book at the beginning of the chapter (on pg.20) too. i'd like to ask that person the same thing. i actually don't even know if it's an older man or a woman, but i love the picture. They have a sublime happiness about them. they really seem to manifest the "fruit of the Spirit...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,faithfulness, gentleness and self-control"(Galatians 5:22-23).
I really enjoyed this project. I wish I could have had my picture taken with the strobe. But seriously I love the idea of forcing the public to be the subject, but forcefully. The last picture is absolutly gorgeous. The gray of his wrinkles match the grey of his suit. He has a calm ghostly quality.
This series of images is interesting. This a very unusual way of capturing candid moments, although very effective. They're not the most eye-catching or engaging images without the story of how they were made.
I think the idea of the strobe is great. Even in a public area it's possible to narrow down the subject and create such a intimate photo. The large format makes the photo larger than life.
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