The Genius of Photography - Photographer Review

After watching the second episode of the Genius of Photography I feel I have definitely learnt a lot more about photographers now. I have seen an insight into a different age and style of photography. The program showed me so many more different styles of photography and has really inspired me. Here are some examples of their work...

Carlos Felt

Carlos Felt was a breakthrough photographer who photographed natural and plant forms, he was an innovator of modern macro and close up photography. His photographs look really well composed and shot.

Bernd and Hilla Becher

These were the husband and wife photographic team that applied primitive methods to create their outstanding photographs of blast furnaces and water towers.

This is one of their sets of photographs, as we can see the photographs work really well, the odd shapes of the water towers mean the images all go hand in hand and they really work with the contact sheet layout of the photographs. The photographs have really nice tones and all are framed in a similar way this causes the series to really work well in a strong way.

August Sander

August sander was a key photographer that photographed people within his community. One of his most famous photographs was of a bricklayer.

This is probably Sanders most famous image, it is an image of bricklayer who worked in Sanders local village. The image works well especially the lighting which especially looks good, the fact the face of the bricklayer is lit looks really good, the bricks around his neck also really add to the image. Overall the contrast and tones of the image look really impressive.

Alexander Rodchenko

Rodchenko was a key communist photograph who took photographs for propaganda purposes, he made photo collages of certain events also. Rodchenko shot photographs in the Gulags of Russia and presented the camera as the tool of the new man.

This is one of Rodchenkos most famous images it is a photo collage that promotes freedom among the Russian people, it shows by supporting communism everybody is equal and they get a long. Rodchenko would have had to make this under direct government orders. The photograph is a collage that would have been made in a darkroom using traditional methods. The photograph looks really patriotic and I can see why Rodchenko was told to make such images.

Manray

Emmanuel Radnitzky (Manray) was a photographer from the US but spent most of his time in Paris. He used methods of photo collage and solarization which he introduced. Here is one of Man-Ray's famous images.

This is an image of a flower which has been subject to solarization, the image will have been taken and then printed in a darkroom. The print is then exposed to light for a tiny amount of time. Once this has been done the photograph is then developed. The overall image has this metallic but smooth look to it and has really nice black and white tones.

Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt was an apprentice of Manray's he grew up during the first world war and so when the second one came around he documented the impact it had on people.

This is a photograph of people affected in Britain in WW2, here Brandt has photograph those affected by the blitz and the attack on britain. He has photographed those people that took refuge in the tube stations of London. The photograph has an overall good feel to them and the tones are well fitting. The perspectives of the tube station also really adds to the image.

Sources

Some previous media was obtained on google images.

Some previous media was obtained from a book named photo box published by Contrasto, it is a collection of up to 250 different images.