Assignment 4_Style

Book 1

Title: This Time

Photographer: Yana Toyber

Spending her teenage year at the School of American Ballet, Yana Toyber then went to a graduate school which names School of Visual Art. She stayed at Manhattan's art and fashion circles for more than ten years. Now Yana Toyber is working on photographing for museums and galleries, and she also runs her own website and posts some of the works on social media such as Instagram and Tumblr.

Most of Yana's works contain human subjects.Probably the experience of dancing and watching other girls dancing ballet built up Yana's sense of beauty of femininity. A large proportion, nearly all, of the subjects in her photos were young females, and they were all naked and sooth. Not only Yana seems to admire the beauty of the whole body image of women, but also likes to combine the human body and the nature environment, including seashores, woods, cornfields, under water, etc.

Another outstanding style of Yana’s work is the multicolored effect. Her photos are somehow out of realistic because of the flowing tone but smooth, like watercolor drawing. For example, on a photo of a young lady standing on the seashore, Yana added color green combined with original color blue of the sky, and whiten the color of sand and the human body. Her photos look both real and out of real color, but in my opinion, this is the key why her works are unique and beautiful.




Book 2
Title: Deja-Vu
Photographer: Ralph Gibson

Born in January 16^th, 1969, Ralph Gibson is a famous photographer for his photographic books, collections and exhibitions all around the world. He joined United States Navy at the age of 17, and started to pursue the life of photography on 1960. Ralph’s works usually contain erotic, surreal, and mysterious images. For this book, the photos are black and white, with a sense of time and mystery.

Maybe because this book was published by 1968, the feeling of both people and building is kind of old times. All images were in moderate clarity, and sometimes rough. However, like the word “Deja-Vu”, Ralph made his work attracted because the viewers would have an idea that they might had seen those people and places somewhere and someday. Also, Ralph likes darkening parts of the image, such as hat, suit, shadows, sky and hair, but the human faces were always bright. The facial expressions of the subjects are basically in two ways: the first, they seemed looking at something/someone familiar; second, they looked at the camera just like the viewers’ friends.  Ralph’s works are classic and calm. In Deja vu, the time seems stop, and the viewers may wondering what’s going on in those images.

Book 3
Title: Night
Photographer: Peter Hujar

Peter Hujar is an American photographer, and he only made black and white images. When he got his first camera at the age of 13, Peter decided to go to the School of Industrial Art. Following his teacher’s advice, he then began his career from an apprentice of a commercial photographer, to a stylish photographer.

Since Pater lived in Manhattan, what he enjoyed doing was to photograph the scene of city at the night of New York. Moreover, it wasn’t the crowded street or shining bars that attracted Pater’s interest but instead, the unexplored and unnoticed corner and people during that time. In the book, he photographed the places where no human beings were involved such as parking lot, closed cinema, abandoned furniture in suburban, and garage, etc., but for human subjects, Peter photographed queens (usually male), costumed people, and man at the park late at night. Gay, as well, was the major group in Pater’s subject (I would say gay was out of main stream of perception at that time, near 1970’s to 1980’s). In his works, the shadow and the sky were darkened, but the building and the subjects were somehow highlighted. When Peter photographed the building at night, the light on every window was the major focus, while the background was in pure black.

In my opinion, what Pater wanted to examine is the opposite side of what a city, especially New York, was typically defined. No matter day or night, New York is always crowded and busy, with various people from all over the places. But in Pater’s works, the night at New York was so quiet and undisturbed, even in ignorance by the crowd. Like everyone’s gone on Broadway and what’s remaining were just the buildings and trash on street while the streetlight is still on. 

Assignment 4

Among the three photographers, I picked Peter Hujar's (Book 3) style to make images because I have never photographed pictures at night, and everything during this time seems different to me.