Photo_Book_Assignment_Harding

Photographer – Paragraphs

Flick, Robert: Robert Flick once spent two years photographing a single parking deck in downtown Los Angeles. He covered the garage from almost every angle to reveal the geometric shapes and patterns that made the ordinary parking garage become les ordinary through single images intent on showing the uniqueness of individual portions of the parking deck. He meticulously chronicled the changing angles of the shadows as the interacted with the many different lines and angles occurring inside the parking deck. As the light moved and changed the angles of the shadows, the images changed along with the light. Moving outside of the parking deck, Flick chose to photograph ordinary scenes from small cities as he drove through the streets. He first set up a camera in the back seat and used a remote cable to engage the shutter, but then chose to hire a driver and began photographing from the backseat. Then, Flick arranged the images in massive collages depicting the images in the order he photographed them. In doing so, Flick was able to transform photographs of relatively mundane urban scenes into interesting and engaging images. Another technique he utilized, was to photograph rock formations and landscapes from national parks from many different angles and views which were then combined to create what he called “sequential views”. Many of his photographs seem fairly ordinary, but the arrangement makes them interesting and unique. I am focusing on Flick's style for the rest of the semester.

Nixon, Nicholas: Nixon claimed his work was concerned with the passage of time. He photographed cityscapes, landscapes and more often than either of those, people. He documented people at all stages of life from infancy to old age to show the passage of time in life. He often took self-portraits and portraits of his family. His work photographing his 3 sisters at family gatherings, “The Brown Sisters”, is famous, but much of his other work was largely unknown until he published the book I read, “About Forty Years”. Nixon’s landscapes and cityscapes were very interesting to me, but his work with people, much of it dealing with the sick and the elderly, was a bit disturbing to me. I understand his desire to get up close and personal with his subjects and it adds to his personal style, but it isn’t a style or subject matter that interests me. I liked his cityscapes as they were always taken from an elevated position high up in the cities. This gave the photographs a unique perspective.

Faurer, Louis: Many photographers have plied their trade on the streets of New York City, but I found some of the most interesting photographs of the post-WWII era in the book I read about him. Faurer captured scenes and people on the streets of New York often in mostly mundane activities. He photographed them from the inside of stores as the people glanced through the windows to see the products for sale inside and the people who moved and interacted outside without any idea there was a camera concealed in the store front window. He worked mostly in black and white. Faurer was also known for his photographs which were included in many of the most popular magazines of the time. Faurer was friends with Robert Frank and the two shared similar, but still unique, styles of photography. Outside of his work for the magazines, Faurer’s work includes few staged photographs. Many consider his work on the streets of New York City and especially, in Times Square one of the best photographic documentaries of the city and one of its most famous landmarks. I enjoyed his work and am very interested in someday documenting a city I live in the same manner.