Artist Research for Mon. February 15th

No website found.

Nicholas Nixon is best known for his work with the Brown sisters. This work consists of him annually taking a portrait of the four brown sisters, one of who is his wife Bebe, over the course of thirty-four years, starting in 1975 and going through 2008 (most recent found). Nixon found inspiration for this series as a result of seeing pictures displayed in the Brown family home, originally meant for Christmas cards, taken by the girl's parents every year since Bebe, the oldest, was born. In Nixon's images the girls are always in the same order which allows you to easily compare the girls as they age gracefully over a third of a century.

One thing I admire about this series is that the seasons change for the girls so you not only get to see them at different ages, but also under different circumstances. Also I enjoy the way you see the relationships change year after year within the group some seeming closer at different times in their lives.

From Nixon's work I would like to take away the naturalness of the subjects as well as the raw emotion. The girls never seem to be told to smile and only do so in a few images, showing the emotion that they were genuinely feeling at the time the photograph was taken. This same unemotional prepped attitude seems to carry on in the rest of Nixon's work. The directness of the gazes coming from his models only add to the emotional pull of his images.

The work Nixon does of other families and small groups carries the same feelings that the collection of Brown sister images do. The direct semi emotionless gazes seem to penetrate off the page. THIS is something I would like to carry over into my own work. I also enjoy the scatteredness of his subjects in the work below. I feel it adds depth/movement to the images.

Artist Research for Mon. February 8th

www.thomasstruth.net

"In the mid-1980s, Struth began a series of color and black-and-white portraits of individuals and family

groups, using the same large-format camera he employed for his cityscapes. This series grew out of an earlier but never completed collaborative project with psychoanalyst Ingo Hartmann, Familie Leben (Family Life, 1982), in which Struth and Hartmann analyzed family snapshots that Hartmann�s patients brought with them to therapy. Giles Robertson with Book, Edinburgh (1987) and The Hirose Family, Hiroshima (1987) exemplify Struth�s belief in photography as �a tool of scientific origin for psychological exploration� rather than a voyeuristic or fetishizing medium. This ongoing series explores the personal and cultural dynamics that condition how we see ourselves and others as well as how our individual and collective identities condition such perceptions. With unyielding gazes, Struth�s subjects confront the viewer, forcing him or her to participate in this dialogue." (www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_149A.html )

The thing I find most compelling about Struth's work, besides the direct gaze of the adults in the image. Is the way the families match their environments. I am wondering if this was something that Struth intentionally did or whether it was a happy accident. I'm betting that it is something Struth arranged and possibly something I would like to employ myself. Once again I am interested in the way the families interact with their own environment and with the clothing choice here they almost seem to become apart of their home.

These images also interest me due to the rage of emotion on the families faces. Although they are all looking directly at the camera and in turn the viewer there is such a mixture of emotions from boredom to happiness. This is interesting and may say a lot about the individuals in the group.

The thing I will take away from Struth's work is more in his interest or meaning behind these family portraits. That they are intended for more of a scientific study than to be voyeuristic.

Artist Research for Mon. February 1st

www.jessicatoddharper.com

I think a quote from the New Yorker explains Jessica Harper's work better than I ever could,

"Harper's domestic scenes - large color photographs featuring her family, and, occasionally, herself - combine a lovely sense of intimacy with a casually patrician formality...with a painterly feel fordappled, natural light that makes some of the images glow as if from within... the work is sincere, even seductive..."

- Vince Aletti, THE NEW YORKER

I admire Jessica's work for many reasons. Her lighting and staging always feel so natural, even when she is able to capture a supernatural glow to her subjects. Every one of her subjects seem to feel at ease in front of her lense and even when making direct contact with the viewer. Truth seems to eminate in all of her works even when they are obviously staged.

Jessica's first book "Interior Exposure" won a first place Lucie award, and was listed in PhotoEye Magazine's Best PhotoBooks of 2008 and PDN's Best Photography Books of 2008. This book is what I would like to emulate as she concentrates on her family, their homes and the ordinary events that happen everyday. I would like to be able to capture the natural environment of my families as perfectly as Jessica is able to.