The first photographer for this week is Todd Hido. As my project is on portraits of a neighborhood without the inclusion of human beings I decided for this weeks blogs to focus on photographers who I felt did something similar or choose to do it differently. Hido's houses to me are a portrait of two things. Light and emotion. Since he chooses to photograph the homes at night he loses a lot of the physical characteristics of the homes. The details are visible but to me as a viewer not the point of the photograph. The dark blue tone of this specific image make me feel cold and the single light to me feels as if Hido is documenting other people alone. As if he is the outsider recognizing the other outsiders.
To me this is different and similar to my current project. My project is a lot less about emotion (although not completely devoid of it) a change my work itself. It is more about showing a place that some people wouldn't know or think of. However I would say that Hido did find places and record them in ways people would never consider. He showed houses that in themselves many would not consider beautiful.
So my next photographer is Alec Soth. Soth is already a huge influence on my work right now. Not because of the places he photographed. My project is extremely different when it comes to location. It is extremely domestic and to some ordinary. However the way he photographs them, the attention to detail and light. The symmetry or lack of symmetry and his careful attention to it. And his color palette which completely blows me away and seems unreachable. All of these things interest me about his work. Along with that they feel like portrait rather than observations. Its not about anything other than the subject for these places. I think when doing portraiture of buildings you have to be careful in what you choose to recognize as a portrait and how to portray that for the audience. Soths careful compositions and attention to detail accomplish that perfectly for the locations. His attention to detail is also quite important. You feel a if you were standing with him there in the place. While Ithat isn't really a goal of my mine for this work I think that the detail is still important to the images. It allows the viewer to believe in the place and therefore makes it an acceptable portrait.
My third photographer for this weeks is the one and only Gregory Crewdson. I think that when people think of Crewdson they immediately think of his elaborate surreal imagery that he is so well known for. This however is another look for his. These images are from the book "Beneath the Roses" and then a book he titled "In A Lonely Place". They are very much still his work. These places wouldn't look like this with out his fog machines and careful puddle placement and giant lighting crew. However to me they are Crewdson's most believable work in color. They are geared toward showing the actual architecture of suburbia with Crewdsons well known twist of his childhood influence of psychology.
While Crewdsons photographic process is much different from mine and his subject is entire blocks rather than a single house I feel like he is showing something similar to the goal of my project. My project is about showing the feeling and reality of where I live. It is obviously influenced by my childhood and my memories. These houses while not meant to show the negative or positive but simple truths are both physical objects and mental staples in my mind. They are my reality. Crewdsons crews and lights and machines alter the physical reality but show the mental one he sees. His work is always a large influence on mine.
My final photographer for the day is Matthias Heiderich. Heiderich is a self taught photographer from Germany. These images are from his series "Favorite Places". I choose to use Heiderich's images for this blog because I felt that they showed to me a piece of my project that the others did not. While I am mainly photographing the domestic homes around me I am also photographing the things I use or see in my surroundings like open airfields, parks, etc. Heiderich's image to me show a lot of that as well and a key part to my project aswell.
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