Artist Research
Frank Gohlke
An artist that I am interested in and one that I intend to base my work on is the photography of Frank Gohlke. His 'aftermath' series inspired my idea to take pictures in the same location at different times of the day to get a different perspective and a juxtaposition between night and day.
Frank Gohlke was born April 3, 1942 and is an American landscape photographer. He has been awarded two Guggenheim fellowships, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Fulbright Scholar Grant. His work is included in numerous permanent collections, including those of Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Gohlke was one of ten photographers selected to be part of "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape" the landmark 1975 exhibition at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House (now the George Eastman Museum). During a career spanning nearly five decades, Gohlke has photographed grain elevators in the American midwest; the aftermath of a 1979 tornado in his hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas; changes in the land around Mount St. Helens during the decade following its 1980 eruption; agriculture in central France; and the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gohlke)
New Topographics - A turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signaled a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape. Pictures of transcendent natural vistas gave way to unromanticised views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance. This movement juxtaposes traditional style landscape photography. (https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/new-topographics/)
This image by Frank Gohlke is, in my opinion, an interesting image due to the fact that it seems to be in a natural landscape setting but in the centre of the composition there is what appears to be a factory, which juxtaposes the rest of the composition and contradicts the setting of a natural landscape. This particular image inspired my idea to try to recreate this image in my own style and aim to find places that have similar contradictions to this - a industrial looking building in what appears to be a natural landscape.
This is another image taken by the photographer Frank Gohlke and follows the same theme of having modern technology such as cars, electrical poles and housing in the centre of a natural landscape that has possibly been there longer than the technology has. This is another image that has inspired me and given me many different ideas about how I could present the idea of juxtaposition. The main idea that I had was to incorporate urban landscape with natural landscape which is something that Gohlke has done a lot of within his photography.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Another artist that I am interested in is Henri Cartier-Bresson and his photography work. His photography could be considered juxtaposition photography due to the fact within his landscape photography there always seems to be people within the image. This is also evidence of his decisive moment work, in which he waits until something is about to happen within the composition before taking the photograph.
Born in August 1908, Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. A founder of modern photojournalism, proposed one of the most fascinating and highly debated concepts in the history of photography: “the decisive moment.” This decisive moment occurs when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation (the perfect moment to capture in an individual's photography). He won many awards for his photography and later died in August 2004, a few weeks short of his 96th birthday. "Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson)
Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson regarded his decisive moment concept as, ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organisation of forms which gives that event its proper expression’. Cartier-Bresson further explained the decisive moment is universal, that ‘there is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment’. Cartier-Bresson clearly saw photography containing a capability to document everyday life, where even mundane scenes can be defined through their decisive moments. Everyday life within photography contains a universal quality regarding the decisive moment concept means photographs of historical significance can also apply. (https://the-artifice.com/history-within-photographic-concept/)
Born in August 1908, Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. A founder of modern photojournalism, proposed one of the most fascinating and highly debated concepts in the history of photography: “the decisive moment.” This decisive moment occurs when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation (the perfect moment to capture in an individual's photography). He won many awards for his photography and later died in August 2004, a few weeks short of his 96th birthday. "Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson)
Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson regarded his decisive moment concept as, ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organisation of forms which gives that event its proper expression’. Cartier-Bresson further explained the decisive moment is universal, that ‘there is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment’. Cartier-Bresson clearly saw photography containing a capability to document everyday life, where even mundane scenes can be defined through their decisive moments. Everyday life within photography contains a universal quality regarding the decisive moment concept means photographs of historical significance can also apply. (https://the-artifice.com/history-within-photographic-concept/)
This image is a photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in which he included the idea of both juxtaposition and the decisive moment. It captures the decisive moment well as the image was taken as the children were running into the frame, and it could be argued that Cartier-Bresson waited until these children ran into shot to take the picture, making it a more interesting image. This image also perfectly fits into the theme of Juxtaposition as two children full of life are running into the shot but within the background of the composition, there is a hearse in the background on the way to deliver a coffin to a funeral. The children in the image could represent life and the hearse in the background could represent death.
This is another image captured by photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson and within the image there is a landscape of Paris with a woman just walking out of the frame. This relates to the decisive moment as Cartier-Bresson has captured the image just as the woman is in the frame but about to exit the frame. However, this could also represent juxtaposition as within the image, there is a clear contrast between natural landscape and urban man-made landscape. This is evident through the slight appearance of the Eiffel Tower in the background, which is a man made structure hidden behind natural elements such as fog and trees. Additionally to this, the roads and pavements within the composition are also man-made, which contradicts and contrasts with the trees which are natural elements of the composition.
Uta Barth
Uta Barth
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