14.04.11 Niall O'Brien

In the current issue of Dazed & Confused, they have gathered together a group of influential young artists - such as musician Marques Toliver, actor Tom Hughes, model and musician Tara Ferry and photographer and filmmaker Niall O’Brien - to debut Original Penguin’s Spring 2011 collection. The behind the scenes film interview features the actors and musicians delving into what keeps them creative and original. The video interview with the talented individuals reveal all about their personal thoughts on creativity, originality and the roots of their own style. I found this video interesting but also a very visually enjoyable bit of film.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/10025/1/original-penguin-fashion-film 

From this I started to look more at the photographer Niall O'Brian and found that although some of his own personal work was not overly appealing to me but the way he has drawn inspiration from and evolved it into his commissioned work has created some beautiful work which I am really interested in. 

His portraits and documentary work of youth are fantastic, because I can tell that he really connects with his subjects. 

He also seems to have found aesthetic which works with the content of his images and therefore complement each other, I think this can be seen most clearly when in one shoot he takes portraits of these same subjects in the studio and out of context. 

Here is some of his commissioned work and commercial work which I love!

 

06.04.11 Free Time

Because it's my official Easter break I have found a couple of days where I have nothing to do! Today’s weather was great and I decided that to be constructive and  work on being more observant so began photographing my day and the things around me which I may not pay close attention to usually. Here are a few from a large selection but really enjoyed photographing spontaneously without any planning.

04.04.11 Somewhere Place

I was excited to see this morning, as I browsed the internet for my favourite news sites that Ryan McGinley is opening a new exhibition at Galerie Gabriele Rolt in Amsterdam next week. Included in the show, called Somewhere Place, are cinematic, ethereal photos by McGinley of landscapes, nude people and combinations of the two. Unfortunately I will not be travelling to the Netherlands anytime soon but can still appreciate the magical mood that McGinley’s photographs evoke. He must be, for me the photographer who best escapes reality, subtly hinting at a dream world of beautiful scenes and portraits which continue to inspire me. Here are a couple of images from his new series.

01.04.11 Amira Fritz

Today I attended a lecture at my university which held great interest to me. The guest speaker Amira Fritz spoke very passionately about her work and it was nice to hear from a photographer who has not yet fully established herself as a professional commercial practitioner. 

The thing I found most intriguing about Amira was how she felt about attitudes towards the separation of art-based and commercial photography as she feels that the combination of the two genres can only be a good thing but has encountered people who want to keep the two separate. As she mentioned that in New York they considered her work too moody and art based for their commercial market, though she argues that the American photographer Ryan McGinley (previously posted) has merged the two art forms in America and has been excepted as a commercial photographer. 

 She also expressed her dislike for peoples judgement of her work, as she felt it was unfair to declare work as wrong when art is about individual tastes and what can be wrong for one person can be very right for another. I agree with Amira and feel that this negative feedback culture can only be damaging to the industry, critics should try looking at the positives and state their views and opinions as just that and not fact! 

Visually and aesthetically I find her work interesting but not always to my taste. I can really see similarities between her own work and that of McGinley’s with the mood and youthful feel to the images. I loved how she talked about how her work progressed from personal projects and grew into fashion shoots and developed into these images which she has provided her own style and stayed true too throughout her career so far.