Week 5

This week I began to swim into the sea of American Suburb X.  I was very pleased to see such a reliable source of actual photographic work.

I was excited about two images in particular from Roswell Angier's "Combat Zone", and for a series as a whole, Andy Warhol's Polaroids.

Combat Zone was interesting because of two images.  One of a female facing a thee park ride and a truck, and one of two females in a hallway next to a piano.  Both images created a sense of isolation as well as an understanding of who the character was, without the use of the person's face.  Both brought about the feeling of being lost, but somehow still empowered.  I would really like to investigate this concept further.  I also was interested in the specific use of nudity.  Most nudity in photography that I've seen recently tends to be used without a real purpose or end result other than "look at the naked body". I find that for the most part implied nudity is actually more effective and can bring across a better conceptual idea or topic.

I had not previously viewed Warhol's Polaroids before.  I was interested in them because they only depict one person or subject at a time.  While they could be seen as a little plain because of the backdrop, I believe they are actually more powerful than most because Warhol was able to capture a lot of the personality with only a little room for space around them and a standard background.  Having the portraits be of famous celebrities when they were young and looked much different helped to take the viewer away from being a "celebrity fan" and rather put the viewer into new shoes.  I was able to read these people as typical/average citizens who had a story to tell.  These images helped to show me that simple can actually create the greatest impact.

I did have a couple of questions.  How often do they update, and do the artists themselves (or foundation) have to put up the work, or is it generated by a committee board?