Alli Dowe - Three Styles

    HENRY WESSEL

    American Photographer, Henry Wessel, has displayed various images of western America that have offered a different element to the photography world. Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, Wessel did not discover his love for photography until he began studying at the Pennsylvania State University where he came upon some photography books that struck his interest, and brought him back to his interest in psych.

    Even as he became more successful, Wessel strictly used one camera and one type of film his entire career. Using a Leica 33mm camera with a 28mm wide angle lense and Kodak Tri-X film, he produced elegant and simplistic photos. Rooting from his love of psychology, many of his works are like rorschach test—focusing on what your mind can create using black and white. He uses shadows to act as physical objects. He primarily took pictures on the western side of America, and focused heavily on how shadows and monochrome can elegantly depict and image. He takes pictures of many light scenes, and uses nature as a crutch to support it and frame the subject.

    His images come off very ominous, leaving the viewer with curiosity and wonder. The images come off quite contrasted, and exposed where even though taken at night, they offer a grey scaled color scheme. Although they are not, his images produce a voyeuristic feel. Like Wessel is stalking the light in some mysterious way. If I were to try and recreate this, I would really focus on black and white imagery, and how it elevates scenes of light. I would also try to manipulate nature as much as a I could and incorporate it into many of the works as a framing aspect. Instead of trying to look for lights and images, I would try to picture more of what is eye catching than forcing myself to recreate it.

CINDY SHERMAN

Cindy Sherman, and American photographer, has become iconic for her criticized and controversial photography. Born in Glenridge, New Jersey, Sherman soon moved to Long Island, New York where she discovered her love for art. She studied art at SUNY-Buffalo where she discovered it was time to put her love for painting to rest, and work on what would become her sole career path—photography.

Cindy Sherman is known as one of the most creative and expressive self portraitist. In all of her images, she plays roles as, model, director, photographer, as well as hair and makeup artist. In many of her images, you can tell that she uses various sources of lighting, and likes to play around with such. Using both film and digital photography, Sherman likes to express many of her images using larger scale prints.

Sherman’s upbringing most definitely incorporated itself into her work. Growing up with so much changing around her, including equality for women, LGBTQ right, etc., there was much to uncover on the subjects she chooses to portray. With people questioning their place in the world, and their true self, this allowed room for Sherman to explore. Dealing with her own fair share of identity issues, many of the works she displays are related to feminism, and the different roles and personas females can have.

Her images are social criticized, yet bring light to major self-critical issues. She displays a relationship between the author and the subject, as well as produces provocative, mysterious, and interesting images all about female persona. If I were to recreate these images, I would really consider reflecting on myself on a way deeper level than I ever have. I would look to see how I perceive myself, and compare it to how others see it as well as how the world sees me. I would also pay attention to my use of light and how it captures the subject, as well as the crucial decision between color or black and white.

ROBERT WEINGARTEN

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Robert Weingarten discovered his love for photography later on in life. After graduating from Baruch with a degree in finance, he soon switched over to his forever career, photography, and never went back to finance. Being a private person, there is not much behind Weingarten or how he prefers to work, or much about his growing life, but I can imagine that this is what makes his art work so unique. His work originally started in monochrome, then transformed more into photoshop heavy collage.

Having limited information on him, its safe to assume that Weingarten uses photography as his voice. Growing up in New York, there is a lot of color and excitement surrounding him, which more likely than not transferred into his work. His photography is very photoshop heavy, but elegant in the way he uses it.

Weingarten’s work consists usually of colorful and well throughout out collages that usually describe one singular person. He takes these people, and deconstructs every aspect about them, matching objects that relate to that portion of their life. He will take these objects and then gracefully place them so they look unified and balanced. His images are wildly creative and compacted. He thoroughly thinks through his focus, and executes a well done collage explaining multiple concepts as one. If I were to replicate it, I would pick various subjects and try to deconstruct them down where I can incorporate elements that describe parts of their life. In this case, I would then use large amounts of photoshop and editing tools to create a delicate collage