Andrew Davis Three styles

Close at Hand is a collection of photographs by Mariana Cook, it was crafted with the goal to take a picture for every day in a year. Mariana focuses primarily on the meager, avoiding grandiose subjects and focusing on more “simple” subjects. What the subjects lack in grandeur they make up for through complexity. Cook utilizes black and white photography for the entirety of this collection, this is a distinct trait of the collection that I think was chosen to avoid the distraction of color. In the images devoid of color there is more contrast which allows for a more stark image that draws the eye. The images are close cropped and either leave very little space between the subject and the edge of the photograph, or have the subject take up the entire space. This collection is about taking seemingly ordinary objects and photographing them in a way that displays their complexity in an abstract way that challenges the assumption that it is even simple. To replicate this style I could do Cook’s mission on a smaller scale, I could take a picture every day for two weeks. I would try and find things in my everyday life that I think are ordinary but complex.

Unintended Sculptures is a collection by Hatje Cantz a Danish photographer an older gentleman who began his career as an advertising photographer but became a photojournalist. The collection spans over ten years of photographing, this collection is something of a pet project of Saxgren in that it never took his full attention but rather was created when the situation arose. This collection takes dilapidated objects that have over time became centerfold in their surroundings, more than that the objects become an integral part of the landscape. The objects go from looking worn down to being majestic in their own rite. This work exemplifies the objects in the foreground that have fallen apart. The images mostly contain a singular centerpiece that has fallen apart with a large landscape background. To replicate this style I would find dilapidated or less than grand objects and photograph them in a way that makes them paramount. I could also look harder at my surroundings and try to imagine a scene without different objects in it, focusing mostly on objects that don’t seem important in the scene. If I could find objects that don’t seem important but scenes look different without them then I think they would make for good possible subjects.

Eye On Infinity is a collection by Michael Ruetz a german photographer who was born in 1940. His ancestors were actually printers, journalists and publishers so it seems fitting he would become a photographer. This collection showcases landscapes in their different states. Ruetz focused on a few landscapes and photographed them during different times. Whether there was a lightning storm, rain, clear sky, or night. This collection is about profiling a certain landscape and showing its many different states. The collection is entirely photographed in black and white, I think this was a stylistic choice to emphasize the differences between the photographs. So as to differentiate them black and white allows for very clear distinctions. The collection focuses on how much a landscape can vary over time, and it showcases its beauty. The images look very similar except for the changes in state. Ruetz is also trying to showcase a passage of time in his work through the differing states of the landscapes. To replicate this style I would try and locate on great landscape location that I could go to at least ten times. I would hope that the environment would change at least a few times and would have to get a little lucky to be able to capture distinctively different photographs.