Philip Lynch - 3 Photographer Paragraphs

Alec Soth:

            Going through the book, I would say that Alec Soth is a photographer with a sense of humor. There was something a little odd about almost every single photograph and most of them were comedic. It is not obvious at first, but the more I looked at each photograph I was able to find something a little off. Every photograph I saw in the book raised multiple questions without any sign of answer’s anywhere in sight. It made me curious as to what was going on and why things were where they were. Soth’s subjects he photographed ranged from people, to objects, to landscapes. The oddness made every photograph unique and interesting. It was hard to tell whether or not some of the oddness from the scenes were set up by Soth or not. I read some of the text within the book and a big theme that kept repeating was America. After going back through the book, the “America” in each photo was very clear to me. Although a lot of the photographs contained something a bit odd, every photograph seems like it is pretty much a normal scene in America. It gave me a new perspective on each photograph that I didn’t catch before.

Mimmo Jodice:

            Every photograph in the book is of architecture in cities around the world. All is photographed in black and white with a very slow shutter speed. I can tell it was photographed with a slow shutter speed because in some of the pictures where there are cars and people, they are shown not very clearly. Most of the photographs are shown from a high or level point of view. There are very few photographs that are looking up at the buildings or statues which is something that I found interesting. I also noticed that there are a few photographs within the book that it looks like Jodice was walking towards her subject just slightly while photographing it. Because in some of the photographs there is like a fairly small spot where everything is clear, but everything around it seems to contain a motion blur with the lines all pointing to the clear circle. It was a really cool effect that I think adds something to each of the photographs. He rarely had people appearing in his work, but they were never the subject. They were all either out of focus or had a motion blur on them if they were featured in the picture at all. I could tell that every photograph had something unique to it.

Sze Tsung Leong:

             In his book, “Horizons,” every photograph shows a different landscape from around the world obviously featuring a horizon. What I thought was really interesting was that the horizons are all in the same spot on each of the photos. As I flipped through the book, all the horizons lined up almost perfectly. It was one of the factors that lead me to choose this book of his. I wanted to explore more and see different parts of the world. And his photographs showed me exactly that. He has landscapes of fields, beaches, cities, suburbs, mountain ranges, and so much more. Every photograph and horizon is unique. There was a really interesting relationship between the sky and the foreground in each photograph. In some images, the sky and the ground or body of water really blended together and it focused on something like the skyline of a city for example. That was something that I don’t think I have ever really seen before. Which was something really interesting and unique to Leong’s style to me. Other photos focused on the foreground. The sky really wasn’t distracting in these photos so it forces the viewer to only look at what is on the bottom part of the photograph. Every image was very different from each other. It gives the viewer the opportunity to see very different parts of the world with a sense of relation between all of the photographs because of the fact that the horizons all lined up.