Category: Politics and Activism
-
Gilpin’s Theory of the Picturesque
Gilpin’s Essay on Prints (1768) defined picturesque as “a term expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture” (p. xii). Gilpin began to expound his “principles of picturesque beauty”, based largely on his knowledge of landscape painting. During the late 1760s and 1770s Gilpin travelled extensively in the summer holidays…
-
Roger Fenton
Roger Fenton (28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) was a pioneering British photographer, one of the first war photographers. Roger Fenton was born in Crimble Hall, then within the parish of Bury, Lancashire, on 28 March 1819. His grandfather was a wealthy cotton manufacturer and banker, his father a banker and Member of Parliament.…
-
Fay Godwin
Fay Godwin (17 February 1931 – 27 May 2005) was a British photographer known for her black-and-white landscapes of the British countryside and coast. Official website British Library archive: including approximately 11,000 exhibition prints, the entire contents of her studio, and correspondence with some of her subjects. Google images detailed overview of her work from…
-
Richard Misrach
Google images Source: Draft edited and extended from Wikipedia Richard Misrach (born in Los Angeles, California in 1949) is an American photographer “firmly identified with the introduction of color to ‘fine’ [art] photography in the 1970s, and with the use of large-format traditional cameras” (Nancy Princenthal, Art in America). He is perhaps best known for his…
-
Origins of the Picturesque and aesthetic consumerism
In the second half of the eighteenth century, definitions of types of landscape or view, seen from an aesthetic or artistic point of view distinguished between: the sublime (awesome sights such as great mountains) the beautiful, the most peaceful, even pretty sights. See discussion in Part 1 Beauty and the Sublime In between came the picturesque, views…
-
Clive Landen
Clive Landen is a British wildlife photographer concerned with our relationship with animals. His pictures are quite explicit and upsetting to view, but he photographs horror with profound sensitivity and an almost painterly quality that makes us really look at the subject matter. The Abyss series about the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak (only one photograph now available on…
-
Dana Lixenberg
My work is partly about the inevitable downside and consequences of capitalism which can result in a sense of alienation…actually I am part of it, and even people I photograph are part of this system and keep it going. I think [capitalism] has become a given because you can see how former and current communist countries…
-
Martin Parr
Martin Parr (born 1952) trained in photography at Manchester Polytechnic. Described in the past as Margaret Thatcher’s favourite photographer, Parr caused a stir when he tried to join Magnum Photos. The issue was one of integrity. Photographers within Magnum’s ranks guarded their territory jealously and felt that the work that Parr offered was voyeuristic, titillating and meaningless. Parr…
-
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky (born January 15, 1955) is a German photographer and Professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. Gursky shares a studio with Laurenz Berges, Thomas Ruff and Axel Hutte on the Hansaallee, in Düsseldorf. The building, a former electricity station, was transformed into an artists studio and living quarters, in 2001, by architects Herzog & de…
-
Paul Seawright
Paul Seawright is best known for his ‘late photography’ of battle-sites and minefields. He often uses vintage technology and a much older approaches to conflict photography. But rather than reportage, his images are made for museum-going audiences and gallery patrons by people who call themselves ‘artists’. website If it is too explicit it becomes journalistic. If it is…