…Quite a mouthful and not very catchy… or inviting, but that’s exactly what this is, an invitation for you (the viewers of SickManSick) to come down for the opening night of my year’s photography exhibition which is being held at my university on 15th December 09.

Location: University of East London Cyprus DLR station (where the fuck is that!?) get out your tube maps.

Date: 15/12/09

Time: Around 7pm

Any problems/inquiries  just email saywhat@sickmansick.co.uk and I’ll answer your questions.

Free drinks too, brilliant.

Cormac.

It’s based on the autumn/winter fashion forecast of tartan and plaid based patterns.

You can view the document in full screen by clicking the icon at the top-right.

Cormac.

Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London in 1967, she is a conceptual artists who works in Cinema as well as photography and is considered one of the YBAs (Young British Artists).

The still images that are associate her with are those of herself, as the model, appearing to be floating mid air.

Recently she has published a book entitled ‘Crying Men’ where she has photographed famous male celebrities crying.

Taylor-Wood said of the series:

“Some of the men cried before I even finished loading the camera, but others found it really difficult. People can decide for themselves which they think are the authentic tears and which they think are fake. It’s about the idea of taking these big, masculine men and showing a different side.”

Post-modernism is a term that people often struggle to define, some say that the word is in fact meaningless. It is a response to the ‘modernist’ movement, which was characterized as ’self-conscious’ and in art led many artists to experiment with form.

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary refers to post-modernism as “a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions.”

Often the artwork is self-referential and/or ironic. It is about combining old methods, with modern ways of thinking, and allowing the artist to decide the limitations, if any.

Some of Martin Parr’s work could be described as post-modern. He often takes photographs in the snapshot style of tourists; so the images themselves are self-referential and ironic in that the images created by the tourists will be very similar to Parr’s (Parr cleverly aligning his to tell a story).

Robert Frank is a Swiss born photographer who moved to America in 1947.

“Though he was initially optimistic about the United States, Frank’s perspective quickly changed as he confronted the fast pace of American life and what he saw as an overemphasis on money. He now saw America as an often bleak and lonely place, a perspective that became evident in his later photography. Frank’s own dissatisfaction with the control his employers exercised over his work also undoubtedly colored his experience.”

Source: http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/publications/75years/exhibitions/1/3/artist/28/2004.37.80/biography/24

In 1955 he managed to secure a grant which enabled him to travel across America for two years in order to document it through his photography. He took over 28,000 images from which he selected 83 photographs to be published as ‘Les Americains’, (1958). The following year the book was published in America, as The Americans, with an introduction by Jack Kerouac.

Like many photographers Robert Frank eventually moved into the medium of moving images, his best known work being ‘Cocksucker Blues’, a film of ‘The Rolling Stones’ on tour.

Even though Frank’s images can sometimes seem a bit depressing, I love them; they seem very real to me. I’d prefer to see a real, yet depressing shot than one that was staged with fake smiles all round to please the viewing public.

Annie Leibovitz’s photographic style is that of intimacy

Leibovitz was one of the first photographers for Rolling Stones magazine, she begun taking photos for them in 1970. In 1973 she was name chief photographer for them, she held this title for a decade.

Perhaps the most famous image of hers is that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono; Lennon being naked and hugging a fully clothes Ono. This was the last professional photograph of John Lennon, as, 5 hours later he was shot.

Leibovitz had a close romantic relationship with noted writer and essayist Susan Sontag. They met in 1989, when both had already established notability in their careers. Leibovitz has suggested that Sontag mentored her and constructively criticized her work.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz

Newton was probably most famous for his black and white female nudes series.

Helmut Neustädter was born in Berlin in 1920 to a wealthy German-Jewish button factory owner and an American Mother. Newton got his first camera at the age of twelve and worked for the German photographer Yva.

He and his family were forced to flee Germany because of the Nazis, however whilst his parents headed for Chile, he boarded a boat to China. Newton eventually ended up in Australia and was obligated to help with the war effort, after which he because an Australia citizen and it was at this time that he legally changed his last name to ‘Newton’.

“He opened a small photo studio in Melbourne, and soon began contributing fashion photos to French Vogue in 1961, a magazine that he made his own for a quarter century.

Over the years, Newton also contributed to magazines such as Playboy, Queen, Nova, Marie-Claire, Elle, and the American, Italian and German editions of Vogue — his stark and provocative style setting a new industry standard.

His studies of nude women became his signature and the self-obsessed and often distant poses of the models frequent caused polemic in the art-world. He won the sobriquets “King of Kink” and Prince of Porn” in the 1970s after the publication of his erotic photo book “White Women.”

Source: http://www.leninimports.com/helmut_newton.html

Newton shoots primarily in black and white however occasionally he will shoot in colour:

“I used to hate doing color. I hated transparency film. The way I did color was by not wanting to know what kind of film was in my camera. What the hell’s the difference? Then I started using negative film and came to like color a lot. Sometimes I shoot the same image in black-and-white and color. Sometimes I exhibit them side by side. It can be interesting.”

Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3992/is_200209/ai_n9111834/pg_3/?tag=content;col1

The photograph I have chosen is my favourite Newton shot. He also did a more famous version with a female nude model also in the frame however I think that version loses the sense of isolated contemplation that this one achieves so very well.

David Bailey is an English photographer known for shaping and defining the ’swinging sixties’.

Because of his school record he was unable to attend University (London College of Printing) so, instead became second assistant to David Ollins and eventually became first assistant to John French.

He has created some of the most iconic images ever created, including this one of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

He worked for Vogue magazine from 1960 as well as doing freelance work.

He has photographed many models, celebrities and musicians including:

The Rolling Stones

The Beatles

Oasis

Paul Weller

Jarvis Cocker

Razorlight

Brian Eno

M.I.A.

Ian Brown

The Futureheads

Belle and Sebastian

Damon Albarn

Dizzee Rascal

Kaiser Chiefs

Robyn Hitchcock

Super Furry Animals

As well as the infamous Kray Twins.

I think that Bailey had a somewhat similar photographic style to Avedon in the 60’s in the sense of subject matter and simplicity…

However I think that has changed somewhat now.

The best way that I would choose to describe David LaChapelle’s work is ‘Surreal Storytelling’. His work is extremely vivid, with saturated colours. Often his images are extremely busy (not a bad thing) and have lots of action within them, you can usually see about 4 or 5 sub stories going on within the main one.

His first photograph was of his single mother, Helga LaChapelle, on a family vacation in Puerto Rico. She wore a bikini and held a martini glass on a balcony. He took this when he was 6 years old. From then on he was obsessed with photography.

Andy Warhol offered LaChapelle his fist professional photography job working for ‘Interview’ magazine.

He is known often for creating controversial images such as that of Courtney Love supposedly holding Kurt Cobain, dressed as Jesus, in her arms.

Richard Avedon is one of the most well-known and successful photographers ever.

He is perhaps known best for his work in the fashion world but eventually produced fine art work. He set up his own studio in 1946 and started creating work for magazines such as Vogue and Life. From 1973 to 1988 he was lead photographer for Vogue.

As well as his fashion work, Avedon took a political interested and shot images of the Civil rights movement in America in the 60’s, protesters of the Vietnam war and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Avedon developed a minimalist portraiture style that is very popular today, where he utilizes a white background and has the subject look squarely into the lens.

Hepburn was Avedon’s muse in the 1950s and 60s, and he went so far as to say “I am, and forever will be, devastated by the gift of Audrey Hepburn before my camera. I cannot lift her to greater heights. She is already there. I can only record. I cannot interpret her. There is no going further than who she is. She has achieved in herself her ultimate portrait.” Source: Wikipedia

I’m a huge fan of his work, I love the natural (high) class that he brings to each shot; he shows, to me, that simplicity is key and that the most important thing is to capture emotion in the subject to create emotion in the viewer.