Website Review: Eric Ryan Anderson

(PH1200 – Visualising Ideas Blog)

http://www.ericryananderson.com/

In this review, I have decided to take a closer look at Eric Ryan Anderson’s website. Eric is a Texas-born photographer based in Brooklynn making images full time since quitting his day job.

Looking at the navigation bar displayed on Eric’s website you can see that rather than having one overall subject theme Eric photographs a range of different themes such as Portraits, Sport, Music, Motion and plenty of other different projects. I feel you are given a clear insight to Eric’s work when looking at his website.

The reason I chose this specific photographer is due to the fact I can relate to the work he produces. In previous studies, I came across this photographer whilst looking at examples of portrait images and as you can see from the Screenshot above Eric photographs each subject matter in a very different way. Some of his portraits have been captured within a studio environment and some on location therefore I feel I can gain a massive amount of influence from his images.

I find the layout of Eric’s website really appealing and find it simple to navigate around the different features and different pages. Whilst looking at Eric’s website I could easily locate specific pages I wished to look at and I feel it is important for a photographer’s website to be simple as it really adds to the engagement the viewer has with the work as there is no confusion or frustration.

One feature I really liked and found to be one of the strongest elements about Eric’s website is you have full control over how you wish the images to be displayed by using an options bar located in the top right corner.The first one displays one image at a time, I feel this looks effective and removes any distractions towards the other photographs.The second option displays the images in a tiled effect which I feel looks effective and is also available if you wish to quickly browse through Eric’s images. The third option displays images like the first option just places the images next to one another again giving you the advantage to quickly browse through the work.Another aspect I like and find really appealing is the ‘Filter’ option when on the Projects page on the website. This means you can navigate to the subject matter you wish to look for rather than browsing through work in which you have no interest in.

 

 

Book Review: Ray’s a laugh

(PH1200 – Visualising Ideas, Visualising ideas Blog)

Ray’s a laugh is a photo book by English photographer and artist Richard Billingham. He is most known for this photo book which basically documents the life of his British family. His father Ray is an alcoholic, his mother smokes and likes pets and also things that are decorative. From the very first page I believe that the book shows everyday life at his British home very clearly and you are faced with a very strong sense of what is going on in and between frames. The very chaotic book shows that the family also have dogs and cats and many of the photographs displayed show these pets living amongst the chaos of the families every day activities.

This photo above is one that really caught my eye. Displayed is one of the cats flying through the air after clearly being thrown by Richard’s father Ray.

Seeing the images displayed in a book format has had a massive impact on my engagement with the work as it makes it a lot more appealing to look at. Images are massively manipulated when uploaded online whereas the quality of the image is never lost when printing in a book.  I believe that the images being displayed to this size and also across two pages add to the chaos that is already displayed within the photographs.

Although you may find a couple of the images may have been posed for I feel that one of the strongest elements about the book as a whole is how the candid shots display reality. A lot of photography you see in this day and age is mainly posed for and staged this is why I can relate massively to this book as I really enjoy seeing candid photographs which are true in what they are displaying.

Idea’s developing – Portrait Photography (Unit 25)

After looking at the five different genres I then went onto Pinterest and had a closer look at each and pinned some examples. My final idea is to focus on capturing a portrait shot, I have yet to decide on the theme for my images therefore I have decided to look at different types of portrait photography.

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• Abstract

Created with a purpose of creating art and not based on realistic representation of a person. Collages or digital manipulation is often used.

As this brief involves Mixed media techniques as well as Studio Photography I believe that Abstract portraits could be interpreted well into my images. I could capture portraits and then use a Mixed media technique to involve the abstract side of the image.

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• Glamour portraits 

The term glamour portrait refers to portraits where emphasis is given to highlight a specific subject.

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• Traditional portrait

Traditional or classical portraiture would refer to an image where the face is the element. ‘The face is the element’ – this fits into my brief as our aim is to produce a close up shot, therefore this is something that I will look at when capturing my images.

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• Surreal portraits

Surreal portraits are created to emphasize the other reality. Surrealism is an art movement started in the early 1920s and still alive and well to this day.

Surreal portraits in my opinion is a really good aspect of portrait photography and I really like some of the examples I took a look at as I believe each image displays a really powerful message.