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Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Street
≈ Comments Off on Cornell University, September 2013
04 Friday Oct 2013
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Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Street
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04 Friday Oct 2013
Posted Fashion/Glamour, MGM's Photos
in≈ Comments Off on Corsets and Lingerie: Rachael Reichert Fashion Show
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corsets, fashion, lingerie, photography, Rachael Reichert, women
Last August (2013), I had the opportunity to attend a fashion show put on by one of my favorite local designers: Rachael Reichert. Not only does she design awesome sexy women’s clothes, but she also writes and directs videos featuring her models (wearing her clothes, of course) involved in fascinating futuristic story lines!
It was the most interesting fashion show I’ve ever attended and I want to thank Rachael for letting me come and photograph the show and also behind-the-scenes before the show…:).
Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com! |
02 Wednesday Oct 2013
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art, female, nude, photography, woman
Click image to see with dark background..
Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com! |
Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Nudes
≈ Comments Off on Ella at the Window (August 2013)
01 Tuesday Oct 2013
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bw, nude, photography, woman
Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Nudes
≈ Comments Off on In the Living Room with Ella (August 2013)
24 Tuesday Sep 2013
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Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Nudes
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13 Friday Sep 2013
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Posted by mgm | Filed under Fashion/Glamour, MGM's Photos
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13 Friday Sep 2013
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Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Nudes
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13 Friday Sep 2013
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art, female, nude, photography, woman
Posted by mgm | Filed under MGM's Photos, Nudes
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06 Friday Sep 2013
Posted Commentary
in≈ Comments Off on The Devaluing of Photography and a Need for Innovation
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When almost every electronic device out in the world–and almost every person has an electronic device; most have more than one–can take photos, then of course, the value of photography goes down. In general, photos have become less precious (unless it’s a special photo of your great grandmother–or similar–where there’s only one physical copy, for example). “Preciousness” is inextricably bound to scarcity.
The value of a photo as “artifact”–or in digital form, an image–has plummeted because there are so many of them. The mere existence of a photo or image is not very special in and of itself.
So we turn to the actual content of the photos since the currency of a photo itself is no more special than the existence of some printed words (for example).
Along with there being so many photos, there are fewer and fewer types of content that aren’t represented adequately or (more typically perhaps) in excess.
For example, when Sally Mann was taking romantic and moody black & white photographs of her children, few mothers were doing the same. Now, some huge percentage of mothers (some fathers) have cheap or expensive DSLRs and sets of purchased Photoshop filters, Lightroom presets, and/or other computer software that make their photos look similar to those Mann masterpieces (assuming they take enough photos–which cost no extra once you’ve got the digital photography equipment–to happen upon a few standouts).
The same with street photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work looks almost passe amongst the current sea of thousands of street photos published daily on the web.
Older established photographers sometimes try to make a case about their work still being special because they’re still shooting film (e.g., using medium or large format film cameras that *very* few people use or know how to operate) or because they don’t have to shoot thousands of images to get their “keepers” that you, the viewer, end up seeing.
The problem is: the viewer doesn’t really care about process. A viewer (who isn’t a photographer) doesn’t care how many shots it took to get the few great ones on display. And while the use of film does have some effect on the look of the final image, almost any film quality can be emulated by a computer–at least nearly so–and probably close enough for most non-photographer viewers. Furthermore, the current quality of the images produced by digital cameras–even non-professional DSLRs–is good enough to produce high-quality prints; digital images are even commonly preferred by professional photographers for larger prints.
Ultimately, it’s not process or expertise that will make a photographer’s work stand out: it’s cleverness and creativity. The imaginative photographer will go beyond replicating the past. Being proficient or expert at doing (emulating) the photography of the past may be a necessary step in one’s evolution as a photographer, but it’s fatal in today’s photography climate as an endpoint–unless your goal is simply to be an accomplished photographic craftsman for hire.
To be a successful “photographer artist”, being expert at producing beautiful photos of flowers, sunsets, landscapes, art nudes, etc or Bresson-esque (or Winogrand-esque or Frank-esque..) b&w street photos isn’t enough to stand out and make photography a lucrative endeavor: there are too many others doing the exact same thing.
Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com! |
03 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted MGM's Photos, Street
in≈ Comments Off on From Behind: Street Photography with Fam
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Whenever I go on trips or vacations with my family, I almost always bring a camera along to take photos. Much of the photography I end up doing is candid, street-like photography. Sometimes I’m actually taking photos of my family; but other times, I’m trying to get photos of interesting things I happen to see in my environment as we’re walking along.
Typically, the children and my wife are in front of me. So when I go to take a photo, their backsides often end up somewhere in my shots…especially when I’m shooting at a wide angle focal length (which I usually am).
At times, this has driven me nuts. I’ll get these (at least to me) great street photos, but my son or daughter will be blocking a portion of the shot that messes it up! Sometimes I’m able to crop or Photoshop them out of the shot; but often, it’s not possible to remove them cleanly and I just have to accept the shot as is (either a ruined shot or somehow acceptable even with their backside in it).
On our latest family vacation, I again got a number of photos with their backsides (in a few cases, frontsides) in them. I thought it might be fun to actually highlight some of these instead of trying to fix or bury them as I usually do.
So these are from my latest family trip (two weeks this last August, 2013). If I get a positive response, maybe I’ll go back to our many previous family trips and assemble an even larger collection of these “From Behind” shots that I always seem to get in ample amounts…:).
Visit Michael's Art Photography Portfolio at SaatchiArt.com! |