she saw:
lost america
lost america
she said:"this is inviting to me, even though it looks very deserted."
he saw:
mike and doug starn
he said:
mike and doug starn are twin brothers who have worked together for all of their professional career. along with witkin, they were probably one of the first photographers that i took notice of, even before i was actively shooting my own stuff. and like witkin and man ray, they have a fairly nontraditional approach to the photographic medium.
what drew me to their work was their method of turning photographs into sculpture, or adding texture and a three-dimensional quality to a two-dimensional medium. they routinely printed on materials other than photographic paper, and then would layer pieces on top of each other, collage style. they heavily dyed and tinted the surfaces, used transparencies and overlays, and using many small pieces crafted large images jig-saw puzzle style. i guess i liked the non-photography aspects of their photography. they were photographs, but not photographs. they were sculpture, but not sculpture, painterly, but not paintings.
in their series titled "blot out the sun" they create images of stark, leave-less trees that fill the frame almost entirely and are printed so heavily contrasted that they more closely resemble japanese woodblock prints than photographs. in "attracted to light" they produce large scale portraits of moths, cobbled together from smaller panels. in "toshodaji" peaceful portraits of buddhas are assembled from patchwork exposures that bear greater resemblance to printmaking than they do photography.
they have a striking visual style that unlike much of photography is more graphic than narrative. something i've always looked for but have yet to realize is a sense of texture within my images- either actual, by some secondary process, or implied via the printing process. the starn's work remains the primary influence, even after all these years.
http://www.starnstudio.com/
mike and doug starn are twin brothers who have worked together for all of their professional career. along with witkin, they were probably one of the first photographers that i took notice of, even before i was actively shooting my own stuff. and like witkin and man ray, they have a fairly nontraditional approach to the photographic medium.
what drew me to their work was their method of turning photographs into sculpture, or adding texture and a three-dimensional quality to a two-dimensional medium. they routinely printed on materials other than photographic paper, and then would layer pieces on top of each other, collage style. they heavily dyed and tinted the surfaces, used transparencies and overlays, and using many small pieces crafted large images jig-saw puzzle style. i guess i liked the non-photography aspects of their photography. they were photographs, but not photographs. they were sculpture, but not sculpture, painterly, but not paintings.
in their series titled "blot out the sun" they create images of stark, leave-less trees that fill the frame almost entirely and are printed so heavily contrasted that they more closely resemble japanese woodblock prints than photographs. in "attracted to light" they produce large scale portraits of moths, cobbled together from smaller panels. in "toshodaji" peaceful portraits of buddhas are assembled from patchwork exposures that bear greater resemblance to printmaking than they do photography.
they have a striking visual style that unlike much of photography is more graphic than narrative. something i've always looked for but have yet to realize is a sense of texture within my images- either actual, by some secondary process, or implied via the printing process. the starn's work remains the primary influence, even after all these years.
http://www.starnstudio.com/
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