Kendall Roclord

This week, I chose to post my uncle's portraiture. He lives in california and has his own portrait studio in LA. I'm not a big fan of portraits, but when I went out to see him, I spent some time in his studio and spoke with him about why he does it. I think I fell in love with the concept of a good portrait rather than the outcome. When I spoke with him, he was very set on first getting to know his subject and getting them comfortable in that setting, then setting up the composition and lighting and everything after that. I look up to him as a huge role model if I ever go towards portraiture.

Age without People

I chose to do age without people for my final. At first, I wanted to photograph fruit, vegetables, and meat decaying or rotting away. I would like to explore different types of death and how drastic the effects can be depending on what it is I'm photographing and the lighting especially.

Roc Canals:

I found Roc on Flickr and I fell in love with his still life work. This is exactly what I wanted to originally portray with fruits and vegetables. I started shooting rotting pears, peppers and bananas in a dark room on top of a light box and they turned out perfectly.

Brett Weston:

I had seen Brett's work before but never work from this series. I found this on photography-now.com and I was shocked. I think this relates to what I want to photograph for my final because of the subject matter and lighting. After I worked with my leave project, I fell in love with the negative spaces found in decaying plants and wilted leaves so this caught my attention right away. I also plan on working with a black background instead of white at some point.

Ron Van Dongen:

I found Ron on the same website as weston and looked through his work as well. I chose this particular plant because the lighting on it made me stare at it longer. The delicacy of the lighting placed on the curves of the plants suggests its wilting down and turned around. I don't think this photograph would be as successful if the flower were fully upright and alive and bright. The lighting situation adds to the age situation.

Paul Strand:

I have never seen Paul's work like this before! When I hear his name the first thing I think of are his portraiture, so I was shocked to see his photographing detail like this. When I photograph decaying fruits and vegetables and meat, I plan on getting up closely and finding the little wrinkles or brown spots and especially the negative spaces below them. I think the most beautiful thing about an organic object being photographed, is the texture that appears when photographed right.

Irene Kung:

Irene started out as a painter and became famous as a photographer in the last couple years. She's known for her dark and mysterious style of photography that isolate her subjects that would otherwise be engulfed in darkness. I love love love, how there is only one spot on the object thats so much brighter than the rest. It makes me focus on that one little bit of detail and texture, which is what I plan on doing. Another exploration of light I plan on trying.

Alejandra Laviada:

Alexandra spends her time in abandoned houses photographing things people have left behind. I wanted to explore the finding of an organic object in the midst of decay as well. Finding dying plants or animals. I chose this because it kind of represented death from use and unimportance which I think says a lot about an object. And again with that lighting!

Jan Koster:

I know this isn't necessarily an organic object but I chose to put it up to show lighting and the simplicity it has to it. It can transform the feel of anything by how intensely you use it or if its just subtle enough. I think photographing dying objects with soft light would add some emotion and feel to the process of aging that would improve it.

Gal Harpaz:

Gal photographs with polaroids and then pieces them together to make wide angle pieces. I chose this to also represent my idea because the decay of the trees showed age. I liked how she chose different spots of the trees and the woods to put together with wider and closer shots. I think you really get the idea of what shes trying to portray when you have more examples of it. I want to take tons of pictures of each piece of fruit or meat in many different angles to show every imperfection of aging in decay.

James Wojcik:

I put James on my blog before and I decided to put this photo up again because I love his work. I chose to put this photo up because I wanted to consider focusing on one area of detail without the white space of the white table. I enjoy seeing smaller sections to emphasize something better and in black and white it might improve the fruit or vegetable.

Mike and Doug Starn:

I know this isn't of a vegetable or fruit but I loved the background and the placement. I want to crop more closely into the object to get a sense of texture and lighting within the bad areas. Again, I don't think there is going to be as much white space around it and the object itself is going to be brighter and more contrasted.

Eric Tabuchi

I picked Eric because I felt his style and aesthetic fit closely with mine. I loved loved loved his use of color and his subjects especially. I think they all have this feeling of inhabitance even though they are all completely empty. These photos come from his series, 26 Abandoned Gasoline Stations.

Chris Verene

I found Chris on some other photo blog that I stumbled upon. I found his pictures to be somewhat interesting as to how he photographed them and why. He follows his subjects closely for a long period of time, photographing them in their natural daily lives. I love the use of color he has especially.