14) Artists Profile: Christopher Vaughn

Christopher Vaughn is a photographer a found on Flickr a while back and I've been in love with his work ever since. I find looking at amateur/casual photographer's work a lot more interesting than professionals. The photos I enjoy most are ones that are a moment in time rather than 1 of 1000 shots that have been prepared with lighting, make up, editing and other various effects to get 'the perfect shot'. I

"I'm not perfect, nothing is perfect, and what is perfect, is boring. I like something.. something just not quite right completely, some 2, 3 percent.. imperfection. You want to kind of change it but then you think no it's fine, why don't we just go along with it. So basically perfect, imperfection is one of my favorite parts in music is, I don't like clean sounds, I don't like when everything sounds so clear, so beautiful and so kind of 100% right" 

This is a quote from a track that I like that I believe they sampled from somewhere else but I can't find the source. I feel this relates really well to photography and all areas of art. It's saying that a lot of things don't look natural if there's no human error involved. Technology allows us to get things perfect which is good for thousands of reasons but can alienate the fact that someone has created this piece of art. 

This image is one of my favorite photos ever. I love the composition, depth and lighting in the image. It just looks like Christopher is wondering through a supermarket or a plant store with his friend. It doesn't matter why they're there or what they're doing, I like that vagueness and sense of adventure in images, 

Below is the same image with what I think has a more balanced composition. This is how I think the image could be improved but this relates back to that quote and something being not quite right and having that human error. This makes the image more natural and reflects a moment in time rather than a set up shot that's 'perfect'. I also believe you loose a lot of the depth with the cropped version as a lot of the detail and darkness is lost in the foreground,

 

The lighting and composition really drew me to this image. I really like this image as it's like a behind the scenes shot. Not everyone would get a chance to see a storage room in a supermarket, or might not want to, but I like that it's what could be considered a boring place turned into a really nice photograph.

There is often a sense of tranquility in Vaughn's photos. They're often a shot of someone one their own from behind or face hidden, in luminous lighting, which gives off an artificial, cold, clean peacefulness to it. I 

13) Typography with Photography

I really like this image as American Apparel and many other clothing brands get criticized for almost exclusively using very underweight and skinny women and some people think this is a bad image to broadcast to the public but more specifically teenage girls. They believe they have to look as good as the girls in the magazines and that involves being really skinny. Many teenage girls suffer from a mental illness called anorexia which can lead to self harm and death due to the standards they believe they have to aspire to. I think it's good that

I have seen the use of projectors shined onto people's faces in a lot of images. Some previous images I have seen people will project dictionary quotes that relate to the person in the image. I think this one is a good idea but needs to be executed differently. I believe the girl should have a colder, lonelier expression to her face rather than the little smirk.

12) Dustin Adams and exposing film to different light

Dustin Adams is someone who I found through a YouTube video of a song and the picture for the video was one of his pieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHvaCAzZzE

I clicked the link to his flickr and was blown away by his work. Adams exposes his coloured film to different light and surfaces to create the effects on his photos.

I really like his work as it makes the images more abstract as the colours are

Another reason I like Dustin's work is due to the scenery and subjects of his photos. Dustin takes a lot of photos of breathtaking natural landscapes and usually never has more than one person in a shot. I like this as it can show a relation between the photographer and another person, but also emphasizes a sense of adventure and exploration in the shots which matches the setting of the images really well.

scratched 35mm film exposed to red and purple light.

"Thanks! Nope, no boiling. It's holographic paper reflections on film."

multiple colored lights on 35mm film

soaked film exposed to colored lights while still wet

11) Looking at Lomo