Photographer: Tina Modotti

Tina Modotti

Tina Modotti’s photographs blend formal rigor with social awareness. The Italian-born artist immigrated to the United States when she was 16. She acted in plays and silent films, and worked as an artist’s model during her first years in the country. In 1920 she met photographer Edward Weston, who mentored her and was a great influence on her subsequent work. By 1921 they had become lovers, and in 1923 they moved together to Mexico City, which had become a cosmopolitan center in the interwar years. There, cultural and political expatriates like Weston and Modotti, Sergei Eisenstein, and Leon Trotsky moved in bohemian circles with Mexican intellectuals and artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Modotti and Weston opened a portrait studio in the city.
With her camera, Modotti captured Mexico’s sights and people. She took its folk art and landscapes as the starting points for her most abstract images. Telephone Wires, Mexico isolates taut stretches of wire against a pale sky, finding gridded linearity in the skyscape. Staircase and Stadium, Mexico City record repetitions of stairs and shadows, creating complex images that push these architectural features toward abstraction.
Modotti’s social concerns emerge in photographs such as Worker’s Hands, a quiet celebration of a laborer’s dignity. Mella’s Typewriter reveals her leftist leanings and carries a subtle social heft. Modotti met Julio Antonio Mella, a Cuban revolutionary who was a hero among other Latin American radicals, in 1928, at a demonstration in Mexico City against the execution of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The following year, Mella was assassinated as he walked home with Modotti by his side. Her photograph of his typewriter, his instrument for recording his beliefs, is a symbolic portrait of Mella’s life and work, and an emblem of her own Communist sympathies—which ultimately led to her exile from Mexico in 1930.
Modotti eventually settled in Moscow, where she joined the Soviet Communist Party. She gave up photography completely in 1931 to dedicate herself to political work. When she died in 1945 from congestive heart failure, she left behind a small but intensely influential body of work that reflects her appreciation for the Mexican working class, filtered through the precise formal vocabulary of her photographic practice.

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Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant Photographer or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

Photographer: W. Eugene Smith

"A Walk to Paradise" - W. Eugene Smith

William Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 – October 15, 1978), was an American photojournalist, renowned for the dedication he devoted to his projects and his uncompromising professional and ethical standards. Smith developed the photo essay into a sophisticated visual form. His most famous studies included brutally vivid World War II photographs, the clinic of Dr Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa, the city of Pittsburgh, the dedication of an American country doctor and a nurse midwife, and the pollution which damaged the health of the residents of Minamata in Japan.

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Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant Photographer or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

Flash Photo Project: Photo Manipulation

Jeison Munguia - Edison Tech Photo Student

Essential question: 

How can I use the apps in my phone to create an interesting and unique piece of art using photographs I take with my phone? 

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This is a one week assignment with an in class photo critique inspired by the Mobile Photo Awards. You will take photos using your phone that you must manipulate heavily with several of your phone's apps. You must post your best photo to your blog AND write a reflection! Your photo MUST be posted to your blog in order to receive full credit plus the reflection!

Project Requirements:

1). Post to your blog, one quality edited photograph that is manipulated heavily using several of your phone's photo/art editing apps.

2). Photos are to be taken by you using the settings and filters in your cell phone or camera.

3). Photo should fit all criteria of good photography discussed up this point. (ie. composition, defined vantage & focal points; proper lighting & contrast; interesting angles; clear subjects in focus; a sense of narrative that tells a story; backgrounds that adds to, rather than detract from, the subject of the photo)

4). You must write a reflection in the same blog post as the final edited photo.

 Use the Rule of Thirds to help with the overall composition.

Students must post their results to their blogs to get credit and a grade for this assignment. 

Photographer: Richard Avedon

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981, 1981, printed 1985 - Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century".[1] - wikipedia

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Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant Photographer or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

My Rochester : Portraits

Essential questions: 

How can I use the composition elements of: Line, Space, Shape, Shadow, Setting & Context to create interesting portrait photographs with good contrast and composition about individuals in Rochester? 

How can I capture on film the natures and personalities of my subjects in a way that my viewers can understand and relate to?

You will take photos, trying to capture, Portrait Photography in interesting ways in black and white. You must post your best photos to your blog AND write a 250 word reflection following the instructions on the class blog post and you must have at least 12 photo examples of Portraits posted to your blog in order to receive full credit plus the reflection!

Also, include a few sentences describing what you learned from this exercise about Portraits & Illustration in photography and how you were influenced by Martin Munkacsi and Richard Avadon's photographic portrait work.

Project Requirements:

1). 12-15 quality, edited (if necessary) photographs of Portrait Photography of unique individuals united by the theme “My Rochester”.

2). Photos are to be black & white using the settings and filters in your cell phone or camera.

3). Photos should fit all criteria of good photography discussed up this point. (ie. composition, defined vantage & focal points; proper lighting & contrast; interesting angles; clear subjects in focus; a sense of narrative that tells a story; backgrounds that adds to, rather than detract from, the subject of the photo)

4). 250 word artist statement in the same blog post as the final 12 edited photos

 Use the Rule of Thirds to help with the overall composition.

Students must post their results to their your blogs to get credit and a grade for this assignment. 

Photographer: Martin Munkacsi

Martin Munkacsi - Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika

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Martin Munkácsi was a newspaper writer and photographer in Hungary, specializing in sports. At the time, sports action photography could only be done in bright light outdoors. Munkácsi's innovation was to make sports photographs as meticulously composed action photographs, which required both artistic and technical skill. (continue...)

In 1932, the young Henri Cartier-Bresson, at the time an undirected photographer who catalogued his travels and his friends, saw the Munkácsi photograph Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, taken on a beach in Liberia. Cartier-Bresson later said,

"For me this photograph was the spark that ignited my enthusiasm. I suddenly realized that, by capturing the moment, photography was able to achieve eternity. It is the only photograph to have influenced me. This picture has such intensity, such joie de vivre, such a sense of wonder that it continues to fascinate me to this day."
He paraphrased this many times during his life, saying,

"I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over."
Richard Avedon said of Munkácsi,

"He brought a taste for happiness and honesty and a love of women to what was, before him, a joyless, loveless, lying art. Today the world of what is called fashion is peopled with Munkácsi's babies, his heirs.... The art of Munkácsi lay in what he wanted life to be, and he wanted it to be splendid. And it was."
In 2007, the International Center of Photography mounted an exhibit of Munkácsi's photography titled, Martin Munkácsi: Think While You Shoot![1] in conjunction with the show Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook: Photographs, 1932-46.[2] In 2009, the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York City staged a joint exhibit of photographs by Edward Steichen and Munkácsi.

Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant Photographer or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

Daily Photos #25

Falling Soldier - Robert Capa

Robert Capa (born Endre Friedmann;[1] October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian war photographer and photo journalist, arguably the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.[2]

Capa fled political repression in Hungary when he was a teenager, moving to Berlin, where he enrolled in college. He witnessed the rise of Hitler, which led him to move to Paris, where he changed his name and became a photojournalist. He subsequently covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the First Indochina War, with his photos published in major magazines and newspapers.

During his career he risked his life numerous times, most dramatically as the only photographer landing with the first wave on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, and the liberation of Paris. His friends and colleagues included Irwin Shaw, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway and director John Huston.

In 1947, for his work recording World War II in pictures, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Capa the Medal of Freedom. That same year, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos in Paris. The organization was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. Hungary has issued a stamp and a gold coin in his honor.

Mr. Capa says that the “Falling Soldier” photo — taken in Andalusia — came while he was in the trenches with 20 green Republican soldiers with old rifles “who were dying every minute” as they faced a Fascist machine gun. He recounted that there were several bloody but unsuccessful attempts by the Republican soldiers to rush the machine gun nest.
David Scherman Robert Capa in Weymouth, England, the day after he swam up on Omaha Beach with American troops during the invasion of Normandy. June 7, 1944.
“So the fourth time I just kind of put my camera above my head and even didn’t look and clicked a picture when he moved over the trench and that was all,” he said. “I never looked at my pictures there. And I sent my pictures back with lots of other pictures that I took. I stayed in Spain for three months and when I came back, I was a very famous photographer because that camera which I hold above my head just caught a man at the moment when he was shot.“

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Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

Daily Photo #24

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French: August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and conceived of photography as capturing a decisive moment. His work has influenced many photographers.

"For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to give a “meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.
To take a photograph is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in a face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
To take a photograph means to recognize, simultaneously and within a fraction of a second‚ both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning.
It is putting one‚ head, one‚ eye, and one‚ heart on the same axis." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

Daily Photo #23

Andre Kertesz - "The Fork"

André Kertész (2 July 1894 – 28 September 1985), born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism.[1][2] The Estate of André Kertész is represented by Bruce Silverstein Gallery New York, NY
Expected by his family to work as a stockbroker, Kertész pursued photography independently as an autodidact, and his early work was published primarily in magazines, a major market in those years. This continued until much later in his life, when Kertész stopped accepting commissions. He served briefly in World War I and moved to Paris in 1925, then the artistic capital of the world, against the wishes of his family. In Paris he worked for France's first illustrated magazine called VU. Involved with many young immigrant artists and the Dada movement, he achieved critical and commercial success.

Due to German persecution of the Jews and the threat of World War II, Kertész decided to emigrate to the United States in 1936, where he had to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. In the 1940s and 1950s, he stopped working for magazines and began to achieve greater international success. His career is generally divided into four periods, based on where he was working and his work was most prominently known. They are called the Hungarian period, the French period, the American period and, toward the end of his life, the International period. - (wikipedia)

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Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

Daily Photo #22

James Maher

James Maher is a fine art, portraiture, and professional photographer based in New York City.
James credits his inspiration for photography to his love for the city and its endless supply of diverse and unique personalities and stories to capture. His work has been featured around the web and in print. Among his notable clients has been the New York Daily News, where he has a regular column capturing neighborhoods such as this one through portraits and interviews with the locals.
He offers New York photography tours and street photography workshops and his tips for photographing New York were featured in Digital Photographer Magazine. He also is passionate about writing and writes frequently about street photography, portraiture, and the business of photography, primarily for the websites, Digital Photography School and PictureCorrect.
His prints are sold directly to collectors, companies, interior designers, and fine art companies around the world. His work is currently shown in Tiffany & Co. stores worldwide.
James graduated with a degree in Mathematics with a focus in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before switching to photography. He studied photography and retouching at the International Center for Photography and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Students do a daily "Bell Work" activity analyzing a significant or historical photo. They must make written comments about the composition, contrast, focus, balance, framing and statements each photo is making. This is our daily warm up exercise.

"My Rochester" Photo Esssay - Street Photography

James Maher

Josef Koudelka

"My Rochester" Photo Esssay - Street Photography

Project Requirements:

12 quality, edited (if necessary) photographs united by the theme “My Rochester”.

1.) Photos are black & white

2.) Photos fit all criteria of a good photograph discussed up this point (proper lighting; interesting angle; clear subject that is in focus; tells a story; background adds to, rather than detract from, the subject of the image)

3.) 250 word artist statement in the same blog post as the final 12 edited photos. 

For all your major Fall/Winter photography assignments, you will be creating a photographic essays representing Rochester through your eyes. For this assignment you will photograph the streets around you and your neighborhood. You should photograph your neighborhood, family, favorite after school hangout, friends, neighbors, events etc., all with the purpose of developing your own creative eye for photography, light and composition. 

Take as many photos as you can! – the more options you have to choose from, the better! At the end of each project, you will post 12 photographs that you feel best show your vision of Rochester. Oh, and...along with that...a 250 word artist statement to your blog. Yay! :)

10 Lessons on Street Photography

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide for Street Photography

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