Your favourite photographers or images

Antanas Sutkus, "Blind pioneer" (1962).
Sutkus_05.jpg

H- that's astonishing. Eyes that have never seen? I.
 
Antanas Sutkus, "Blind pioneer" (1962).
Sutkus_05.jpg
The eyes are the first thing that I have focused on. They are mesmerizing.
Almost doll like and as if in a trance?

When you start looking deeper into the capture you begin to immediately realise the sadness in this photo.
The scar on the child's face is so disturbing. The inevitability of it all.

A picture that I hate to say I am so pleased was taken.
Purely due to the fact that it is there for the record and nobody should ever take things for granted no matter how bad circumstances may be for us at times.
We must even then appreciate our bad times because there is always people a lot worse off than us.

I hope I am not coming across as preaching folks but in all honesty I am writing what I am currently thinking and truly mean.

Wayne.
 
SR-JP-Wtkin.jpg

H - unsettling, discomfiting but compelling images. Joel Peter Witkin - from 'Gods of Earth and Heaven.' I have posted this guy's work before - I find it fascinating, if dark. He concerns himself with the liminal - recurring themes are still lives using corpses, hermaphrodites, inter-sex, the mutilated and people that general society would consider - physically anyway - at the edges. It's difficult to find stuff to post - due to its content. This is one of my favourite images by him. His pictures are meticulously planned and hugely referential to classical, medieval and Renaissance themes. I read an interview with the model in this picture - in answer to the idea that she being exploited or used as a 'grotesque,' - she replied that this was the first time in her life that she had felt beautiful and was treated so. cheers - I.
 
An unbelievable image that has totally left me lost for words and as you could probably imagine, that takes some doing Iain.

I am now captivated to learn more about this mans work.
He reminds me of an Einstein type for the photography world.
Images that were probably far and beyond its time. Almost like the modern day Photoshop for example?

Thank you for sharing mate.
 
Almost doll like and as if in a trance?

What you said - there is an element of infantile neotony in our response I think. It's the relationship between the size of the eyes and the rest of the face. It's hard wired into all higher mammals - a trivial example is, that's why we go 'ooh and ah,' over puppies and kittens. Nature has seen fit that this happens so we bond and look after our off-spring. In the case of most mammals an enormously time consuming process. cheers - I.
 
What you said - there is an element of infantile neotony in our response I think. It's the relationship between the size of the eyes and the rest of the face. It's hard wired into all higher mammals - a trivial example is, that's why we go 'ooh and ah,' over puppies and kittens. Nature has seen fit that this happens so we bond and look after our off-spring. In the case of most mammals an enormously time consuming process. cheers - I.
Your comments are so true and indeed one I have not been particularly thought of or indeed informed of prior to this conversation.

There is nothing In this world like looking at a puppy who is in total awe of you. They know what they are doing from day one. Their survival instinct kicks in, they insure they will love and kiss you forever with their beautiful eyes and cwtches (welsh for a cuddle :))
I should know as we currently have 6 puppies in our household and under no uncertain terms, everyone of them wants daddies undivided attention. :D

As we have previously discussed my avatar tells a whole story and her eyes inspired me into wanting to take photos.
No Camcorder would ever be able to capture that.

Food for thought and thanks for sharing.
Wayne. :)
 
Sr-Witkin-6.jpg

Witkin again - compelling images. He makes us think about conceived notions of acceptable physicality and beauty. To be honest I find some mainstream images in the media and advertising of perceived physical 'perfection' - thanks to the surgeon's knife - to be far more offensive - and indeed grotesque - than this. Not that I find this picture offensive. Witkin's photography is challenging - so it should be. I thought twice about posting this - but we're all adults. In terms of plastic surgery 'victims' and this guy - who is truly deformed? I.
 
The eyes are the first thing that I have focused on. They are mesmerizing.
Almost doll like and as if in a trance?

When you start looking deeper into the capture you begin to immediately realise the sadness in this photo.
The scar on the child's face is so disturbing. The inevitability of it all.

A picture that I hate to say I am so pleased was taken.
Purely due to the fact that it is there for the record and nobody should ever take things for granted no matter how bad circumstances may be for us at times.
We must even then appreciate our bad times because there is always people a lot worse off than us.

I hope I am not coming across as preaching folks but in all honesty I am writing what I am currently thinking and truly mean.

Wayne.
Well said Wayne. That photographer has a story - coming from the old school of Lithuanian photographers he used to do a lot of shooting of "soviet reality", but of course in the way that was not approved by the party, so lots of his shots were never published, and those that were always drew unnecessary attention.Only because Lithuania was still quite a way from Moscow and on the doorsteps of Europe, it was a bit easier to get away with these things there.
I recommend checking out his other work to those that likes this picture.
 
@Helveticum - H - thank you for flagging up Sutkus' pictures. I'd never heard of him before. They are incredibly good. Astonishing. And thank you for his back-story - it makes appreciating and understanding his images easier - yours - I.

He's also most famous for this picture of Sartre:
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Jean-Paul wasn't even aware he was being photographed - thought Sutkus was just his guide during the trip to Lithuania. Asked for the prints later on, having found out. However, for years the French have been credited this picture to Cartier-Bresson, many still do.
 
He's also most famous for this picture of Sartre:
13-2-730x517.jpg


Jean-Paul wasn't even aware he was being photographed - thought Sutkus was just his guide during the trip to Lithuania. Asked for the prints later on, having found out. However, for years the French have been credited this picture to Cartier-Bresson, many still do.

Interesting H - I never would have called this picture as being taken by H.C.B - stylistically he and Sutkus are very different. Sartre is a lot easier to recognise if you see him face on. Talking of H.C.B - 'Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare,' - 1932. It would take me a while to find a picture that is better composed than this.

SR-HCB-Gare.jpg

@Barry Giddens - the photographer said of this picture - 'Photography is just luck. There was a fence, and I poked my camera through the fence. It's a fraction of a second.' A man after my own heart. cheers - I.
 
Interesting H - I never would have called this picture as being taken by H.C.B - stylistically he and Sutkus are very different. Sartre is a lot easier to recognise if you see him face on. Talking of H.C.B - 'Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare,' - 1932. It would take me a while to find a picture that is better composed than this.

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@Barry Giddens - the photographer said of this picture - 'Photography is just luck. There was a fence, and I poked my camera through the fence. It's a fraction of a second.' A man after my own heart. cheers - I.
Well that is a coincidence Iain. Unless your a mind reader. I'm reading a book about the great European sleeper trains (I loved them back in the day) and there are plenty of descriptions of the great Parisian railway termini. It's nice to have an image to go with all those words. ( I still think it's art!).
 
Well that is a coincidence Iain. Unless your a mind reader. I'm reading a book about the great European sleeper trains (I loved them back in the day) and there are plenty of descriptions of the great Parisian railway termini. It's nice to have an image to go with all those words. ( I still think it's art!).

Barry - funnily enough - should I ever manage to finish the research and the write up of the Atatürk pictures I mentioned - one was taken in Sirkeci station in Istanbul. Which as I am sure you will know was the end point of the Orient Express. A journey undertaken by Agatha Christie - several times. On her way to meet her then husband who was an archeologist excavating Babylonian and Sumerian remains in - what is now Iraq. I think she went missing in Istanbul for a while? Well done on knowing what the correct plural of terminus is. This might seem like pedantry - and is - but even the BBC allow their commentators to talk about stadiums these days. Stadia, not stadiums. The barbarians are at the gates. cheers - I.
 
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