Week 2. Research: Francesca Woodman and Richard Avedon

Francesca Woodman

She produced an extraordinary body of work (some 800 photographs) acclaimed for its singularity of style and range of innovative techniques. Many of her photographs show young women who are nude, blurred (due to movement and long exposure times), merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured. 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Woodman#Photographs.2C_1972.E2.80.931980)

I like this photo because of the effect the long exposure and slow shutter speed has created.
Normally if you were to spin around, your background would blur. i like how in this picture it shows the actual person being the 'blur' while the background is clear. 

Her photos have a solemn and sometimes scary feeling to them. 

It's interesting that not only are her subjects sometimes camouflage with their background, but that because of how she photographs in black and white, it adds more to the feeling of being visible but invisible at the same time. 

Richard Avedon

He was fascinated by photography’s capacity for suggesting the personality and evoking the life of his subjects. He registered poses, attitudes, hairstyles, clothing and accessories as vital, revelatory elements of an image. He had complete confidence in the two-dimensional nature of photography, the rules of which he bent to his stylistic and narrative purposes. As he wryly said, “My photographs don’t go below the surface. I have great faith in surfaces.  A good one is full of clues.”

*the crop in this picture is kind of off balance and yet its still interesting and doesn't detract from the photo.  I like how he was able to capture the innocence of the child in this close up portrait.