Garrett Curfman Style paragraphs

Jerome Sans & Marla Hamburg Kennedy

In this project, "Lipstick Flavor A Contemporary Art Story With Photography", Jerome and Marla work together editing photographs and putting the context of lipstick into a story. One thing I did not know was that these two people only edited the photos. The actual 36 artists and photographers of each piece are listed alongside the photos throughout the project. Using mostly portrait photography, as well as some landscape, the photographers capture the main concept which is lipstick. The photos display at least 1 or more models that display lipstick in one form or another. Different photographers use different cameras to capture different qualities of their images. And off of that, Jerome and Marla edit them in a way to further reflect the look they are going for in each photo. Jerome and Martha state in the beginning of the book "The reason that the image of the mouth has remained an obsession throughout the history of art until today lies in it's ability to reflect an infinite variation of desires, expressions, pleasures, self-affirmations, and identifications with a genre or personality..." (Sans and Kennedy).  "Lipstick is ultimately an evocative or proactive sociocultural aspect of a situation, a way to tell a story without voice, but a taste that lingers" (Sans and Kennedy). This work is mostly contemporary which provides something for everyone. 

 Koos Breukel "Among Photographers"

Koos Breukels book is a series full of photos he took of fellow photographers. He photographed using portrait photography. Something to add to their work is the fact that it is all in monochrome, minus a select few.  In the introductory summary, certain photographers are described as suspicious, publicity- shy, rootless. He managed to ask all of these photographers to model for his portraits in such a natural state. 93 year old Dutch photographer, Wally Elenbaas was brought from Rotterdam to be photographed by Breukel. "Of the almost 100 photographers that he logged since about 1990, only these big names were stubbornly missing from his list of collegues with whom he had once trained , been friends with, or that he simly admired for their work and personalities" (Introduction, Sinderen). The selection process for whom he would exhibit in a museam took almost two years to complete. I really find portrait photography interesting. It can say so much about a person, and nothing at all at the same time. Looking at Breukels work, it is esthetically pleasing in that each photo is composed in such a professional manner. 

John Gossage

"John photographs everyday things. They have no specific provenance or national identity aside from being found in that place, on that day, at that moment. They are something, nothing, and then something else in the involution and inflorescence of life. His pictures are subjective and then objective, only to become subjective again. They pull forward and back, inward and out; stills in the vortex of eternity. Space remains infinite until it is confined; once bounded it grows newly boundless. What is common becomes icture, story" (Marlene Klein, epilogue). The book is called "pomodori a grappolo". I chose to use the exact quotations to describe exactly what the book holds and reflects because it is the clearest and most transparent definition of its content. The photos are all interestingly enough photographed vertically rather than horizontally. One print on each page, utilizing the entire page. Most of the content is muted or natural tones. Everyday items as said before, but photographing the opposite of what is societally welcomed, and challenging it in a strange but simple form. I have a strong connection with this work in that it is something that I can actually do and produce images that will add to the context of the work as a whole.