Posts tagged: fine art photography

Nathan Wirth uses long exposure or an infrared converted digital camera to shoot his fine art landscapes. Here he captures an infrared, ‘Road and Light – Howth Park, Santa Rosa, CA’.

What’s in your camera bag?
Sony Alpha 850, Sony Alpha 100 Infrared Converted Camera, Canon G10,Sony Sigma 17mm-35mm, Sony 18mm-55mm, Minolta 50mm, Hitech IRND 10 Stop ND Filter, Hitech IRND 6 Stop ND Filter, Hitech IRND 3 Stop ND Filter, Lee “Big Stopper” 10 Stop ND Filter, Lee 3 Stop ND Filter, Lee 3 Stop Graduated ND Filter (Soft), Lee 1 Stop Graduated ND Filter (Soft), Lee 3 Stop Graduated ND Filter (Hard), B+W ND 110 – 10 Stop ND Filter (77mm), B+W ND 110 – 10 Stop ND Filter (55mm), Lee Filter Holder, Lee Filter Holder Adapter 82mm, Lee Filter Holder Adapter 77mm, Lee Filter Holder Adapter 49mm, Neewer® shutter release timer remote control, Hoodman loupe (which I never use), 2 extra batteries, extra scan disk cards, hat (for warmth), battery recharger, fanny pack (for carrying around filters), a good luck Buddha charm that my wife gave me. My tripod does not fit in my bag, but it is essential to my work and goes where I go. I use a Manfrotto 055XPROB Pro Tripod with a Manfrotto 498RC2 Ball Head.

What’s in your bag that is specific to the type of work you shoot? Because I primarily do long exposure work, the ND filters and grads are essential. Over the past two years I have been doing a lot of work with infrared, so the converted camera has become equally essential. I had my Sony Alpha 100 converted by Life Pixel—they removed the filter over the sensor that blocks out infrared light and replaced it with their Deep BW (820nm) filter.  This allows me to take hand-held infrared shots, rather than having to use a screw on filter and a tripod.  Infrared film is a whole other world of confusion and a very difficult one.  I have not pursued it.  Digital photography and infrared go together much more easily.

Jerusalem-based photographer Yaakov Israel’s beautiful, personal photographic examination of what being Israeli means to him has a title as dreamlike as his photos: The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey. Israel initiated the series after he took a picture of a Palestinian man who happened to ride by on a white donkey, one day near the Dead Sea. Israel explains the significance: “As per the Orthodox Jewish tradition, the Messiah (the Prophet) will arrive riding on a white donkey.”

Boston-based photographer Caleb Cole’s curiosity about the lives of others led him to make his amusing series Other People’s Clothes. In the series, he becomes the stranger by using scavenged clothing and a location in which to create these imagined stories of strangers’ lives.

In her writings and photography, Wenxin Zhang describes her experiences of growing up in China, her current life in San Francisco, and her personal relationships, all in a voice that is melancholic and tranquil. Her series Five Nights, Aquarium tells a surreal, non-linear take that attempts to reconstruct what she describes as the inner journey she makes between her home country and San Francisco. We recently asked her to tell us more.

Norway-based photographer Dayna Bartoli worked as an ophthalmic photographer after graduating from Arizona State University in 2010, essentially photographing retinal blood vessels and circulation patterns. She took the beauty and intricacies of the human body’s various pathways, overlaying them with a similar beauty—in pattern and tone—found in flora for her project Florafaunal Angiography. We asked her to tell us a bit more about this special photographic process.

© Arne Svenson. Courtesy Julie Saul Gallery, NYC.

© Arne Svenson. Courtesy Julie Saul Gallery, NYC.

At first glance, NYC-based photographer Arne Svenson’s stark portraits of sculpted heads are deceptively amusing. However, Unspeaking Likeness is a series of deeply unfunny photographs of forensic facial reconstruction sculptures of suspected murder victims. 

The inspiration for Istanbul-based Emir Ozsahin‘s Pastel Deaths, posed photographs of dead animals, was the death of a very close friend. He had seen what no one wishes to see, a photograph of her “lying on the highway covered with newspapers,” which understandably haunted him. The experience led him to investigate the ways in which death could be visually memorialized in a more sentimental, less traumatizing way.

With a bold spontaneity and a tiny bit of cheek, Greek photographer Kostis Fokas creates quirky human sculptures in his series I’m not malfunctioning, you are. Long fascinated with imperfection in a world that is seemingly always desperate for order, Fokas allows his models to interact freely in bizarre ways, capturing moments of beauty in the ludicrous poses and situations that form.

London-based Giacomo Brunelli‘s The Animals features the multitude of creatures he encountered on daily morning walks while living in his native Italy.