Masters+Photo_Laskowski



One artist who inspired me goes by the name of Lewis Hine. Hine was hired by the National Child Labor Committee to photograph the poor conditions children were exposed to in the tenements they lived in and sweatshops they worked in. He was also a photographer with the Red Cross, and eventually captured the construction of the Empire State Building. Hine’s photography had deep concepts behind them, and although as photography students we’re supposed to connect to our images and create relatable concepts, I’ve never photographed anything with deep meaning behind it in general, which is how Lewis Hine has inspired me.

Another artist that inspired me was Annie Leibovitz. Many of her works were portraits due to the fact that she worked for both Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair photographing celebrities. As well as working with these magazines, Leibovitz also photographed for the 1996 Summer Olympics which were held in Atlanta. During the portrait unit, there was never really a good time for me to take pictures outside of school, so I was very limited in the photos I could take. Now that I have the opportunity to shoot images outside of school, I’d like to take this unit as a chance to “re-do” my portraits, which is why I became inspired by Annie Leibovitz.

The final artist to inspire me was Dorothea Lange. Due to the time period in which she photographed, all her works were in black and white. Like Hine, Lange shot images with deep meaning behind them, since many were taken during the Great Depression. Throughout this semester of photography, I have never really worked with images other than those in color, so for the final free choice project I   thought it would be fun to experiment with black and white photographs, which is what inspired me about Dorothea Lange.

With that said, my free choice image will be a series of portraits, incorporating black and white that have a deep concept behind each of them. The series I plan to photograph will capture a girl who struggles with overcoming her self-image struggles. Using photoshop I  plan to make each of my images completely black in white. This coloration will symbolize the sadness and emptiness the subject feels due to the battle she's fighting with herself. The principle of design I plan to really focus on is unity, since I am creating a series. Through the creation of my series I hope to give the images a sense of completeness.

"Annie Leibovitz Biography." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. < [|__http://www.biography.com/people/annie-leibovitz-9542372__] >. "Dorothea Lange Biography." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. < [|__http://www.biography.com/people/dorothea-lange-9372993__] >. "Lewis Hine Biography." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. < [|__http://www.biography.com/people/lewis-hine-9339610__] >.