Steve McCurry

I have a strong interest in history, people, different cultures and past and present architecture. I find my appreciation of these different aspects of life strongly influences my photography and the way I perceive and interpret images. Although I have developed an understanding of different styles of photography over the years, I am more inclined towards portrait photography. Portrait photography enables the photographer to explore different characters and tell a story about historical or cultural tradition. It can trigger great emotional responses, and take the viewer on a journey.

Steve McCurry mainly uses a Nikon D2X digital camera and a Nikon F100 film camera 50 millimetre lens, 35 millimetre lens, 28 millimetre lens, and possibly an 85 millimetre lens also (Parra 2006). Unfortunately in the case of this particular photograph, I am not sure which lens or camera he used.

Steve Mc Curry is one of my favourite photographers, his images are very strong and attractive. I feel his work are more of a documentary type nevertheless, when looking at his images they make you wonder into thought because they they gaze back at you like this one below.

Steve McCurry

"Afghan Girl, Peshawar, Pakistan, 1984"

Above is an image title the Afghan Girl, I really like this portrait, there are some thing I realised looking at this picture, firstly the background is green, her eyes are green and beneath her read scarf she is also wearing green, I wonder if Steve Mc Curry shot her with the green background intentionally or it was just by chance.

Steve McCurry

"Coal Miner with Cigarette, Pol-e Khomri, Afghanistan, 2002"

This is another example of McCurry's portrait, very strong and impressive, we can almost read the story behind this man's life. The eyes tells us everything.

http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/mccurry/

Religion and Reasoning.

Over the years I have tried to understand the benefit that people gain from being part of one of the groups within this category (Religion). I was a Christian for over twenty five years; I was devoted and unchanging to my religious practice. I thought nothing could alter the thought pattern within my religious principle. Well fortunately to my shock new discoveries where awaiting me in the short future ahead.

I CAN NOT discriminate against anyone’s principle or religion, neither can I assume that my way of life now is perfect but I would like to say that I am perfecting every day, understanding the purpose of good and evil in this world. Nevertheless I feel that it is important that individuals within a religious group should step out of the circumference of their religious circle and explore the history, the events that accrued before they were born and how it has metamorphosis into what it is today. The groups within this category have suffer as well has inflicted more pain on the very essence of mankind than any act of evil that can be inflicted upon the human race.

I ask myself, why do people not want to know about the origin of their religious beliefs system. I have concluded that the fight of good against evil will never end; both are an inevitable balance of life, they both work together. We should not be trying to be good or fighting against evil, instead understand how the balance work and how it can be utilised with the support of how emotion through reasoning of from our conscience mind. We can never say “why did that bad thing happen, or say thing happen by luck or chance, we control everything around us, but we cannot progress to higher level of consciousness unless we surrender everything we think we know.

Until then the war goes on.

We have the Ying and the Yang, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, Left and right. Everything has its opposite how can one exist without the other.

http://designious.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ying-yang.jpg

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Ladysmith Black Mambazo represents the traditional culture of South Africa and is regarded as the country's cultural emissary at home and around the world. The traditional music sung by Ladysmith Black Mambazo is called ISICATHAMIYA (Is-Cot-A-Me-Ya).

The name LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO is a combination of name and meaning put together (Ladysmith) is the hometown of the head singer Joseph Shabalala and his family; (Black) refers to the black oxen, considered to be the strongest amongst the other oxen on the farm. The Zulu word (Mambazo) refers to an axe it symbolises the group's ability to "chop down" the competition.

I find their dancing and singing very moving, strong harmony that captivates you. I first heard them in 1991 singing (The Moon Is Walking) at the end of Michael Jacksons Moon walker video, I was 10 years old then. I spent years looking for them, until I heard them on the Heinz Back beans advert, even though I could not see them I recognised their voice. Then the actual track that was played on the advert was advertised for sale in Woolworth where I bought my first of their music. I have all their albums and some of their video tape and DVD. All my friends know, my favourite music group is the Ladysmith Black Mambazo. My wish it to meet them and go to their concert.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo ... doin' the dance

Ashanti Kente Cloth

The KENTE Cloth is a multicolored hand woven material made in Ghana by the Ashanti tribe, it is one of the best know African textile; every cloth is made up of different dazzling shapes and patterns geometric shape and bold design giving each cloth its individual identity and distinction. Every color and pattern has a specific meaning.

Kente Colours And Their Meanings

Yellow	represents the yolk of the egg as well as certain fruits and vegetables. The colour is a symbol for things that are holy and precious.
Pink	is used to symbolize gentle qualities such as calmness, sweetness, and tenderness.
Red	stands for blood and for strong political and spiritual feelings.
Maroon	is associated with the colour of Earth, the mother. It represents healing and protection from evil.
Blue	stands for the sky and is used to symbolize holiness, peace, harmony, good fortune, and love.
Green	is associated with plants and stand for growth and good health.
Gold	like the metal gold, is a symbol of royalty, wealth, and spiritual purity.
White	represents the white of an egg as well as the white clay that is used in certain rituals. It stands for purity and healing.
Black	stands for aging because in nature things get darker as they get older. Black also stands for strong spiritual energy, and the spirits of the ancestors.
Grey	represents ashes, which are used for spiritual cleansing.
Silver	stands for the moon and represents serenity, purity and joy.
Purple	like maroon, is associated with Earth and with healing.

Traditionally the Kente was the cloth of royalty and the rich, it is considered to be more important than just being a cloth in a total cultural content,

The patterns are so intricate that the artist amid a welter ball of cotton thread of every color, Ghana and the Kente are culturally entwined, removing the Kente out of Ghana would be like removing fish out of the sea.

Yoruba People

Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. Yoruba is a language culture and a religion all in one. The Yoruba constitute around 30 million individuals throughout West Africa and are found predominantly in Nigeria with approximately 21 percent of its total population. The Yoruba Kingdom of Ife experienced a golden age between 1100 AD and 1700 AD, it literally break my heart to say the allot of the tradition and the culture of the Yoruba people is been lost every day because more and more people are embracing the European culture.

This is one of many brass Terracotta sculptures that were found in 1910, buried in a palm grove at Wunmonije Compound, Ife, Nigeria. Estimated date: late 14th-early16th century. Western expert have argue and speculated how such a fascinating work of art could have been created by indigenous people, they’ve even disputed that the artefact was a fake and that it was too sophisticated to have been created by African hands.

The land of Ife is within Yoruba land and was once a thriving city as a Yoruba man it makes me proud to see such discovery being exhibited at the British Museum for the whole country to see. This work of art is a modern physical manifestation of my people’s ancient art creative skill.

Books:

The Yoruba City in History, by Oluremi I. Obateru

The Black World, By Prince Justice

Salaam Bombay Movie

This movie is very moving, funny and sad at the same time it is based in India, Bombay in the 1980's. It is basically about children from the age of about 4 years and above, living in the street of Bombay hustling to make a living by any means. The film focuses particularly on a young boy who was sent to work in a circus for breaking his little brothers bike by his mother, whiles working one day, he was sent on an heron and on his return the whole circus had packed up and moved out of the location leaving him behind.

He spend the rest of the film meeting other kids on the street, working and getting in all kind of trouble. I chose to talk about this film because it depict reality and according to the extra footage in the DVD the director interviews some of the kids and they are actually from the slums of the city.

It could not get more real than this, this film remind me of Nan Goldin, capturing the true reality of her life and some of the people in her society. This film emphasises on the pain that these children suffer and the illusion of happiness they create from themselves. I have lost count of how many times I've watch this film, some might say I'm obsessed with it on the contrary, I am rather fascinated by the message being demonstrated. I make a comparison to where I'm from in West Africa and how things where like back in the 80's and it similarities to this film.

Feminism

Feminism is a social movement that seeks equal rights for women. Women have been oppressed for many year in different country and cultures around the world. I strongly shear the view that religion as intensified this oppression by misogynistic men who procrastinate egotistically, men who are coming from a weak constituency that look like it has lost its testicular fortitude. In their ego they make wars and preaching pointless words of faith that that corrupts the mental stability of society.

It is this misogynistic attitude that brought forth the reaction from Guerrilla Girls in the art world, defending the right for women's work to be give the same recognition as the men. The Guerrilla Girls are the antibiotic to art world injustice system. They were originally formed in New York in 1985, they individually took upon the names of dead female artists in order to focus attention on matters they want to highlighting rather than their own personalities.

Like anything in this world the more you oppress it, eventually it will build up the defence to fight back and and in most cases they always overcome their oppressors.

As much as thing have changed over the years, in many African tribes women are recognised as the head of the tribal community and a stronger role model, for example in the case of Shake the Zulu King, even though Shake was the King his mother influence most of this decision making even plan some of his war attack strategies. I think some of the European feminist will find the frame of mind interesting.

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/venicewallf.shtml

http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/58/5828.jpg.htm

http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/26702572001

Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs, or of the production of meanings from sign systems. It is messages from objects such as sounds and shapes of what we see and hear, which consequently influence the way we feel.

We all, over the years, have develop different thought processes; these thought process are influenced by the community and society we live in. It is thought our interpretation of sign that we determine our views on things.

Let's take for example this painting, a stark naked woman gently resting her arms on the top of a coca cola bottle, it is without a doubt that is very sexual and luring and provocative. The messages being conveyed here, from her body posture is, from my point of view, you can have me, but from her facial expression it comes across as if she saying be gentle. Again from what semiotics has thought red has always been know as the color of passion and love. It is known that when a woman wears red to an occasion she is somewhat indication that she is feeling sexual.

Unlike a beer ad the messages are the complete opposite you will find them to be more masculine depicting images focused more on men. We use sign to express ourselves in order for people to understand us. From the clothing of our choice to the very color all our choice making are based upon semiotic and what ever sign we give to people that is the message they will read

http://trendland.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ramos-coca_cola.jpg

Modernism/Postmodernism

Modernism in short relate to the event of present times, a thought, character and practice. Modernism is also a form of deliberate departure from tradition, the use of ideas, innovative forms of expression, that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the 20th century.

People such as T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Virginia Woolf just to name a few, were initiator of concept which transformed the way things where been done in their fields, they sought new solutions within new forms and used as-yet-untried approaches to tonality.

The history and root of modernism can be traced back to artist such as Édouard Manet and Pablo Picasso, who in the 1860s began to broke away from inherited notions of perspective, modelling, and subject matter and introduce new thought process and changed the perspective view in art.

Steve Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1973, the camera weighed 8 pounds, recorded black and white images to a cassette tape, it had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel (10,000 pixels), and it took 23 seconds to capture its first image in December 1975. Seven Sason invention challenged the form on which images where been capture, his invention revolusionies the world of photgrpahy and birth a new erra.

Unlike Postmodernism, which is a term that applied to a wide-ranging set of developments, it generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism.

More often, though, it is applied to a cultural condition prevailing in the advanced capitalist societies since the 1960s, characterized by a superabundance of disconnected images and styles—most noticeably in television, advertising, commercial design, and pop video.

http://www.myclassiclyrics.com/artist_biographies/Pablo_Picasso_Biography_2.jpg

More often, though, it is applied to a cultural condition prevailing in the advanced capitalist societies since the 1960s, characterized by a superabundance of disconnected images and styles—most noticeably in television, advertising, commercial design, and pop video.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f358/seanstarrunner/PabloPicasso.jpg

August Sander Biography

Forester's Child, Westerwald (1931)

Photographer:August Sander

August Sander was born in Herdorf Germany 17 November 1876. In 1901 he was employed by the Photographic Studio Graf in Linz, Austria. He and a partner bought this concern the following year and renamed it Studio Sander and Stuckenberg. Two years later he bought out his partner and started the August Sander Studio for Pictorial Arts of Photography and Painting. From 1918, he travelled through the Westerwald countryside, taking portraits of the different 'types', tradespeople, classes and individuals he came across.

He began a series of Rhineland landscapes and nature studies in 1935 on which he worked for the rest of his life. After looking at Sander photographs I must say his portrait image are more striking to me than his landscapes needless to say I do like one perticular landscape shot: The Rhine Valley and the Nonnenwerth Island, 1930.

It's important to note that August Sander has been able to capture strong images at a time when photography was not so popular, his work has enable use to understand and see the way people live and look in his time. He has brought the past into the present.

The above photograph is titled Forester's Child, Westerwald (1931)
http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_117084_454340_august-sander.jpg

This is a very impressive photograph, the first thing that caught my attention was the expression on the child face and positioning of his body. the facial expression compliment the body posture because it indicate a sense of possession and pride over the bike. This image indicates to me that August Sander has a sense of humour because after studying this photo for a while I thought it was rather funny.

Nan Goldin Biography

Simon and Jessica in the shower,
Paris 2001
Cibachrome
Photographer: Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin was born September 12, 1953. She is an American fine-art and documentary photographer. It is interesting to see that her first solo show was based on her photographic journey amongst the city's gay and transsexual community, which was held in Boston 1973. This shows that she is open-minded.

Nan Goldin's work since 1995 has included a wide array of subject matters. She has images that expresses and intensifies love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality. She has affectionately documented women looking in mirrors, girls in bathrooms and barrooms, drag queens, sexual acts, and the culture of obsession and dependency. With the collaboration of Nobuyoshi Araki, they composed a book project, this project includes; New York City skylines, uncanny landscapes (notably of people in water), her lover, Siobhan, babies, parenthood and family life.

I chose the above picture because it was rather interesting in many ways. I feel it expresses a lot of love and passion; this expression has been conveyed by the positioning of the man’s hand in the woman hair and the body posture on the woman and her arms around her lover.

There is little fear being portrayed by the two characters in this image as one would think making love in a bath tub is quite the risky business considering the possibility of slipping and falling. It tells me a baby is going to come out of this moment. Nan Goldin has managed to compose a perfect frame of what she felt was important for the viewer, and the mood also gives the photograph an attractive feel to it.

Taryn Simon Biography

RONALD JONES
Scene of arrest, South Side, Chicago, Illinois
Served 8 years of a death sentence
for Rape and Murder, 2002
Shot by Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon was born 1975 she is an American fine art photographer, her photography and writing has been featured in New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, CNN, BBC, Frontline, and NPR. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Her most recent work, which I’m a fan of is titled (An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar). After reading through the notes under each photograph, the title of the project works perfectly with the photographs. I believe she’s trying to bring forth to her viewers a sense and indebt understanding of what is going on behind the scene.

Nevertheless I found her earlier work far more interesting and moving, (The Innocents), this project documents and illustrated cases of the wrongful convicted in the United States. I must say it is truly inspirational as Taryn Simon has been able to combine a multitude of emotions in these images by photographing each accused character at the very site where they were arrested. She also goes further by noting exactly what the characters in her photograph was accused of and how long they served in jail.

Looking at the whole picture and the information provided, one will defiantly understand the feeling of what has been conveyed and I must say I felt deep sorrow.