Andre Kertesz

Throughout most of his career Kertész was depicted as the "unknown soldier" who worked behind the scenes of photography, yet was rarely cited for his work, even into his death in the 1980s. Kertész thought himself unrecognised throughout his life, despite spending his life in the eternal search for acceptance and fame. Though Kertész received numerous awards for photography, he never felt both his style and work was accepted by critics and art audiences alike. Although, in 1927, he was the first photographer to have a solo exhibition, Kertész said that it was not until his 1946 exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, that he first felt he received positive reviews on his work, and often cites this show as one of his finest moments in America. During his stay in America, he was cited as being an intimate artist, bringing the viewer into his work, even when the picture was that of subjects such as the intimidating New York City and even his reproduced work printed after his death received good reviews; "Kertesz was above all a consistently fine photographer". Kertész's work itself is often described as predominantly utilising light and even Kertész himself said that "I write with light". He was never considered to "comment" on his subjects, but rather capture them – this is often cited as why his work is often overlooked; he stuck to no political agenda and offered no deeper thought to his photographs other than the simplicity of life. With his art's intimate feeling and nostalgic tone, Kertész's images alluded to a sense of timelessness which was inevitably only recognised after his death. Unlike other photographers, Kertész's work gave an insight into his life, showing a chronological order of where he spent his time; for example, many of his French photographs were from cafés where he spent the majority of his time waiting for artistic inspiration. Although Kertész rarely received bad reviews, it was the lack of them which lead to the photographer feeling distant from recognition. Now however, he is often considered to be the father of photojournalism. Even other photographers cite Kertész and his photographs as being inspirational; Henri Cartier-Bresson once said of him in the early 1930s, "We all owe him a great deal".


This one is called "Lost CLoud" The composition is really interesting. While the windows on the building are pretty uniform like, the cloud next to it makes the whole thing creative. This also shows photography's 2D feature.


This on is called "Fork, Paris". The contrast and the composition in this picture are really significant. The subject is simple. Yet, it is just the simplicity, the light and the shadow make the picture different.


This one is called " Rainy Day in Tokyo". It is really interesting because the composition. A group of people holding black umbrellas are following a white arrow. We can't really see their face, which shows us the busy work in Tokyo has already taken away people's characters.


This one is called "Quais Paris". The road in the picture seems to go on forever. First, it's because as the road goes further, we can't see very clear. And second reason is that the man has covered the vanish point. Generally speaking, it is a very worth looking picture.


This picture is called "Chairs of Paris" I really like this one because it is very mysterious. I like how the chairs are just put randomly. In addition, those chairs, in the picture, are just several lines. If you pay enough attention, you will realize except for few chairs, you can't tell which way the chairs are facing.

Final Project Idea

For the final object, I'm going to shoot the pictures of old stuff. (At first, I was thinking about shooting emotions, but because that require very high skills and there are a lot of factors that could affect the result, I gave up that thought.) For example, a wrinkled hand and a rusty medal would do the work. Although the photo will not be taking during a period of time, but the objects will show how much time has past.

Journal #1 (part 2)

O.K. the result wasn't as good as expected, because the day was two dark and the shutter speed was always longer than usual. Almost all the shots were kinda blurry. So I just chose some of the better ones. They might not be really related to time, but at least, due to my better understanding on black and white, I can make them look a little nicer than before.

Michael Levin

When I searching for a photographer to write about, Michael Levin's works drew my attention the most. As I went to his website, I found out the reasons were the sharpness and the simplicity.
Michael Levin, one of the most popular photographer in these days, was named the 'photographer of the year' at the 06/07 International Photography Awards. American fine art magazine FOCUS declared "Michael Levin's captivating images are soulful and evocative". He likes to use long exposures so that what remains in the landscape feels essential and revealed. He shoots simple subjects in his different point of view, which gives them extra weight and value.



This one is called "Bamboo". The subject of this photo is very simple. Yet, it is just the simplicity create a different feeling. It is extremely focus that we can see the texture on the bamboo clearly. Michael Levin also inverted the black and white, which separate this shot from the others furthermore.



This one is called Zebrato. The simplicity is as significant as all the other ones. The clouds are kind of blurry while the other parts stay extremely sharp, which shows the long exposure Michael Levin uses. The lower part of the image is so sharp as if it was created by the computer. Yet, Michael Levin told us by his photo: Nature can have it done much better. The photo are almost symmetrical except there is a manlike figure on the left part of the board.




Those are all Michael Levin's works. Their sharpness, great details, contrast and gradual change from light to dark are almost perfect. Just enjoy.

Journal #1 (part 1)

For this assignment, I'm going to shoot a series of pictures on Sunday. There are several reasons for this:1) I usually have a piano lesson on Sundays so I would take some pictures on the way and at my piano teacher's house. 2) It will snow on Sunday and I can shoot some pictures throughout the window at different times of the day. It will show a gradual accumulation of a snow. 3) Sundays are usually boring for me, so to shoot this assignment on Sunday will give me some challenge.

Final Project Proposal

I know it's late now, but I still want to write about my thought before I shot those images. My original theme of the final project was number, which represent a different way of seeing the numbers. But later on I couldn't find enough objects that worth shooting, so I stopped and looked over my old images. Then I started realized that all the photos I like the most have a very important thing in common: they all have pretty good reflection of the light, and there comes my idea:I'm (was) going to shoot my final project in the theme of reflection.

Final Project - Reflection

This term went by so fast, it might because of the long breaks we had, but the most important reason i think was that the courses are more fun.

First, let me talk about my final project. It is called reflection, although some of them are not quite meet the theme. In this project, I wanted to pay most of my attention to the light and the reflection of light, and therefore, however good each image is, I want to make the reflection of the light the most significant. For the first two and last pictures, the contrast between black and white due to reflection were the most important things. And for the rest of the three images, the reflection showed the smooth surface. All of the images were depended on the reflection. Without reflection, the pictures would have nothing in them, but with reflection, as it turned out, the result was quite difference. So what this final project gave me are not extremely good images but it REALLY helped me understand the importance of the light and the contrast and the information light can provide.

From now on, the blog will be about the whole term:
First, I have to say I have learned so much this term. At the beginning of the term, I thought everything would be the same except we were going to use a different kind of camera, but soon after that, I realized I was so wrong. When we were learning about the level and the curve, that was when I really understood about the contrast. And because of that, the filter and the time thing in the darkroom all started to make sense. And then we learned about the histogram and the bracketing. Those told me what it means to be a good exposure. Everything from the beginning to the end, make perfect sense and it taught me the concept of photography and will certainly help me with photo in the future.
Secondly, I've learned the importance of light. Every image depends on light. Light shows texture; light tells the shape; light makes things look real; light shows and makes contrast; light draws attention; light is EVERYTHING in black and white photography! Same photos, with different light, may look totally different. When there is a good natural light, try your best to make it useful. When there is not, create your own.
This term also made my like black and white photography. When there are only black and white, as Mr. Blake said, light becomes the only thing. Without the distraction of the tones of colors, the pictures will look simple and pure. And that is why I'm now so into black and white photography.
Well, I think those are probably all I want to say. And next time I take digital will be next year, and hope I can do better than now.