Photography Gallery

I love photography. To me a camera is a tool with two purposes. To say meaningful things and to show beautiful things. There are a lot of photographers work that I follow. Usually because of what they are trying to say. Fine art and portrait mostly. I'd like to spotlight a few of my favorite artists. Maybe one of them might catch your eye.

The first photographer is Erwin Olaf from Amsterdam. He's probably my favorite photographer. The look of his images really resonated with my style. And I connect with some of the meanings in his work. A lot of his work is controversial and explicit so I've picked the tame works.

This is from the series Hope





This is from the series Grief



This is from the series Waiting




This is from the series Rain



This is from the series Paradise



https://www.erwinolaf.com

 

My second favorite photographer is Vivian Maier. If you don't know her story, its very interesting. She spent her life working as a nanny. Never married. Was a real recluse. To my knowledge, no boyfriends or really friends for that matter. Her companion was photography. She would spend her free time taking photos. Street photography to be exact. And she rarely developed her film or ever showed her work to anyone. She was a pack rat and just stored boxes and boxes of her film negatives, undeveloped and photographed for decades. Until one day she passed away in 2009 at the age of 83, alone and no one was aware of her photos. Until a few years ago, a film student stumbled upon a box her film rolls in an auction. He developed them and realized this was good work. Work from someone nobody had ever heard of. 1000's of rolls of film. Waiting to be developed. And now its shown in several galleries around the world and still to this day there are legal battles surrounding her work as to who owns the rights.

Most of her photos are taken in Chicago in the 50's and 60's. She shot on medium format with a Rolleiflex camera which is why the clarity is amazing, going toe to toe with today's digital cameras.



She loved taking photos of people most of all. All walks of life.



She happened to catch one of my favorite actors at one of my favorite movies premiere. Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.



I also found her quite fearless as well. She took photos of some tough looking guys. Mobsters? Gangsters? Could be.



Even into the night


One of the reasons why she was able to get so close to people is because her camera, the Rolleiflex, is a top view camera. You hold it waste level and look down into the view finder. So many times people were unaware they were being photographed.

And of course, here she is in her self portraits. The first one I have on my wall.



She was a nanny to this little girl. She often shot will taking the kids with her when working.

http://www.vivianmaier.com

And if you want to know more about her story, here is a great documentary about her called FINDING VIVIAN MAIER

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER Trailer | Festival 2013

 

wow Vivian Maier's work is impressive, and her story too.
thanks for posting!

 

Great collection Sean x

 

The 3rd photographer in this series is Gregory Crewdson. There are a few things that are unique about him. His photographs are lit as if they were feature films. In some of his series he literally takes over an entire town blocking off roads and intersections at his disposal. He also photographs on large format film. Also every model in his shots are residents of the town except for his Dream House series which I will share below.

click on some of the images below to enlarge them to see the details.

















The following are my favorites of his.





And this series I adore because the models are some of my favorite independent actors. Im sure you will recognize one or two.

The immensely talented Julianne Moore



The amazing William H. Macy



Huge fan of Dylan Baker's work



And the lovely Tilda Swinton



I couldn't find a bigger image of this one online so I took a video pan shot below from my own book.



It's hard to find his work online. He doesn't even really have his own website. It's run by a gallery. There is a great documentary though, Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, showing is process and behind the scenes and his relationship with this particular town that lets him do things no photographer, that I know of, can do. Basically have an entire town at his disposal for photography.

https://gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters Official...

 

Great pictures - very reminiscent of Hopper to me.
Strangely enough, I particularly like them,
without essentially understanding why.....
perhaps ‘why’ doesn’t even matter.....

 

I just bought a camera a few months ago, my very first! I decided to take a few snaps of myself and a few of my favorite gals.

 

@another sean

Those ones are awesome. Have a dream like quality about them

 

I really enjoyed looking at all the photographs. Really picked me up. Thanks for that.

 

Anyone else here do photography as a hobby? I've been shooting off and on since around late-2014. I mostly do landscapes and sunrises. It's a fun way to get out and explore new places. It's also led me to look at the world a little bit differently and to appreciate public areas like parks a lot more. I'll post a few of my photos below.







More: https://www.patrickgillespie.com/

 

Neat idea @another sean, thanks for sharing. I can see why you chose those photographers, they're great inspiration. As a person who enjoys doing street photography, I really appreciated your inclusion of Vivian

 

I relate most to Vivian. I just finished her book Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny. Highly recommend it if you really want learn about her life and how and why she became the photographer and person that she was. The author Ann Marks did an incredible incredible job researching her life. Many original one on one interviews with Vivian’s relatives in France and children she took care of that are now grown and people who lived next door to her during her final years. The author had full official access to Maloof’s entire Vivian collection and many unreleased images are in the book.

 

Fantastic @another sean, her work is very inspirational. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll get the book right away. I've been meaning to get books on street because I'm interested in taking my hobby to the next level, and I understand studying the matters is a good way to do that.