Sora Ikeda, Art240

       Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, NJ. After graduating from Syracuse University, she attended Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she studied with artists and photographers Marvin Israel and Diane Arbus. Then, Kruger worked in graphic design for Condé Nast Publications at Mademoiselle magazine and was promoted to head designer within a year at the age of twenty-two. At the beginning of her career, she was making paintings and fabric art for a gallery in New York. However, she felt that those works did not have much meaning. She started using texts such as Helvetica Extra Bold and Futura Bold and reused abandoned photos. This is how her today's characteristic art style is formed, which is a combination of text and B&W photos, which is inspired by her experience as a graphic designer.       The image on the left is her representative artwork. As you can see, it has a red text box and white letters saying, "Your bod...

       Alec Soth is an American photographer known for his large-scale projects that explore themes of American life, isolation, and the passage of time. Born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Soth gained international recognition with his 2004 photobook Sleeping by the Mississippi, which features poetic and melancholic images of people and landscapes along the Mississippi River.      His photo often focuses on the subject’s feelings such as loneliness, depression, and their complicated experience in the United States. Also, he drives around the USA to look for his inspiration. Many of the objects in his photographs don’t seem as interesting as the other photographs taken. However, his skill in integrating the object and environment makes the photography dramatic.       His photo usually puts a spot on people who don’t get photographed a lot. This is because he wants to see what the person is rather than visual pleasure. When he wa...

       Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer known for her distinctive and intimate portrait photography, particularly of celebrities. Born on October 2, 1949, in Waterbury, Connecticut, she gained prominence as the chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s, capturing iconic images of musicians, actors, and political figures. One of her most famous works is the 1980 portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.        It is not only visually strong but also expresses a strong relationship and deep love. In the photo, Ono wears clothes fully, but Lennon is completely naked, kissing her face. His pose reminds me of a baby when they are in a womb. Right after Leibovitz took this photo, Lennon was shot by a former police on New York street. When the magazine was published, she was already a widow, and the kiss was probably the last one that they ever had.       I had never been emotional toward a photo ...

       He is an American photographer, and self-portraiture is his main style. His photographs primarily represent his anxiety and discouragement. He was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 19, and he projects his experience into his work. In most of his works, he uses a form of expression that hides his face. Personally, I like this expression because it makes the photographs look like a group of people rather than a specific individual. It allows the viewer to see mental health issues, which can affect anyone, as his or her own, rather than as a specific individual's problem. It can also be seen as a way of saying that the feeling of insecurity is something that anyone can feel and that this insecurity can lead to an inability to sustain oneself and, ultimately to a loss of self.      Another characteristic of his photography is black and white. Black-and-white photography does not rely on color, so the composition and visual interest of the photogra...

  1. "We have to tell people how images are made. And, the first step is to abandon the idea we're looking at photographs. We're looking at entry points to information and to the world in which the image was made."      This tells us how Ritchin sees photography. At first, when I read this, I interpreted him as saying that a photograph is a cutout of information and that taking a picture is also a process of capturing the information in front of you. This sounds like journalism to me. It may even sound like he is using magic to confine everything that was happening at the time the photo was taken to a single square. But when I read it again, the meaning changed. Is he trying to say that the photo is like a portal connecting the viewer to the place where the photo was taken, like a time machine? When I take a photograph, I am trying very hard to capture something beautiful in front of me. It would be interesting to be aware of how I want the viewers of my photographs ...