Photo Strategies
Ren Hang
Ren Hang was a Chinese photographer. His work dealt with nudity, gender and homosexuality in a heavily censored country, according to Wikipedia. Because of this, Hang was arrested by the police. Hang’s photos were of his naked friends, who he preferred to work with over strangers. The reason for this is that he wanted to get along with his models while making sure they were having fun at the shoots, according to him in the documentary. This would lead to better photos being taken.
Hang also used a point-and-shoot camera. This shows that really good photographs can be taken without the need for fancy equipment. His work did not shy away from the naked body. In fact, nudity was at the center of his photos. He also used birds, such as peacocks, to accentuate his models’ bodies. Hang studied marketing instead of photography in college. He got into it because he started to do things that he liked and discovered that photography was one of them. One thing that stood out about him is that he did not like to leave his house. He often went from home to his destination and back again.
Mickalene Thomas
Mickalene Thomas is an award-winning NYC-based photographer. Her work is about using old and popular works of art to highlight the beauty and femininity of black women. She uses paintings by Manet and Picasso and incorporates women of color to recreate those paintings. It is a way to “reclaim agency for women who have been represented as objects to be desired or subjugated,” according to Wikipedia. Thomas’s photography is inspired by her mother, who exuded charisma, according to the biography video on her website.
Thomas’s identity as a black lesbian also plays a role in how she photographs her subjects. She needed a way for women who look and talk like her to be represented in art history, according to an article by Artnet. They look at the camera and at the viewer instead of away. This allows for her models to be less like objects to be gazed upon and to instead reclaim that space. “To see yourself and for others to see you is a form of validation…,” according to Thomas in her biography video on her website.
LaToya Ruby Frazier
LaToya Ruby Frazier is a photographer who uses her photographs to bring to light racial, social and economic injustices plaguing communities in America. In her TED talk, Frazier highlighted how polluted Braddock is despite the narrative that was being put out by the company that was supposed to be helping. Braddock, like Flint, Michigan, is a predominantly black community heavily affected by pollution. Frazier collaborated with the residents to document what was happening in the city. Frazier also worked with a family in Flint to show how they were living life during a water crisis. Her work focuses on the consequences of industrialization.
Frazier has won many awards for her work, including being named the Guggenheim Fellow in Creative Arts in 2014. She is also a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Rinko Kawauchi
Rinko Kawauchi is a Japanese photographer. Her photos have a sense of peace. Light also plays a big role in her work. Some of her photos seem overexposed but this is a part of her style because light represents life which she is “attached to,” according to her documentary. This is showcased in her photo series Cui Cui. Two photos that juxtapose how she uses light to symbolize life are the ones with the baby and the elderly couple. Kawauchi’s family plays a huge role in her life. This series chronicles their life over 13 years.
Another photo series that shows her working with light is Hanabi. The fireworks look like a 3D object floating in the sky.
“I want imagination in the photographs I take. It’s like a prologue. You wonder, ‘What’s going on?’ You feel something is going to happen,” said Kawauchi in her Artnet biography. And you can see these in her photos.
Laura Letinsky
Untitled #40 | Photo from Yancy Richardson
Laura Letinsky is a still-life photographer. Some of her photos are of objects on tabletops. These photos look like retro-style paintings. Most of the background on the images is white, with the subjects bringing color to the photographs. The photos also have a sense of eeriness to them. With composition, lighting and subject, the photos are of things that can be found in abandoned homes.
Letinsky said that despite her photos looking like paintings, she wants her viewers to know that they are looking at photographs. This is important to her because then it helps to affect how someone sees the world and then takes photos which completes the cycle of “production and consumption.”
Letinsky originally photographed people before transitioning into still life. She wanted a change from an omnipotent pov to something more first person, according to an Aperture article. Still life photography drew her in because of “its association with the feminine, its characterization as “less important,” its affiliations with domesticity and intimacy,” she said in the same interview.
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