Paper Gods

I haven't posted here in ages, I know. The truth is I've been busy working on my new website, Deena Roth Photography. However, I am so excited about Duran Duran's new album, I had to share it here!

Needless to say, I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy of ‪‎Duran Duran's Paper Gods‬ on Friday! Although the first five released tracks have been on constant replay around here for some time, now that I've heard the album in its entirety, I can say that I'm officially blown away. Since I found out that the album was streaming on Soundcloud yesterday, it has been my soundtrack whilst photo editing, so I've listened to it at least half a dozen times. It's an eclectic mix of sheer brilliance that was definitely worth the wait.

Paper Gods Cover Art © Alex Israel

More than ever, I am dying to see ‪‎Duranlive‬ again, but sadly I will need to start getting more photo contracts and also find a source of steady income (something I have been working on vigorously for the last year with no luck) before I can afford to attend any shows. In the meantime, I will continue to jam to this genius album and live vicariously through my friends who are lucky enough to attend shows. xoxo

Success Has No Age Limit

Infographic by: Ninja Infographic

Duran Duran Appreciation Day 2014

Homage to The Chauffeur

Anyone who really knows me knows that every day is Duran Duran Appreciation Day to me. However, this year I'm doing something extra special in honour of my favourite band of all time...

In less than a week, I will be graduating from an intensive one-year Professional Photography program at Inter-Dec College. My final project -- for my Photoshop class -- is a series of three photos, paying homage to the women of Duran Duran videos of the Rio era. Last week, I shot The Chauffeur. Yesterday, I shot Hungry Like The Wolf and today, I'm shooting Rio.

Obviously, being a struggling artist/poor student, I couldn't afford to fly to London, Sri Lanka and Antigua. So, The Chauffeur was shot in the parking garage at my school in Montreal, Quebec and Hungry Like The Wolf on Mount Royal, also in Montreal. Today, I'm heading to Archambault Lake in St.Donat, Quebec where my uncle has a small sailboat that will substitute for the Eilean. I couldn't think of a better way to spend DDAD 2014!

I'd like to thank the talented models, makeup artists and hairstylists who helped make this dream become a reality. I have spent several weeks organising my teams, scouting locations and finding the right wardrobe and props to pull these shoots off. Of course, I've also been working on projects for all my other classes as well as building my portfolio and mounting an exhibit with my classmates that will take place on August 15th, 2014.

My only hope is that Duran Duran know just how much they are appreciated by an up and coming photographer in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For over thirty years, they have inspired me and in all honesty, it was because of them that I found the courage to end a 15 year teaching career and follow my passions by embarking an a whole new career path. So, thank you Duran Duran.

Once I have completed the series, I will be posting the final shots to my Facebook page and to my website, Beautiful Colours Photography.

Photographers Who Inspire Me: Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz (born 1864 in Hoboken, NJ)
(died 1946 in New York, New York)

Alfred Stieglitz was a highly influential figure in the arts at the dawning of the twentieth century, and a vastly significant spokesperson for modern culture. He was a principal advocate of Modernism and arguably had more of an impact on photography than any other artist of his time. His work represents his vision for the future of photography as an art form at the turn of the twentieth century. Through photography, he saw a new vision for a modern world. He made it his life's ambition to teach people how to see. He pushed the technical limitations of photography, often using weather to his advantage in order to create a certain mood or atmosphere. For instance, he spent three hours standing in a blizzard in order to achieve the desired soft-lens effect of one of his most famous photographs, Winter - Fifth Avenue.

Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1864, but his family moved back to Germany in 1881, where he attended school and subsequently first picked up a camera. He returned to the United States in 1890, committed to proving that photography was a medium as relevant as painting or sculpture as a means of artistic expression. He founded Photo-Secession, a prominent group of American photographers who fought to have photography acknowledged as an art form and led the Pictorialist Movement, which promoted the artistic legitimacy of photography in the United States.

Alfred Stieglitz is an inspiration, not only because of his talent and his impressive body of work, but because of his dedication to and advocacy for the medium of photography. His intense passion serves as motivation for me to push the boundaries. I am grateful -- as all photographers should be -- for Alfred Stieglitz.

Mending Nets. 1894. © Alfred Stieglitz Archive

"There are many schools of painting. Why should there not be many schools of photographic art? There is hardly a right and a wrong in these matters, but there is truth, and that should form the basis of all works of art."

Spring. 1905. © Alfred Stieglitz Archive

"In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality."

Snapshot. Paris. 1911. © Alfred Stieglitz Archive

“The camera was waiting for me by predestination and I took to it as a musician takes to the piano or a painter to the canvas. I went to photography really a free soul – and loved it at first sight with a great passion.”

Resources

PBS: American Masters: Alfred Stieglitz

The Art of Photogravure: Alfred Stieglitz

NBC News: NYC exhibit captures famed photographer's vision

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Alfred Stieglitz

Get The Picture: Alfred Stieglitz

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and American Photography

Photographers Who Inspire Me: Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt, 1904, Hamburg, Germany)
(died 1983, London, England)

Although born in Germany, Bill Brandt -- born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt to a British father and German mother -- is considered the quintessential British photographer. He captured all aspects of British life -- from dingy mining communities to high society -- like no other in the twentieth century. In his work, you find the perfect balance of powerful social commentary and ingenious artistic style.

He spent a considerable amount of time being treated for tuberculosis in a Swiss sanatorium, where he first showed an interest in photography. He began his career as a photographer on a 1926 trip to Vienna, where he ended up working and living for the next three years. In 1929 he left Vienna for Paris, where he spent three months working as a studio assistant to surrealist painter and photographer Man Ray. Evidently, he learnt something from the master, because a hint of the surreal permeates so much of his work. In 1932, he moved to London, where he began his lifelong love affair with England. 

It is Brandt's combination of poetic imagery and documentary photography that inspires me. Through his lens, he inspires us all to view the world around us with “a sense of wonder.” His work resonates with me deeply and although I would never attempt to replicate his style, he inspires me to create a style of my own. 

Campden Hill. May 1951. © Bill Brandt Archive

“A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.” 

The English At Home. 1940. © Bill Brandt Archive

"A feeling for composition is a great asset. I think it is very much a matter of instinct. It can perhaps be developed, but I doubt it can be learned. However, to achieve his best work, the young photographer must discover what really excites him visually. He must discover his own world."

Children in Sheffield. 1930. © Bill Brandt Archive

"It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual's temperament and environment."

Resources

The Bill Brandt Archive

The New York Times: Bill Brandt’s Negative Beginnings by JAMES ESTRIN

Sunday Salon: Bill Brandt

Quintessentially English: Bill Brandt British Society 1930's

TIME Lightbox: Let There Be Dark: Bill Brandt’s Shadow and Light by Richard Lacayo

Masters of Photography: Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt – Inspiration From Masters Of Photography

BILL BRANDT: A Statement On Photography (1948)

Photographers Who Inspire Me: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson (born 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie, France)
(died 2004 in Montjustin, France)

Henri Cartier-Bresson is considered the pioneer of photojournalism and was regarded as a leading creative force of his time. He coined the term 'the decisive moment' -- that fleeting moment of inspiration that a photographer has to capture an instant in time. His passion and wanderlust took him to the four corners of the earth, where he documented both the great suffering and great joy of humanity. His skill and perseverance helped establish photojournalism as an art form. 

Throughout his childhood, Cartier-Bresson showed a keen interest in the arts. As a young adult, he went on to study painting and literature at Cambridge University, England, which is also where he was introduced to photography. After his studies, he acquired a hand-held Leica camera and photography became his new passion. In 1935, Cartier-Bresson abandoned photography and worked as an assistant to prominent French filmmaker Jean Renoir. He collaborated with the director on several films, including the renowned La règle du jeu (1939). Later, Cartier-Bresson served in the French army and was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940. After several failed attempts, he finally escaped in 1943 and promptly returned to his photography and film work. He was one of the founders of Magnum Photos, which remains, to this day, one of the leading photo agencies in the world. 

I am profoundly inspired, not only by the humanity shown in Cartier-Bresson's work, but by his precise, geometric framing and his remarkable sense of timing. I aspire to capture moments the way he did and that will take an awful lot of practice, training and courage on my part. Believe me when I say that I am up for the challenge!   

Hyères. France. 1932. © Henri Cartier-Bresson Archive

“To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life.”

SPAIN. Andalucia. Seville. 1933. © Henri Cartier-Bresson Archive 

'"For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression."

Rue Mouffetard. Paris. 1954. © Henri Cartier-Bresson Archive 

“Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.”

Resources

"Henri Cartier-Bresson," The Biography Channel website, 2013

Phaidon: The Decisive Moment: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Magnum Photos: Henri Cartier-Bresson

How to Master "The Decisive Moment" by Eric Kim

Great European of the Week: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Henri Cartier-Bresson

7 Things Every Photographer Should Learn From Henri Cartier-Bresson

International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum: Henri Cartier-Bresson

John Paul Caponigro: 29 Quotes By Photographer Henri Cartier Bresson

The New York Times: Review: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye (2003)

Photographers Who Inspire Me: Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus (born 1923 in New York, New York )
(died 1971 in New York, New York)

Diane Arbus is considered one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century. She is best remembered for her distinct style and passionate dedication to her unique subjects -- marginalized groups and subcultures -- who were generally overlooked by mainstream society. Her work has remained, to this day, highly controversial. Although some criticise her for being a voyeur, others see her as a philanthropist who shed light on the lives of people who most would turn a blind eye to. Personally, I see her as an extremely courageous, creative genius. 

She began her career as a fashion photographer, but later turned to freelance work. She studied under renowned photographer Lisette Model, from whom she learnt her most valuable lessons -- to have confidence in her talent and not to let fear stand in the way of her artistic integrity. Throughout her career, Arbus viewed each photography project as an adventure and viewed the resulting photographs themselves as a sort of recompense for the adventure. Sadly, after battling years of depression, she took her own life in 1971, at the age of 48.

It is my own fear of approaching strangers that attracted me to Diane Arbus's work. Although an extrovert by nature, I am hesitant to take photographs of people I do not know. This is an apprehension I wish to overcome and there are myriad lessons to be learnt from Diane Arbus in this area. I was astonished to learn that she often feared her subjects until she got to know them -- a fact that has deeply inspired me to face my own fears. 

Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park. New York City. 1962.
© Estate of Diane Arbus

"If I were just curious, it would be very hard to

say to someone, "I want to come to your house

and have you talk to me and tell me the story of

your life." I mean people are going to say,

"You're crazy." Plus they're going to keep

mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of

license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that

much attention and that's a reasonable kind of

attention to be paid."

Hermaphrodite and a dog in a carnival trailer. Maryland. 1970.
© Estate of Diane Arbus

"I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't

like to arrange things. If I stand in front of

something, instead of arranging it, I arrange

myself."

Identical twins. Roselle, N.J. 1967.
© Estate of Diane Arbus

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know."

Resources

Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph: Fortieth-Anniversary Edition Paperback – Deluxe Edition

by Marvin Israel (Editor) , Doon Arbus (Editor) , Diane Arbus (Photographer)

Diane Arbus: The Biography Channel website, 2013

Faded + Blurred: Don't Look Away: Diane Arbus by Nicole Rae

Young Blood Gallery: SCAD professor speaking on photographer Diane Arbus

Walker Art: Diane Arbus Revelations

Masters of Photography: Diane Arbus

Museum of Contemporary Photography: The Portrait: Arbus, Diane American, 1923-1971

Diane Arbus at Jeu de Paume

Art DepartMENTAL: INSPIRATION: The Wonderfully Odd Photography of Diane Arbus

The Guardian: Diane Arbus: humanist or voyeur? by Sean O'Hagan