Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) is an American photographer who worked with portraits and botanical still life throughout her career. After graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in chemistry, Cunningham studied fine art in Dresden and moved to San Francisco, where she worked alongside other prominent artists such as Maynard Dixon and Ansel Adams. She was a member of the renowned f/64 group, exploring new photographic methods such as double exposure and montage printing.
Datura, 1930s
Leaves, 1948
Araujia, 1953
Philodendron, 1950s
Her works provide an amazingly detailed and intimate look at botanicals, capturing their beautiful organic shapes, curves, and edges. I noticed that when the subject is dark, the background is light, and vice versa: this lighting allows for the best contrast to capture the intricacies of the plant formations. The composition is also pleasing to the eye and guides the viewer naturally to observe details that are often easily overlooked.
Magnolia Bud, 1920s
Leaf Pattern, before 1929
Self Portrait, 1972
Hands with Aloe Plicatilis, 1960
I enjoy the sharp and soft edges when combined with harsh lighting: creating an almost ethereal, otherworldly ‘portrait’ of these botanicals. It’s as if each of these photographs captures the plant’s essence, or personality, which makes Cunningham work’s all the more alluring.
Happily Ever After is a multi-media installation where 2D meets 3D. The bride was painted digitally and mounted on an 18″x24″ canvas. Her hands and bouquet of wilted roses are props that were attached and posed to give the illusion of her offering the flowers to the viewer. This piece combines three mediums of art: digital painting, canvas mounting, and sculpture to capture the haunting beauty of fleeting marriage bliss that transcends dimensions.
Shadow Play is a collection of black-and-white photographs in which I experimented with light and shadow to create interactive pieces. Inspired by Spanish photographer Dominic Dähncke, I took the liberty of editing the photos in Adobe Photoshop to convey a sense of mystique and playfulness.
Nature vs. Nurture is an allusion to the dichotomy about the relative contributions of genetics and environment to human traits. My photogram diptych brings to attention a botanical sample’s natural (nature) versus its manipulated (nurture) state. I decided on this theme because I enjoy the playful creativity necessary to craft something new from something already existing.
Elin O’Hara Slavick (1965-) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores war, memory, feminism, and more through her works. Her After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima (2013) series is a collection of cyanotype prints curated to expose the haunting aftermath of the atomic bombings.
Architectural Fragments
Bottle Label 1
Upon first glance at these prints, you notice how bold the blue is which contrasts nicely with the white. As the subjects go from artifacts taken from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial to more abstract, manipulated compositions, Slavick encourages her audience to dig deeper. On the surface these objects present themselves as is: remnants from the bombing. However, as you look through the collection you find photos like Fukushima Mushroom Lace and Hiroshima Infinity Cranes which carry a lot of symbolism.
Fukushima Mushroom Lace
Hiroshima Infinity Cranes
The ‘mushroom cloud’ is commonly used to describe the bombing clouds, while mushrooms themselves also symbolize decay and rebirth. The cyanotype captures the mushroom spores which also creates the illusion of smoke and debris.
The paper cranes used in Hiroshima Infinity Cranes refer to the story of Sadako and the Thousand-Paper-Cranes. Sadako is a young girl who was a survivor of the Hiroshima bombings but was diagnosed with leukemia (also known as the A-bomb disease) years later. Her friend, Chizuko, visited her at the hospital and encouraged her to make paper cranes out of origami paper. She explained that the crane, a sacred bird in Japan, lives for a hundred years, and if a sick person folds 1,000 paper cranes, then that person would soon get well. After hearing the legend, Sadako decided to fold 1,000 cranes in hopes that she would get better. She passed away in 1955 with her family by her side. Her resilience and faith in the face of fatal illness inspired the world, and in 1958 the Children’s Peace Monument was erected to honor her and all those lost to the atomic bomb disease.
Contaminated Fukushima Chestnuts
Grandchildren of Hiroshima
[These] are images of loss and survival, fragments and lives, architecture and skin, surfaces and invisible things, like radiation. Exposure is at the core of this photographic project: exposure to radiation, to the sun, to light, to history, and exposures made from radiation, the sun, light and historical artifacts from the Peace Memorial Museum’s collection. After Hiroshima engages ethical seeing, visually registers warfare, and addresses the irreconcilable paradox of making visible the most barbaric as witness, artist, and viewer.
— Elin O’Hara Slavic, on After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima
Colorful Cutouts is series of photographs inspired by Nikolai Tolstyh. He uses nature to ‘color’ paper cutouts, paying close attention to how the environment affects the silhouette of his art. Instead of using paper as stencils, I subverted this style of photography by using paper cutouts and incorporating them into my background/photograph.
Animal Captivity is a short animatic about animal captivity that I wrote and directed. The visual assets were hand-drawn and rigged using Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro.
Screenworks (2023) is a digital triptych made using Adobe Photoshop. This series was designed to spread awareness about smartphone addiction, a common affliction affecting this generation. Each piece reflects the blurred boundaries between digital and physical reality, separated by a fragile screen.
William Eggleston (1939-) is an American photographer born in Memphis, Tennessee. He is often considered the pioneer of American color photography, most known for his ability to capture vivid colors, precise compositions, and emotional attachments. In his early career, he attended Vanderbilt University, Delta State College, and the University of Mississippi. He experimented with color photography, producing thousands of photographs that focused on ordinary Americans and the landscapes, objects, and architecture surrounding them. His unique approach to capturing the ‘ordinary’ with great compositional detail made him one of the largest influences on American pop culture.
Before his color photography, Eggleston worked in black & white. His early black and white photographs show the influence of The Decisive Moment, placing specific emphasis on angles and diagonals. His work was also heavily influenced by Robert Frank’s The Americans (1959) which captured portraits of the upper and working class in America. It drew the focus of photography from documenting people and their ‘interesting’ lives to the more invisible mundane.
from Memphis, 1965
Pages from MONOVISIONS: William Eggleston, Black & White (1950s) by William Eggleston
It was in the early 1970s when Eggleston discovered that printing with a dye-transfer process allowed him to control the colors of his photographs, allowing him to produce the vivid colors his shots are most known for. Color photography was no longer ‘vulgar’ as Walker Evans had once claimed. It quickly became a legitimate mode of photographic expression, going beyond its previous commercial use.
Pages from The Democratic Forest (1989) by William Eggleston
If you take off the viewfinder of the camera, you end up looking more intensely as you walk around. When it is time to make the photograph it is all ready for you. If you have looked intently you know where to point the thing. This makes you much freer, so you can hold the camera up in the air as if you were ten feet tall. Unlike a rifle, where you carefully aim following a dot or a scope, with a shotgun it’s done with feel […] Good shooting instructors will encourage you to follow through. It’s the opposite of the rational method. When I got the prints from this method, they looked like shotgun pictures.”
William Eggleston, from Ancient and Modern
Eggleston commonly referred to his pictures as ‘shotgun pictures’: the camera is the shotgun and the world is your target. You don’t take the time to look down the barrel to line things up, you shoot with a fluid movement as your body follows the target, keeping the gun moving after the shot and subconsciously ‘following through.’
The Red Ceiling, 1973
The significant turning point of dye-transfer photography was the completion of Eggleston’s ‘The Red Ceiling’ (1973) which captured a beautiful bright red that had never been seen before. Red was the most difficult color to work with. Eggleston explained that a little red is usually enough, but to work with an entire red surface posed a challenge for him. Completely red pictures were never heard of, outside of advertising. ‘The Red Ceiling’ was, and still is, powerful. The blood red in contrast with the white lightbulb and cables offers a sinister yet pleasing view.
Untitled Works (1965-1984) by William Eggleston
from Troubled Waters, 1980
from Election Eve, 1977
Washington D.C., 1990
from Memphis, 1972
More Untitled Works (1965-1990) by William Eggleston
Eggleston received a lot of criticism for taking pictures that reflected life in the South, which he resisted. He claimed that his photographs captured mundane subjects with an ominous or dreamlike quality. To break free from this characterization, Eggleston traveled extensively in the 1980s. The photos in his monograph The Democratic Forest (1989) included various scenes throughout the United States and Europe.
Egypt, 1986
Egypt, 1986
Egypt, 1986
Egypt, 1986
Kenya, 1980
Kenya, 1980
Kenya, 1980
Kenya, 1980
Untitled (1984) by William EgglestonUntitled (1970) by William EgglestonUntitled (1970) by William EgglestonUntitled (2000) by William Eggleston
The ‘democracy’ in Eggleston’s The Democratic Forest referred to the principle that everything was represented equally by the lens. The ordinary, mundane aspects of life would get equal attention. This was Eggleston’s artistic creed: grounded in the ordinary and fascinated by the mundane.
Krzysztof Wodiczko is world-renowned for his large-scale slide and video projections on architectural buildings and historical monuments. His works span the continents, including Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He focuses on working with marginalized people; including the homeless, immigrants, alienated youth, and war veterans, documenting and voicing their survival, communication, and expression in the public sphere.
‘If You See Something…‘ (2005) by Krzysztof Wodiczko
This media installation consists of 4 video projections, color, sound, and looping videos in various durations. It is a form of visual art and documentary storytelling that brings difficult issues to light, which I greatly admire. The fact that most figures in each projection are mostly faceless and monochromatic in color allows the audience to focus on their form and body language.
The phrase ‘If you see something, say something,‘ is familiar to New Yorkers who frequent the public transportation system. Not only does it serve as a reminder of the dangers of riding in public transportation post 9/11, but it also highlights the citizen’s responsibility to report any ‘suspicious’ behavior in the name of public safety. Wodiczko uses these haunting projections to reveal stories of power abuse, each ‘window’ offering a different story ranging from struggles of faith to immigrant alienation. Windows is a unique concept because it allows the public eye to see into private spaces, drawing questions regarding boundaries that define public and private spaces. It brings up the famous philosophical dilemma: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Just like these stories which happen behind closed doors, did they exist if nobody is around to listen? Most of Wodiczko’s works revolve around exploring the human narrative through documenting body language, voice audio, and symbolism.
‘Tijuana Projection‘ (2001) by Krzysztof Wodiczko
Tijuana Projection is an installation held at the Omnimax Theater at the Centro Cultural Tijuana. Using a headset with an integrated camera and microphone, Wodiczko projected the faces of participating women onto the spherical surface of the Omnimax Theater while they shared their personal experiences of abuse. This live performance allowed the audience to both see and hear the raw reactions of these victims as they recounted traumatic memories regarding sexual abuse, family disintegration, domestic violence, etc. once again bringing the ‘private’ stories into the ‘public.’ The installation was held for two nights to a city audience, literally magnifying these issues which were rarely talked about in society.
‘Hiroshima Projection‘ (1999) by Krzysztof Wodiczko
Last but not least, I wanted to show another one of Wodiczko’s brilliant installations that placed heavy emphasis on story-telling and body language. This installation was held at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, which was a historical site of significance for the Japanese. The building was the only structure that remained standing after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, serving as a symbol of hope for rebuilding post-World War II. Wodiczko found and interviewed survivors of the bombing, recording their voices and their hands which were projected onto the memorial. The Japanese term, hibakusha, is used to refer to these survivors, who were often discriminated against for being ‘tainted’ by the radiation. As a result, Wodiczko decided to deviate from his usual head-on approach of projecting portraits to projecting their hands instead. This way, their anonymity is preserved. It’s also interesting to see how expressive hands can be, and how much you can gain about the person’s experience from hand gestures.
Elin O’Hara Slavick (1965-) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores war, memory, feminism, and more through her works. Her After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima (2013) series is a collection of cyanotype prints curated to expose the haunting aftermath of the atomic bombings.
