After seeing all of those photography exhibitions and researching about it I came up with the idea that photography is drawing and/or telling a story through pictures. Photos passes a concept, an idea and also has a message. They have a purpose.
On the exhibition of Sebastião Salgado: Genesis at ICP is pretty clear the message it passes; the world steel has parts where the nature is in perfect condition, where the beauty and the essence of our being can be seeing. It shows regions that are untouched by the modern men, that didn’t suffer any technological intervention, where pure nature and ancient tribes can be found, and we all have to concern about it and protect.
Those regions can be found all over the world, from the National parks in USA, Wrangel Island in Russia to West Papua in Indonesia.
The photographs, which shows the Korowais pictures that they live exactly the same as humans used to live at Stone Age, by using stone tools and the Yali men who spend most of their time hunting and collecting insects, fruits and vegetables. Their guidance is their instinct of survival.
These kind of emotion, which grabs attention to the world’s main issues can also be seeing on the photojournalism of Ashley Gilbertson about the second battle of Falluja at The New York Times Magazine exhibition at Aperture Gallery.
It can also be seeing on Sebastião Salgado photo-essay of the Persian Gulf when it was invaded by the U.S. troops in 1991. It was a great photo-essay because he anticipated a great story, as it was mentioned on the description of his work at the gallery. He wanted to take pictures of that because when the fighting finish the landscape would be trashed and he wanted to be there to document it.
The New York Times Magazine exhibition has an enormous variety of photographs, from photojournalism to portraiture and so on. The interesting thing was seeing the different kinds of photographs, the different messages that the pass to the viewer.
I was amazed with the portfolio that the magazine does every year of the best actors of the year. It seems that those pictures were taken from a movie, that the actors were acting; specially on that picture from Juliane Moore:
Then I discovered that some of the photographers who photographed those pictures usually don’t photograph celebrities. Probably thats why the pictures were so different than normal celebrities portraits.
With that I also visualize a citation from Irving Penn that I saw at Moma:
Other great examples of experimentation:
Olimpic Athletes photos shoot by Ryan McGinley at Aperture Gallery:
The playfulness of prints in the Prints and Revolution photos shoot by Malick Sidibé at Aperture Gallery:
The photo Three Color Curl by Walead Beshty at the exhibition A World of its Own at Moma, which involved placing objects directly onto light-sensitive paper and exposing it to light:
The photo montage in the Composite Photo of Two Messes on the Studio Floor at the exhibition A World of its Own at Moma:
Another thing that I found interesting and helpful is the fact that a photograph of a simple scene from our everyday life can also be beautiful and interesting as the photographs at Edward Hopper and Photography exhibition at Whitney Museum.
Untitled (north by northwest) by Gregory Crewdson:
I found a great interview with Kathy Ryan about the exhibition that is on the aperture gallery website: http://www.aperture.org/traveling-exhibitions/the-new-york-times-magazine-photographs/
And I also found this great interview with Kathy Ryan where she gives advice to photography student. This is also a great advice for us, graphic design students as we also want to express an idea or tell a story in an effective way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bmdS3R9PJk
Process & Skills 