Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark has traveled to make pictures that reflect a high degree of humanism. Today, she is recognized as one of our most respected and influential photographers. Her images of our world's diverse cultures have become landmarks in the field of documentary photography. Her portrayals of Mother Teresa, Indian circuses, and brothels in Bombay were the product of many years of work in India. A photo essay on runaway children in Seattle became the basis of the academy award nominated film Streetwise, directed and photographed by her husband, Martin Bell. She is best known for being a documentary photographer, photojournalist, portrait taker, and advertising work.
"She demands clarity of issue, excellence of technique, and the ability of any image to stand alone. To elaborate, while editing she abstracts herself from the circumstances of taking the photograph. Mark is not a prisoner of nostalgic memory such as, "this is the woman who fed me when I was hungry in Mexico," "this was a good/bad day for me," or "the man in the hat had survived many tragedies," and so forth. The image itself, therefore, must prove its own reason for existing that will be meaningful, in some way, for the viewer."
Mark says, "I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul, and I think you have to be clear about that."

Start of Sequence as a Story Blog

Art Wolfe- a great landscape and travel photographer that I was reading about in the library. The book was photographs of landscapes and native cultures. I checked out his site and he is also shooting the world's fastest-disappearing wildlife. His vision and passionate wildlife advocacy affirm his dedication to his work. By employing artistic and journalistic styles, he documents his subjects and educates the viewer. His photographs show his love for the environment. His images take my breath away. Aerial shoots are amazing. He shoots people> festival, hair, human nature, portraits, world children. His places are what I am most drawn to> aerial, architecture, spotlight, surreal land. The spotlight is very interesting because it is a landscape where one part of the image is highlighted from a spotlight. It could be a whole mountain in a landscape, or a circle on a huge mountain, or inside a cave, a spotlight shinning down, or a spotlight of the sun through the clouds, etc. Wildlife includes camouflage. You don't see the animal at first, you have to really look at the image to see how the wild animal blends in with its environment. Lions in the savanna, wolves in the woods, cheetahs in grass, owls in the tree bark, white wolves in the snow, seal in the snow, etc. Wildlife also has single moment captures. This is where he gets the shot of action or movement. These are really amazing. The eagle scooping up food from the water, lions attacking a bison, a cheetah killing an antelope, a bear catching a fish, a seal about to kill its dinner, penguins jumping, hippos yawning, polar bears fighting, bats flying, horses running in water, bears swimming, birds flying, etc. They are moments that he captured. Prob. a very high shutter speed for the ones where the action is frozen in time. The environment with animals shows the animal and most of the image is showing its surrounding environment. In most of these images, he is getting pretty close to the animals, even if he used a 500mm lens. Last in this section is portrait of animals. This is basically him shooting just the animal close up. For all we know, these animals could be in captivity because we can't see their environment. Last category is impressions. This is showing color, pattern, repetition, shape, contrast, texture, framing the subject. He has prints available. Panoramas at 40" is $600! 50" is $1,000, and 70" is $1,500. Don't get me wrong, they are amazing, and I would love to have them, but it is so expensive for a print that isn't matted or framed. He has published 26 books! He is my new Favorite photographer!!

http://www.artwolfe.com/index.html

Imapix

Imapix is a Nature photography company. Wildlife including deer, birds, cows, wolves, sled dogs, owls, eagles, foxes, horses, cats, dogs, ducks, and insects. There is a combination of action, emotion, and interaction in the wildlife shots. Then there are landscapes, close ups of flowers, and also some action of dog sled racing, and bicycle racing. Overall, I think his work is very strong because of the subject, lighting, color, and the general impact it has on the viewer. 

I am interested in wildlife photography; but more wild and exotic animals. My life dream since I was little is to go to the mountains of China and photography wild giant pandas in their environment. I would hope that my pictures would inspire people to help save these endangered animals. I would also like to go and photography animals in a safari in Africa, penguins in Antarctica, the Galapagos, and the rainforest. I hope to travel to all of these places and photography wildlife and landscapes there.

 

Christian Frolich

I love this work. I found it on Flickr. He shoots landscapes, portraits, and commercial work. He has black and white landscapes, and also bright amazing colored landscapes. He has many shots near the beach. He also adds his own texture to many images. There are some with special paper on multiply, tree bark texture, and crumpled paper in the background. I like the ones with texture because I look at these images longer because they are not normal. I think the color in his images is strong, bright, contrasty and eye catching. It looks like he has traveled to many different oceans to get his seascapes and lighthouses. I am inspired by his photographs because landscapes and seascapes is a realm of photography I am really interested in. 

http://www.frolichphoto.com/ 

conclusion

Overall, I loved dig. photo this semester. I wasnt sure if I was going to take it because of field hockey practice everyday. I really didnt like missing field hockey 2x a week; but when you have a passion for two things in your life, you need to balance them out. I loved working with sports photography and developing my skills. I liked printing with Epson and scanning negatives. I used acrylic gel for the first time so that was a learning experience. I have never heard what a dyp tic was until this class and I think it posses a very interesting concept. I love the impossible image project and doing research for it on worth1000.com. I have thought really hard about my major and decided I want to get a b.a. in photography as well as a b.f.a in graphic design. I am excited to continue developing my skills.

John Heyn

John Heyn graduated from Kean University with a B.A. in Photographic and Graphic Arts Education in 1978 and has been heavily involved in photography for the last 27 years.
John founded Heyn Photography in 1988, specializing in wedding and portrait photography and building off his previous experiences as a freelance wedding photographer for major studios throughout New Jersey.
Since then, he has won numerous awards for his wedding photography in both New Jersey state and national print competitions, including the Professional Photographers Association of New Jersey's (PPANJ) most prestigious award, 2006 Photographer of the Year. In 2002 he took the Fuji Masterpiece Award and a blue ribbon in the New Jersey state competition for his moving image entitled Night Moves. John has been a member of the Professional Photographers Association of New Jersey (PPANJ) since 1989, the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) since 1988 and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

He passes on his passion for photography by teaching photo levels 1-4 at Monmouth Regional High School. He was my photo teach in high school.

Edward Noumair

"When you love something that much, it doesn't matter how hard it is, you just do it." Edward Noumair, Professional Photographer from Asbury Park. He started his own photography studio in 1939 and has been in the business for 60 years. He became insterested in photography during high school when he joined a photography club and the teacher in charge of the department encouraged and supported his interest in photography. He continued with this photography class for a couple of years and during that time he photographed many school projects as well as individuals students in the school.
During the summers he worked for Mitchell Liebsman, a man who ran a concession on the boardwalk, called The Action Photo Company. He used a DeVry Motion Picture camera, which converted to a single action photographic process. By the time he graduated from high school, he felt encouraged enough to start his own business. He found a little store on Summerfield Avenue and rented it for $25.00 a month.
In 1942, when the war broke out, he closed up my shop, covered and stored all my equipment and joined the US Marines for the next four years. There, he photographered all kinds of things. He was frequently sent up to perform mapping duties.
After the war, Edward returned to Summerfield Ave to continue his business. He soon had a very good customer base and was known for his work. In those days, he was pretty much the only photographer serving Deal, Interlaken, Neptune, Bradley and all the towns along the coast down to and including Belmar. Because his business was flurishing, he purchased a studio on Bangs Ave in Asbury. That is where he worked until he retired.
Edward shot portraits, weddings, group portraits and modeling. He served as the Professional Photographer's Association of New Jersey president in 1980. He has earned many awards for his photographs from this association.
He retired in 1999. In the past year, he has invested in his own digital nikon SLR and computer. He is also going to set up a darkroom in his garage to make prints from his old negatives of historic Asbury Park. Edward just turned 88 years old.

He is my grandfather, and the reason I became interested in photograhy.