Week 4

Now were coming to the end of the year, I've been noticing a lot of pages people have created looking back on the photography of 2009. It's weird looking back on everything and I can hardly believe so much has happened in a year. Some things I had forgotten about and needed to be reminded of. Historic elections were held in Iran, India and the US, some wars wound down while others escalated, Micheal Jackson died and China turned 60. These sites are really interesting and a great way of summing up a year from a non-personal perspective. Some of my favourites are the LA Times' 2009 in focus: The best of Times photography and the Boston Globe's 2009 in photo's.

Week 3

I've been spending a lot of time this week looking at the photo's of Zoriah Miller. The critically acclaimed photographer specialises in what he describes as "concerned" or "humanitarian" photography. He started off working in disaster management and humanitarian aid in developing countries but found that aid organisations are horrible to work for and the waste and miss-management made him angry. I can relate to this because I felt the exact same thing during my time in Kenya. He says that you need to find a balance: you need to spend enough time in a place to understand the situation and get close to the people you are photographing , but often if you stay too long, things start to become normal to you and you are not able to capture the intensities of a situation. This was a huge problem for me while I was in Kenya, but it's something I have learned from and will change when I go back. He also had some good advice for photojournalist's about how to cope with intense situations - 'it is important to realise that these situations exist, whether we see them or not. The choice is whether or not we do something about them. I choose to do something, but not let the sadness or depression ruin my life.' (some advice Kevin Carter could have done with.) When asked about his motivation, he simply says "My motivation is pretty simple..... I just want to change the world........ and I'm pretty sure I can do it."

It's difficult to get Zoriah's images, but you can check them out on his website - www.zoriah.com. he also has a separate website specifically for war photography - warphotographer.org .

Week 2

I came across Simon Bond in an article in the metro called 'The crystal gaze'. Born in Winchester, Bond moved to Korea and wanted to make images that expressed how different it was. Taking photographs through a glass sphere is his way of capturing scenes that don't seem real. "Travelling around Asia I often found myself seeing such alien images,' he says. 'Some of the sights are so different from back home I felt like what I was seeing wasn't real. I wanted to capture that on the camera. One of my favourites is the image of Suncheon Bay, which is popular with photographers and has been pictured to death. I was trying to find a way to get a fresh angle on it and realised the ball would bring a great new dimension.'

Week 1

http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php

Yesterday my housemate sent me a stumble upon link for Steve McCurry's website. I think he sent it to me because he recognised one of his photo's from the cover of at Nat Geo book I've got. I'm not really sure why I've never searched him before because I found his photograph (from the front of my book) of the female refugee on the Afganistan/ Pakistan boarder really compelling and extremely empathetic. He's an excellent photographer all round but I find his portrait work the most interesting. He says 'Most of my pictures are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experiance etched on a person's face. I try to covey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that I guess you'd call the human condition.'