Zone Zero

During my photography class, I was required to check out a large variety of photographic textbooks, publications, databases, and websites. While this could sometime be pedantic, the one great thing about this was that it really gave me an appreciation for a variety of shooting styles and motifs in photography. More over, it really re-enforced the fact that, like many art forms, photography is fairly subjective and what you may consider fabulous, could be seen as absolute shit by the next person.

One of the most fascinating websites that I had look at was a site called Zone Zero. The website, an online repository for photography, is named after the Zone System popularized by famous landscape photographer Ansel Adams. Its name, though, is also a metaphor for the transition from analog (film) to digital photography and thus tries to present images that are beautiful and important not because of how they were taken, but why.

Acknowledging subjectivity and inspiration, I choose the following three portfolios from Zone Zero, one nude, one landscape, and one of street photography because I think they show a good range of style. Also I think that all of as works are very interesting and beautiful.
*For the full portfolio, click on the name of the artist*


Gisele Gomes - Nude
credit: Flotando (Floating)


Adrían Markis - Landscape
credit: Lago Negro (Black Lake)


Stephen Harrison - Street Photography
credit: Untitled

Flikr Friends

Last summer, about the time that I started this blog, I created a free Flikr account so that I could post high quality photos to this blog without having to worry about a loss in resolution. This was something that I thought I would use now and again but never very seriously. However, as with many things that I started last summer, it has become immeasurably useful not only as a photographic repository, but also as somewhat of a portfolio.

One of the great things about Flikr is the ability to 'follow' various photographer's and artist's accounts. What this does is keeps you up to date with their current work. However, I also happen to personally know a lot of people who use Flikr as a posting medium for their work and so I follow them for that reason as well.

Anyways, for this week's 'weekly' photo essay, I decided to showoff some of my friend's work. of photos from 5 different people I follow. The pictures vary in subject matter and style, but all I think are very well done and show the personality of the photographer. If you would like to see more a specific photographer, simply click on their name.

1. mwolfish- Melissa Wolfish


2. harrislapiroff - Harris Lapiroff


3. smabrams521 -


4. munchkinmaayan -


5. tyrian3791 - Becky

Offensive Photography

In my photography class, we were once told to gather a collection of ten images that we thought were offensive. Some people used scenes of racism, some used extreme body modification, and some simply used really graphic photos. When viewing these images, I found some offensive and I found some disturbing, but I couldn't really get my head around what I really considered offensive photography.

When I eventually got down to it, I decided that what was important for me to do before I trying to complete this assignment was to deconstruct what it actually was: OFFENSIVE and PHOTOGRAPHY. Sure, there were things that were offensive, but they would have been offensive in any medium; what I wanted to find were things not only offensive but offensive to photography and photographers specifically.

What I decided to focus on were photograph that were taken with expensive or very high-end equipment (such as the Leica M8, the Nikon D3 or the Canon EOS 5D Mark II) but for some reason for another ended up being lacklustre, inappropriately editted in post production, or just taken in a manner inconsistent with the level of equipment (such as using a D3 in the manner of a point-and-shoot). To find these images I perused photosharing sites such as Flickr, looking specifically in groups dedicated to high-end equipment. My choice of Flickr as the source for photos was intentional because I believe that if you are going to display your photographs, they should never be your subpar work — and that is exactly what I was looking for. It is this combination of being poorly done and them shown that I find to be offensive photography; to me it speaks of a lack of professionalism, and a lack of caring both of which I think are intrinsic to photography.

With this in mind, I choose the following images:













NOTE: Just because a picture by a photographer has appeared here does not mean that they are a bad photographer in general, just that I though this specific photo of theirs was 'offensive.'

Photographers of Interest

Even though this blog has been mostly about food so far, if you check out the earliest entries, let it be noted that photography and cinematography are also [theoretically] mainstays as well.

Anyways, I have been meaning to post some of my photographic work and projects for a while now, but I unfortunately always get distracted right about the time that I mean to upload them. However, I recently enrolled in a Visual/Production Art class on B/W Film photography (which requires me to keep a blog) and as such, I have finally got my ass in gear and decided to start putting up photographic work/posts.

One of our earliest assignments was to compile a list of ten photographers. These could be anyone, but the one caveat given was to try to stay away from famous people everyone knows, like Ansel Adams. For my list, I decided to choose an eclectic mix of people I follow on flikr, some professional photographers from around where I lived, a few art and conceptual photographers, and some photojournalists. All in all, the people I choose are not extremely famous and each are unique from the rest of the list in someway, whether it is a cute gimmick-ey aspect or if they are just really good with composition. And without further ado...

10 Photographers of Interest

Allan Teger - http://www.bodyscapes.com/

This photographer did an interesting project involving photographing nudes. However instead of going towards an erotic, or 'ideal beauty' kind of end, he instead completely dehumanizes his models, turning them into nothing more than landscapes.

Hiroshi Sugimoto - http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/

Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer who I found recently who does really amazing conceptual/mixed media photography. If you look on his website there are not too many of his photographs, but descriptions of his project: why he did them and what they are. These descriptions, more than the actual work itself, is what I really find interesting about him: every idea is so fresh and different

Michael Yon - http://www.michaelyon-online.com/eight-years-after-911.htm
Michael Yon is former soldier turned combat journalist. He has been living/photographing out of Afghanistan since 2004 and, as such has some amazing access. Some of his photos are fairly boring, but the majority of them really demonstrate that photojournalism doesn't have to be flat and non-aesthetically pleasing.

Perry Thompson - http://perphoto.com/
Perry Thompson is a professional photographer living and working out of Calgary. The reason that I though he was very interesting was his work with wedding photography and (not online) erotic portraiture, both I though were very well done (more often than not)

Haje Jan Kamps - http://www.flickr.com/photos/photocritic/
Haje Jan Kamps (more commonly known as photocritic) is a the author photocritic.org (the only photograhpy blog I read on a regular basis). I find his stuff really well executed in general, which is especially impressive as he shoots a wide a variety of subject matter.

Michael Bosanko - http://www.michaelbosanko.com/portfolio8407.html
Michael Bosanko is a very cool English photographer who does a lot of work with LED lights and long exposure shots; essentially creating what he calls light paintings — drawing images with lights during long exposures to great fantastic images.

Bunnyrel (Flickr username) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bunnyrel/sets/72157615647396658/
Bunnyrel (real name: Arielle) is an interesting photographer that I discovered a while back. Her photography isn't especially amazing, but she is doing a very interesting project called "365 days of DANBOARD" in which she shoots this figurine that she has in a variety of settings, which I think is very well done and definitely worth checking out.

Sakura (Flikcr username) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sakura-kame/
Sakura is another photographer that I discovered through Flickr. The aspect that really drew me to her work is the crispness and clarity of her macro photography, both of which I found quite amazing and impressive.

Trey Ratclif - http://www.stuckincustoms.com/10-principles-of-beautiful-photography/
Trey Ratclif is a photographer that does almost all of his finished work with HDR (High Dynamic Range) imagery, a genre which I often think is too over the top, and mostly looks like shit. However, his images I think are (mostly) a perfect balance of the more-than-real nature of HDR combined with the intangible detail of reality, something I found admirable and inspiring.

Ellie Won - http://www.insanitytheory.net/kitchenwench/
Ellie Won is a photographer that I discovered because of my love of food (and more specifically, food blogs). If you look at her Flickr account, her photography — in general — is of high quality, but of her work, what I think stands out the most is her food photography. All of the food just looks so appetizing, and succulent (and as she is just cooking for herself/friends, you know the food isn't doctored with stuff like motor oil, to make it more photogenic)