Oxford School of Photography

insights into photography

Faded + Blurred

I stumbled across this blog and realised it has the same ethos as ours namely it is people who are interested in photography talking about photography

Initially a way for a group of friends to keep track of monthly photo walks, Faded + Blurred has evolved into a fantastic online resource for creative inspiration, shared by a community of photographers, both amateur and professional, who are dedicated to the art and craft of making images. This is what they say about themselves, sounds like us.

Here for example is a brilliant article about Bill Brandt

“It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.” – Bill Brandt

Heralded by many as Britain’s greatest modern photographer, Bill Brandt was a man who never took a photograph unless he had something to say. On par with Man Ray, Brassai, and Atget, Brandt accomplished what few photographers have been able to do (either before or since), which is to successfully bridge the gap between photojournalism and documentary photography all the way to the other end of the spectrum of fine art. His work is characterized by stark contrasts between black and white and strong geometrical structures, whether the images are of a miner bringing home his coal for the day or the nude form of a woman on a rocky beach…..READ MORE HERE

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and here is another about Gregory Crewdson

“My pictures must first be beautiful, but that beauty is not enough. I strive to convey an underlying edge of anxiety, of isolation, of fear. ” – Gregory Crewdson

Few photographers have had such a dramatic impact on photography as Gregory Crewdson. Like Richard Avedon or Henri Cartier-Bresson before him, Crewdson fundamentally changed not only the photographic language, but also the process of creating images and, in doing so, established himself as one of the most visionary photographers of the last decade. His photographs hang in museums, galleries and private collections all over the world and can sell for upwards of $100,000, but seeing him on the set of one of his productions, you might think he looks more like a film director than what has traditionally been the image of a photographer. In fact, he rarely even presses the shutter button. “I prefer not to be behind the camera,” he says, “because I want the most direct experience with the subject as possible.” Creating one of his photographs means dozens of crew members, unbelievably large budgets, and magnificent environments that require sets to be built or streets and neighborhoods to be temporarily shut down. Large in scale and obsessively detailed, they are made even bigger by what the viewer doesn’t see. “In all my pictures,” he says “what I am ultimately interested in is that moment of transcendence or transportation, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.” READ MORE HERE

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The people behind Faded + Blurred are Jeffery Saddoris is a mixed media artist and designer whose love for photography started in the darkroom of his high school photo class. Jeffery is also the co-host of the weekly photography podcast, On Taking Pictures on the 5by5 Network. Nicole Rae (Nikki) is a food and fine art photographer. In 2008, Nikki won the Aperture photo contest, just one year after picking up a camera. In 2012, she co-wrote and photographed Chill, an eBook all about ice cream. See her fantastic food photography at Simmer & Shoot.

I would suggest you hurry over to their wonderful blog site for more of what you love fb-logo-header-l

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