As this week is reading week I decided to take a brief moment away from practical testing and look further into the work of photographers Joel Sternfeld and John Davies who have been highly influential to the development of my practice both conceptually and visually. I was offered the chance to look through a physical copy of Sternfeld’s American Prospects, which features an incredible series of 55 colour images taken with an 8 x 10 large format camera. The scale and quality of these photographs are translated well into the photobook and I found myself taking a considerable amount of time observing the abundance of features captured within the frame. Each shot feels strongly considered and it is apparent Sternfeld has a good understanding of how to encapsulate this stereotypical “american” atmosphere. Here are a few of my favourite images from the book
I also looked through John Davies’ Cross Currents, a photo book which summarises 8 years of work about the architectural and topographical similarities between the 12 member states of the European Community. Whilst this project documents the correlations within these places, it also highlights the apparent differences between locations and how it is our questioning of these comparisons which unite us as a collective. I was drawn in by the stunning imagery within this photobook, similarly to Sternfeld’s “American Prospects” I was driven to really contemplate the imagery and attentively observe the contribution each feature had to the overall composition. These works have inspired me greatly to experiment further with medium format cameras as I feel the scale and quality will effectively complement my project.
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