5 Photographers That Find Beauty in The Mundane
Written by Amy Smithers for #PHOTOGRAPHY Magazine
Happy World Photo Day!
Celebrating 177 years, today marks the invention of the Daguerreotype process developed by Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre in 1837. The first event started in 2010, reaching more people every year, so what better way to celebrate than to introduce you to 5 photographers that have recently caught our eye.
“Photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them” — Elliott Erwitt
It’s widely considered that you need the best camera equipment, training and years in art school to find the most remarkable subject matter, and create impeccable compositions. Although those factors are vital to a degree, we forget how wonderful and intriguing our everyday life is. If we change our perspective, on our camera or in our minds, we can often create something magnificent or amusing in places we never expected it to be.
With this quote in mind, we present to you 6 talented photographers that find the beauty in the everyday…
(Wizard of Oz 1930)
(Rope 1948)
Jason Shulman creates long-exposure images capturing full-length films on a single negative. A concept started as an experiment when Shulman exposed a film from his laptop to his camera.
Each photograph has a diverse outcome, Shulman explains this happens due to each director changing the scene at different paces and including a range of settings and people. Each image symbolises and exhibits a cinematic masterpiece yet remaining visually minimalistic, compelling the viewer to focus on hue and texture.
Leenders series ‘Tokyo Monogatari’ demonstrates a visualised cohesion between modern day life and traditional culture in Tokyo. Leenders excels at capturing the simplistic beauty of portraits and natural still life in urban landscapes, exaggerating cool tones and exposure. The white architecture is complemented by vibrant greens creating a futuristic aesthetic, exploring the visual absence of traditional heritage of Tokyo.
(Office Lunching Habits © NEON)
(Fad Diets)
Los Angeles-based photographer, Stephanie Gonot, photographs still life objects on colourful, simplistic backgrounds assembling them in creative compositions. In this series, ‘Office Lunching Habits’ and ‘Fad Diets’ the objects are things we come across everyday without taking a second glance, but Gonot enhances the object’s aesthetic with repetitive patterns and visually pleasing colour schemes. Turning the subject matter into artistic sculpture, she masters the ability to capture beauty in the mundane.
(Rabi Tale, a popular novelist, in the courtyard of her office at the Ministry of Information on October 3 in Kano, Northern Nigeria. She is one of the few novelists who has a “day job” in an office. Many men allow their wives to write because they can do so without leaving the house. © Blink Network)
(A novel sits on the bedside table of a young girl in Kano, Northern Nigeria, March 1, 2014. © Blink Network)
Documentary photographer and photojournalist, Glenna Gordon, captures significant portrait and allegorical imagery of humanity and loss. Raising Stakes is a series set in Northern Nigeria focusing on love, marriage and education.
Many of the women are novelists often writing stories centered around love and relationships. Gordon’s recent work documents these stories and symbolises lives using artifacts instead of traditional portrait photography.
Rear Window is centered around residential buildings in capital cities, displaying homogeneous architecture and neutral colour schemes. Buildings usually have simplistic and private façades since being exposed to the public, whereas the rear view conveys a more organic way of life; sometimes clutter, laundry and plants. Huisman documents the lives of people we can’t see through artifacts and architecture, exhibiting a different style of portraiture.
