doesn’t express “solitude’ to me, and the following image (Thanksgiving Day) expresses something....but I’m not sure quite what. Perhaps because the guy seems a bit cramped in the space of those two images, or maybe because he comes after the previous busy image, I just feel the last three images in this series don’t live up to the promise of the first two. The final image, I do love the old man sitting on his bed, but when he’s looking at us from the bed - we (the viewer) are with him, so he isn’t physically alone (though I will agree that physical solitude is different than emotional solitude) - which actually brings up the question - are you photographing the physical or emotional states of being?
I absolutely LOVE the first two images in this series though. LOVE LOVE LOVE them.
Brent Clark’s School Night project is slightly disappointing in the technical realm, but I feel as though the emotional impact is all there. Starting with the first image of the child bouncing off the bed in the darkness with the light of late evening still strong and bright through the window brought me back immediately to my childhood, and having to go to bed while it was still light out. Carrying through the rituals of getting ready for bed, the family dynamic, this series is very strong for the associations it successfully calls forth. Despite some shots that were a bit too dark and a few details here and there
Yael doesn’t have much work on his website, but I really loved the Solitudes series, and would love to see the idea fleshed out a bit more. The first image of a guy crashing his toy cars together just grabbed me, and then the diptych of the girl stirring her espresso and the light on the table was a great follow up. There is a stillness in these images which underscores the idea of solitude. But then, the image of the woman dressed up to go out (Saturday Night Fever), while it seems a bit lonely,
that bothered me, I think the staging and shooting of the images is very successful. Looking at the image to the left, I can hear my mother’s voice “did you brush your teeth? Pack your bag with all your homework?” and my brother mumbling ‘no’ as he fiddled with a toy that he wanted just a few more minutes with....
It’s work like this that shows the way family photography can be the most successful. Obviously, Brent is intimate with this family, yet the intimate and personal nature of the work still maintains a universal quality.
I had a really hard time picking which of Rania Matar’s portfolios I wanted to write about. I loved them all. I don’t usually go for documentary work, but I feel like this work is all a self exploration in addition to being documentary. Rania writes eloquent statements about each project on her website, and the intimacy with which she approaches the work is obvious. I really can’t criticize the work, only flatter, because it’s well edited and shows exactly what the statements say she is trying to show.
So with specific attention to the Women of Islam series (though this could easily be said of the Veil series as well), what I liked is the removal of the sense of ‘other’ that the media
usually offers of the devout in Islam, specifically regarding the women. This image especially makes me imagine a joke just shared among girlfriends, and I wish more images out there in the media would allow different cultural barriers to be broken down - see that while devout Christians, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs - all have varying markers of their identity and beliefs, there is a lot that unites us. I really encourage anyone who hasn’t taken the time yet to please visit Rania’s site. Her work really is beautiful.