Corine Vermuelen is a Dutch Artist working in Detroit,  and had set up a pop up portrait studio and documented people who came in from off the street. I hope to be able to set up multiple pop up studio's across the Metro Detroit area to be able to document many different people from around the area in hopes to capture the different sub cultures of fashion and popular culture influences.

Jaejin Hwang

I found Hwang's series Asleep interesting. The series tries to show the ambiguous distinction between a peaceful death and falling asleep with the approach of random and natural things that occur in our daily lives. Some of the images are move obvious when it comes to determining if it is asleep or had a "peaceful death," but some left you wondering which one it could be. The tree images were the most powerful in that aspect in my opinion because of the eerie feeling they give off.
Being able to show a difference between falling asleep and a peaceful death in subtle ways is inspiring for me, based on my project on daydreams. I wanted to combine both reality with the daydream. I had a more straight forward approach to the concept where Hwang had a subtle approach.

Whilst I am Drawing Breath

 Whilst I am Drawing Breath, Amy Elkins
Amy is a photographer born in 1979 living in the Los Angles area. She earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her most recent work deals a lot with male gender identity through topics of athleticism and dance. She won the Aperture prize with her long-tern project Black is the Day, Black is the Night, which explores masculinity and vulnerability of men serving life and death row sentences at prisons in the U.S.

Though there was no artist statement about the series I chose to write about, I was able to conjure up my own thoughts on the work. I think it relates to the type of work I hope to make in that is about the personal experience, identity, transitory states and vulnerability. The title "Whilst I am Drawing Breath" suggests the importance of the current moment; her life the way she sees it at this moment in time and everything that comes with being alive and breathing. In these images, I think it is obvious that she is not really optimistic. She has constant thoughts of wanting to be somewhere else, or maybe even be someone else. Even so, she chooses to make images of her life the way it is and about her feelings the way they are. The rest of the series is very dream-like and gives me the feeling of sitting around, staring out a window into nothingness.

 

Carrie M. Becker

Carrie M. Becker is a visual artist who creates rooms that appear abandoned and cold. She will destroy a room to make it look years older. Becker uses natural lighting and uses the view from her apartment as a back ground. She uses various methods of creating realistic household objects.

She creates images that speak to loneliness and hoarding. She makes all her own pieces and works to capture a feeling rather than a photograph.

Jason Evans

I saw these photos in SeeSaw magazine,  that has an explanation of the photographer Jason Evans. "He enjoys a varied practice and in equally interested in making an album cover, an editorial fashion story or gallery project. He enjoys the dialogues of collaboration and prefers working intuitively."
This project is called: Street. "Some times you visit a place and it looks too much like you expected it to... like feeling of nostalgia for something you've never known" mentioned by the artist.
In these photos we can simultaneously see different scenes of a city. Some details that might  be ignored by a regular pedestrian in a crowded city,  are  significant part of the photos. By looking at the photos you can feel the atmosphere of the city and even can imagine all the sounds that can be heard.
http://www.seesawmagazine.com/jasonevanspages/jasonevans01.html

Why I Believe New York's Art Scene Is Doomed.
 

“I am tired of photography.”

– Asger Carlsen

"Hester"

 

 

     I found Asger Carlsen on ASX as I was browsing though their photo manipulation archives.  This article doesn't provide as much background on him as I would like, so I googled him an found an interview with him through Vice.  Carlsen is Danish, and worked as a photographer since he was 16.  His first real job as a photographer was working as a crime photographer, then later on moved to commercial photography.  Finally he found his niche in photography by experimenting with photo manipulation.
     His work, "Hester" (shown above) is a combination of sculpture and photography.  Carlsen claims that his skill in photography doesn't really play any part in his work anymore.  He prefers the manipulation/sculpting part, so that is that main focus of his art.   
     I chose this series of photographs because of his quote, "I am tired of photography."  After I read this, I immediately decided to write about it, to sort of work through my own similar feelings.  I began to feel drawn toward photography as an 8th grader, unfortunately for the wrong reasons (myspace default picz), but nevertheless, I ended up continuing this path, and eventually became interested in fine art photography as I moved into the college level courses.  However, as I took my foundations courses, I've started to appreciate the intimacy of art done with your hands.  That's what drew me to Carlsen's work.  He combines the intimacy of painting or drawing, with the aesthetic of a photograph, and I hope to use this in my future work.
     As for interpretation, Carlsen himself said that there's not much behind his photographs.  They're just visual.  In my opinion, that's not how photography should be, but I really respect his manipulation skills, so I still enjoy it.  The interviewer from Vice mentioned that the style these are photographed in is very similar to a photograph of an actual sculpture or piece of art, and I definitely noticed when I first saw the series.  Overall, absolutely a series that gets me thinking about my own art, and for that, I'm thankful.