Comments on my two books--Jack Zhang

This week I read over two books that both turned out to be quite interesting and aspiring in their own ways. Both are monograph, and the first one is “Street Portraits” by Michael Itkoff, the second one, which, in my opinion, also a better one, is “Paradise Road” by Brian Sweeney.

First I’d like to briefly talk about the Street Portraits. Michael Itkoff is a photographer and professor at the School of Visual Arts, New York City. This is one of his three major projects. It spanned several years and included photographers taken at the streets of multiply metropolitan city, including Hanoi, Vietnam, Bangkok, Thailand, Sydney, Australia, London, England, and of course, the New York City. The pictures in this books follows one general format: random people chosen from the streets are photographer for a full portrait with a white “makeshift” backdrop behind their head. The proportion between the body and the backdrop is so that the backdrop seemed to be a white background for a passport picture. And these pictures are not meticulous at all. In fact, one could often see the foot of the assistant who is standing behind the subject, holding the backdrop, to appear in the frame. And the artist obviously didn’t mean to erase those traces. And it’s those little that gave me a sense of realness of the streets. Yet, the negative space created by the backdrop extracts these person from their environment and presents to us, the person himself. It surprising how my perception of the picture differs when I switch my attention between the surrounding, and that negative space. It crudely combined the relationship of the person to its environment and the mere existence of the person himself. And the effect is aspiring. Just like the photographer said, “the use of the white board allow the viewer to take a look at the subject within and without the confines of the city.”

Another focus of Michael Itkoff is the cultural diffusion on a global scale. He sees that not only the buildings around the world are similar, so is the way people dress himself. According to him, people dress a certain to feel fit to a culture, which is spread globally by modern media and advertisements. The homogeneity of the world is becoming more and more obvious.

The second book is much different but more related to the topic of this class. It’s mostly landscape with some other elements of the nature. I particularly enjoyed this book not only because I have always felt delighted to see things like beautiful clouds and flowing water, but Brain has truly elevated these elements to another level. The essay was at the end of the book, so after all the pictures, I learned that he is a religious business man. Indeed, I sensed the “sublimity” and maybe the “godhead” in his pictures. The last section of the pictures were devoted to one very interesting type of pictures. The sky and the sea surfaces are conceptualized to almost pure colors and the contraction between these two huge “color blocks” amazes me. And I also gained many techniques and unique perspectives from the way he conveys the scene. Despite the fact that he is an amateur photographer, the works are truly aspiring. I dwelled on several pictures for a couple of minutes, giving them much thoughts and allowing them to convey the message. Though the book is not fairly cheap, I would like to purchase one for my collection.