Yeriel Benitez's ART 227 Blog

Sebastiao Delgado is a 78-year-old Brazilian photojournalist that was born in Aimores, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He is famous for traveling basically everywhere, in over 120 countries, for his photos. In these photos, he documents a love for nature and the socio-economic issues that impact us, humans. He was inspired by the revival of his land. Sebastiao wanted to properly preserve memories of places he went to, along with racing awareness of their destruction.  This black and white photograph is of Sebastiao in his homeland of Brazil. This piece also has a piece of his artwork in it. It is one of his most famous works and it shows seals and penguins on a muddy incline. I like this picture because it's an art piece in an art piece. I like how this self-portrait does not have him looking exactly into the camera, but at his artwork instead. This contains a lot of different tonalities and I enjoy the complexity of this piece. This picture is definitely the favorite that I have se

 Herb Ritts was born on August 13,1952 in Los Angeles. He became an American photographer and his specialty was in fashion. He was famous for revolutionizing fashion photography by modernizing nude photos and shooting icons. He would end up taking pictures of celebrities, models, or other cultural figures.    One of the more known people Herb photographed was Madonna. I enjoy the contrast between her skin and the jacket. This is one of my favorite pictures of his because of how beautiful it is. You have her strong jawline with nice shadows under and shadows behind her of what looks like to be a tree. Everything looks so nicely done and with her hair flowing backward, I believe it makes it go hand in hand with the background. The details in the jacket alone make this amazing.  With his nude pictures, Herb Ritts wanted to make a radical change in how nudes are depicted and only wanted it to be a form of art. You have different skin colors to have contrast and the woman are all bundled to

Ralph Gibson is a famous American artist from California that focuses on photography. Ralph was born on January 16,1939 and at the age of 83, he continues to work on his photography. It seems that Ralph Gibson's preference is to work in black and white with very dramatic tones to create mysterious pieces. Occasionally Ralph will work with a macro lens, but he normally works close to his subject at hand and works with a 50mm lens in order to catch these masterpieces.  With Ralph Gibson's work, it seems he likes making sure there is a balance between his black and whites. In this picture, the nice contrast between the all-black clothing to the white rose gives the viewer a focal point, with the contrast being so dramatic. There is also a blurred background to make sure his subject is the only focus. I love how you can still see very intricate details in his hands with his nails and the wrinkles being so focused.  This photo shows a man holding a French flag. This is part of Ralph

    Michael Kenna was born on November 20, 1953. He is a British photographer who is mostly known for his black and white photography. Michael normally incorporates landscapes into his black and white photography and is what makes him famous. The way he gets his famous photos, mostly, is to put them for longer drawn out exposures that can at times take 10 hours. Not only does Michael Kenna do photography, but he has many books that correspond to his work.   Michael Kenna photographed the Torii Gate that can be seen right in front of Mount Fuji. Michael likes to do his drawn-out exposures during the night time waiting for his perfect change to capture everything. Due to clouds moving throughout time, you can see clouds overlooking everything except the gate itself. Mount Fuji would be far in the background without the dragged out exposure in the night making everything cloudy, which is a dedication I wouldn't be able to have. I also love how extreme the dark components are and the w

In 1911, Man Ray's namesake was born. Emmanuel Radnitzky, Man Ray's birth name, was a visual artist who considered himself a painter above everything he did. He did a lot of self-portraits and was a pioneer in what we know of today as, surrealism and dadaism. Man Ray would have many people modeling for his artwork and you may see the likes of Jean Cocteau as one of his subjects. You can also see that he did a lot of work with what we call photograms, but Man Ray would describe and call it Rayograph.  Man Ray had the ability to use Pablo Picasso as a model. Him having such a long career allowed him the likes to use these types of people and gives us the great artworks we see today. He used cool illusions to create the photogram you see on the bottom of this. Man Ray makes it look like a tornado with a flying saucer taking everything away, if looked at a different angle. However, I don't think he intended on this looking like this but his imagination allowed everything to fal

     Lee Friedlander was a photographer that focused in what looks to be primarily black and white landscapes and portraits whether it be from people to just his own reflections. At first, it looks like he just captures the basic daily life of a tourist, in a way, because he captures raw photos with shadows so you have a big contrasts in the grayscales with many landscapes in the back. However with Lee Friedlander's photos, I noticed that he commonly likes to capture two things at once as well, but his composition and the way he always has shadows it makes it look perfect and obviously super professional.        In this photograph, you can see Lee taking a picture of the reflection of himself along with the tv showing in front of him. He captures what a daily life would be here. It feels like he is just capturing the new inventions in front of him, but also wants himself to be known as the creator. In this you can see kind of an emphasis on the tv, although he wants you to look at