Photographer - Walker Evans

Walker Evans Negro church, South Carolina, 1936

First came across Walker Evans preparing for a presentation at the Victoria and Albert and more recently researching for a forthcoming article on Appropriation Art. 

He has a very simple direct style his photographs are unromantic, factual - documentary - which I like very much as the photographs ask questions while maintaining an aura.

I have unwittingly (more of this when I discuss Appropriation Art) used this documentary style myself.....

Michael Ohajuru Storage Shed Somerset 2009

 

Photographer - James Ravillious

Writing about Vivian Maier and her work brought to mind another favourite photographer of mine - James Ravillious - he too worked in back and white. Where Maier captured  city life, Ravillious captured country life

Both extracted something enigmatic, endearing and enduring from the compositions they captured  from their sitters and scenes.

I find Ravillious's work equally as inspiring as Maier's 

Photographer - Vivian Maier

August 11, 1954, New York, NY

Vivan Maier took over 150,000 pictures most of which were never developed or seen in her time. Only to be discovered as one of the great photographers of the 20th century after her death. And only after the self-storage space she rented sold the contents of her storage as it went unpaid after her death

What an extraordinary back story her life brings to her work. Nevertheless her art alone speaks itself, for her work really needs none of the art historical discourse cum rhetoric so nessesary to support so much of what tries to pass as art today. 

To me, her work is inspirational .