Imogen Cunningham is my artist inspiration for a multitude of reasons. As one of the first professional female photographers in America, Imogen created images encompassing a wide variety of subject matter. What stands out the most for me of these are her botanical and nude or portrait works; botanical because it is a subject I am familiar with and love to photograph, and portrait because it is a subject I am unfamiliar with and would love to work with more one day. In fact, I have taken only one or two photos with human subjects throughout this entire course, and it is an area that I would love to explore. I am amazed at the emotion that can be found lingering in her subject work. I aim to capture photos of people with even an ounce of the depth and personal appeal that she has throughout her career. I also find myself in awe of the detail in her botanical work, and hope to one day be able to recognize line and pattern with a fraction of the mastery that Imogen could, so that I can have such well-rounded and visually appealing photos of a subject matter I am most fond of.
From extreme close-ups of plant life to encircling landscape with a small subject, it is clear that Imogen has a mastery of a huge range of photography skills, demonstrated by her membership in f/64, a West Coast photography group with a common style of capturing images. The group preferred sharp-focused and carefully framed images and promoted a modernist movement on photography, opting for the precision of exposure on natural forms and found objects. Most of my dark room photography focused on capturing natural forms with correct exposure to bring them to life. Imogen inspires me because I think we both would agree on letting the subject matter speak for itself, but I would like to dabble into her expertise area of actually having live subjects, because as seen in a sample of her photos here, the outcome is breathtaking. Imogen has photographed such subjects as artist Frida Kahlo and actor Spencer Tracy, capturing their personalities as much as their visual appeal. Other subjects are anonymous. It does not seem to matter to Imogen; she can bring anyone to life. |