Cultural Activity 3

     The last cultural activity I went to was the showing of Andy Warhol on campus.  There were a few images I enjoyed more than others, but I really did enjoy the majority of them. They were unique and colorful, which can be quite refreshing when all the photos I have taken have been black and white.  The “Electric Chair” was acid yellow and done on a silk screen.  It was very grainy and almost painful to look at, which is what I think Warhol was trying to do.  The electric chair is a brutal, inhumane, and painful object, much as was the coloring and texture of the picture.  He also did a ton of prints of people, especially their faces.  He did ones of them with lots of colors and ones of them that were very pale and straightforward.  Every picture provoked a different reaction.  All of his pictures, however, were very good at capturing the eyes of the model, they were all so expressive of the model’s character.  I found it comical how his subjects ranged, many of them being ordinary people or things: Barbie dolls, turtles, faces.   Each had an explosive color o texture added to it like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  The prints “Mao 1-10” were really fun to look at.  He took a photo of this extremely powerful Chinese communistic leader and made him very silly and almost ordinary. Warhol manipulated his face by use of color and texture so the audience didn’t see him as the important, intimidating figure he was, but more of just another one of Warhol’s models.  Finally, the “Mick Jagger” screen prints were also quite amusing.  Warhol also played with these pictures, making them confusing, chaotic, and almost druggy prints.  They perfectly captured the essence of subject.  Overall, I really enjoyed these photos; Warhol continues to add a new level of visual pleasure to art. 

Assignment 5

Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is one of the most well known and highly paid photographers ever known.  It is incredible what high demand she is still in.  Her photography career began with classes in college.  Though she came into school as a painting major, she took one class in photography and it just “clicked” with her.  She started really working when she got a job at the Rolling Stone magazine.  Though morality was her goal at this job, it was the time of experimentation, and experimentation was exactly what she did.  She explained how people spoke to her, making it easy for her to capture amazing shots of them.  She was also a keen observer and this helped her to see what others might have missed when shooting photos.  After gaining much recognition, Leibovitz moved to New York with the magazine and was in the center of the world when it came to art and creativity.  She learned a lot from working there, especially when she left Rolling Stone and began doing more mainstream, glamorous photos.  To this day she still can incorporate something about the person she is taking a photograph of into her photos, all the while provoking them.  I loved seeing the beautiful pictures she has taken, from ordinary people to movie stars.