Gloria Chang_Style

Henry Wessel was born in 1942 and raised in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. He attended Penn State University and graduated in 1966 with a B.A. in Psychology. Later in 1972, he received an MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop at the State University of New York at Buffalo. For the last 30 years, Wessel has been photographing the American West, and in particular, California. He photographed the parking lots, beach-goers, body builders, shrubbery, and the light. The kind of flowing, smooth light permeates Wessel’s landscape photographs. Most of his works are in black and white, and it gives you a quite and calm feeling. Everything seems in silent and still. The shadows in his photographs makes you feel like time stop right at that moment. The sky is always so clear and the black and white contrast isn’t dramatic at all, but flat and smooth. He captured a lot of traffic lights, stop signs, and advertisement. Light, shadow, pattern, and texture are the most common elements show in most of his works. In his photographs of people, he usually put the person in the center to make them stand out. And most of his models don’t directly look at the camera and just do whatever they were doing at that moment. They all look very relaxed and comfortable.

Ola Kolehmainen is a Finnish photographer. He first studied journalism and then achieved a Master of Arts in Photography at the University of Arts and Design in Helsinki. Influenced by the Helsinki School’s dedication of creating photographs with a conceptual and thematic approach, Kolehmainen’s main subjects are modern architectures. All of his photographs of modern buildings are only close-ups, cutting out all elements of visual noise, he converts urban facades into simple geometric arrangements of colors and patterns. In his works, the constant elements are light, color, structure, reflection, façade, section, and fragment. The simplicity and use of colors in his works are pleasing to the eyes and make you feel balanced and comfortable. The grid lines on the windows create pattern and repetition, and sometimes Kolehmainen uses the pattern as a background to show reflections. The reflections of the sky, trees, and other buildings on the mirror-like windows of modern architectures are more like reflections in the water just because everything is very clear. By focusing on the details on the buildings, he presents his photographs as minimalist style. His special uses on point of views question our ways of seeing things.

David Bailey was born in Leytonstone East London. He was a photographic assistant in his early professional career, and then he became a fashion photographer for British Vogue magazine in 1960. The book I got from library is called “Pictures That Mark Can Do”.  All the photographs in this book seem like he just took them when he walks on the streets, eats lunch, and stays at home. He photographed lunch tables, people, building, stores, windows, and hanging clothes on the streets. The snapshot is a part of our visual culture and also a part of our life. Even many photographs have been taken so many times, David still take snaps with a sense of ease and significance. He believes these photographs are easy to take, even his assistant Mark could have made them. There is not a certain style on the photographs in this book, but we can find out that the main subjects are his family, people on the streets, animals, and plants. All photographs in this book are in colors and well composed.