Grant Greider- Style

1. 1. Walter Pfieffer

   Walter Pfieffer is a swiss photographer who specializes in portraits, snapshots, and still lifes. His goal of photography is to find beauty, whether through the human form or in ordinary objects, or through a unique combination of the two. While not always erotic or even sexual, Pfieffer exploits the human form with vibrant colors and contrasts. Even when he works in black and white, his photos pop with energy. Pfieffer doesn’t usually work with professional models, and instead prefers to work with friends and lovers. While usually working with men, Pfieffer exploits both the male and female body both clothed and nude. He also features extreme close ups on certain parts of the body and uses surreal and abstract angles to exploit beauty on the human form. Pfieffer, being gay himself, has always been fascinated by beauty. His work is at times, hypersexual or erotic, but never sexy or even pleasing to observe or look at. Even his still-life photographs have a sexual quality to them, without being obviously sensual. Sometimes he gets messy or even playful, using colorful props, lighting and costumes to emphasize body parts and facial features. His still-life photographs are often carry this playful quality by often featuring the same colorful, quirky, yet sexual atmosphere.

   
   
   

   2. Joel-Peter Witkin

   Joel-Peter Witkin is an American photographer who in one word is macabre. Always working in black and white, his work is reminiscent of the surrealists of the early 20th century, with a deformed twist; almost always, the bodies are deformed in some way, whether this features bodies sewn in stitches, dwarves, transexuals and intersex, and amputees. Witkins always uses high contrast and busy backgrounds that evoke terrifying imagery. Witkins also always photographs in film and in black and white. This is what gives his photographs a “retro” look, and what makes his work very similar to the surrealists of the early 20th century. According to Witkin, his horrifying imagery is inspired from beauty and without beauty, there’s no terror, and no art. He transfigures horror through beauty and uses this stark contrast to explore and expose dark and macabre themes such as death, beastiality, sex, gender, and religion. Joel-Peter Witkin shrinks, destroys, and obscures the human form to explore these themes. It’s never pleasing to look at or even observe from any distance. By completely transforming the human form and turning it upside down and inside out, Witkins creates a grotesque new world of vulnerable terror, exploiting familiar human figures like discarded broken toys.

   
   

   3. David Bailey

   
   

   David Bailey is a British photographer who specializes in portraits and fashion photography. His photos are very glamorous and exploit the beautiful and fashionable side of the human form. Unlike Joel-Peter Witkins, David Bailey uses beautiful models to exploit strict human beauty in it’s least pure form, with heavy makeup, costumes, and even face paint. His exclusively takes pictures of people, ranging from famous people, models, to native tribespeople. Bailey uses low saturation, yet high vibrance, and low contrast, and works exclusively in the studio, reflecting his intentions of making his models look as unnaturally human as possible. Making his models look as desirable and sensual as possible, while still being colorful and elaborate, David Bailey uses erotica as a tool to exploit the human. However, unlike Walter Pfieffer, David Bailey is sensual and less realistic. Bailey explores what sex should feel like, not what it really is. While not all of his work is strictly sexual by any means, his work remains inhuman by erasing human imperfection with makeup and facepaint. Sometimes this involves getting creative and even plain goofy with facepaint and makeup. Bailey will use makeup to distort the human face and form to exploit glamor, camouflage, and even celebrity.