Alessandro Rizzi was born in Emilia Italy in the 1970s and
discovered his love of photography and world travel at the age of 21. Working
as a photo journalist, he became immersed and fascinated by the habits of
people and the fascinating and hidden corners of big cities. His photographic
work reflects this fascination in an interesting way. In his monongraph, From Another World, Rizzi captures the
hidden places and people of massive metropolises from New York to Beijing. All
his pictures have a landscape orientation and often have a centered or slightly
off-centered figure. The people he photographs are caught in a pensive state or
in action. Although the images are taken in many different cities, they all
have an air of anonymity. Rizzi wants to photograph cities so that their
geographic location fades to the background of the image. Instead of showcasing
the vastness of a place and its identifying characteristics and buildings, he
takes pictures that capture people living their lives and interacting with
society and space. Architecture plays an important role in creating an urban
aesthetic, allowing Rizzi taking images that remove the structures from their
context and creating a new world that exists only within the frames of his
photographs. I would describe his work as moments in the life of a city. They
are observations of everyday lives that would otherwise go unnoticed. Alessandro
Rizzi has embraced the role of the spectator in his photography.
Ansel Adams was a passionate photographer, born in southern
California, and photographed from the 1920s to the 1970s. Being a creative,
intelligent child, he couldn’t conform to the rigid education system, so his
father took him out of school and hired private tutors. Interestingly, Ansel
found a particular passion and aptitude for the piano. In 1915, Adams had an
eye-opening educational opportunity with the advent of Panama-Pacific
International Exposition. According to James Alinder who wrote to forward of
the monograph, Ansel was dropped off at the fair every day for the year, where
he wandered around, looking at contemporary photographers that some say
influenced his later work. He primarily photographed the landscapes of the west
coast and south west areas of the United States, but occasionally photographed
buildings and people. He used black and white film that had a low light
sensitivity with the intention of capturing the clear detail of his landscapes
and subjects. There seems to be no clear positioning of subjects in his frame,
but he generally allows the landscape or the subject to fill it up. Adam’s love
of nature developed over his time working in the Yosemite Valley and his many
excursions across the Sierras to take photographs. I would describe his work as
stoic documentation of nature and the landscape in very clear detail. It is
clear that Adams wants to capture a sense of “present-ness” in his images,
photographing landscapes and scenes from head on. The filling of the frame
feels intentional and carefully done so that the scene is represented in a
respectful way.
Anna Beeke was born in Washington DC but raised in Brooklyn, NY,
according to her internet bio. But besides the short bio, there isn’t very much
on the internet about her as a person, assumingly because she came on to the
photography scene in the late 2000s. Because of this, it seems that her work
does not have the clearly defined characteristics that a more experienced
photographer might have. Some of her images are clearly posed or set up, but
some are candid. She frames her scenes to make a concise image, without any
extraneous information. The subjects of her photographs are often centered or
placed somewhere on the “rule of thirds” grid. She photographs people, places,
and the natural world in bright, clear colors. Her work is like visual poetry,
telling a story through time. In her monograph, Sylvania, her subject is the forest, documenting its color and
vibrancy and the human influences that are hidden or shape the landscape. She
also finds interest in the painting of trees and natural scenes on man-made
constructions like walls and water towers. All of her work is done outside in
some capacity. But however textured her images, there is a feeling of
simplicity as there is one dominant texture, color, or shape repeating itself.
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