ARTIST: Lee Friedlander
SOURCE: Book 'The Nature Of Photographs' Stephen Shore
What interests me:
Recently I have been doing a lot of reading on psychoanalytic theory and feminism and I cant help but to immediately think of the notion of 'scopophilia', the act of looking for pleasure, this notion is addressed in Laura Mulvey's essay Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema. Mulvey formulates the idea of 'the gaze' which describes the kinds of looks of the cinema; the active look which is male and the female look which is passive as she is being looked at. This image is kind of creepy and reminiscent of these ideas of looking in cinema as the shadow of the photographer appears on this subject, unknown to her! But my mind probably just cannot escape theory at the moment so this photo is owed more in-depth research!
Reflections and shadows are central to Friedlander's body of work, ideas that permeate through images of the American social landscape. His unique observations have earned him the title of master of street photography. This particular photograph in which his shadow falls onto a woman in the streets of New York is part of the Self-Portrait series. This series Friedlander takes a witty, experimental take on the idea of self portrait. His environment presents a strong visual case for who and where is, this scene tells us way more about this guy than any school photo portrait I have ever had taken.
Friedlander shows the viewer a unique display of self reflection, it is clever and engaging - I could stare at this forever.
What interests me:
Recently I have been doing a lot of reading on psychoanalytic theory and feminism and I cant help but to immediately think of the notion of 'scopophilia', the act of looking for pleasure, this notion is addressed in Laura Mulvey's essay Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema. Mulvey formulates the idea of 'the gaze' which describes the kinds of looks of the cinema; the active look which is male and the female look which is passive as she is being looked at. This image is kind of creepy and reminiscent of these ideas of looking in cinema as the shadow of the photographer appears on this subject, unknown to her! But my mind probably just cannot escape theory at the moment so this photo is owed more in-depth research!
Reflections and shadows are central to Friedlander's body of work, ideas that permeate through images of the American social landscape. His unique observations have earned him the title of master of street photography. This particular photograph in which his shadow falls onto a woman in the streets of New York is part of the Self-Portrait series. This series Friedlander takes a witty, experimental take on the idea of self portrait. His environment presents a strong visual case for who and where is, this scene tells us way more about this guy than any school photo portrait I have ever had taken.
Friedlander shows the viewer a unique display of self reflection, it is clever and engaging - I could stare at this forever.
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