Aaron Siskind (1903 – 1991) is best known as an Abstract Expressionist Photographer. There are a few different threads to his work,
1. his early work is varied and experimental
2. He did a series of photo-essays of political importance including Harlem Document, Dead End: The Bowery, Portrait of a Tenement, and St. Joseph's House: The Catholic Worker Movement. these consisted of street photographs taken during the depression years in New York which focused on the socio-economic woes of the time.
3. he did a series called "the Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation," shot around 1956. these are shots of high divers against the blank sky
4. and then of course his abstract expressionist photographs he is most renown for, which take weathered fragments and textured surfaces from nature and architecture, cropped tightly, through which he explored ideas of decay, fragmentation, and regeneration.
he became a tutor at the Art Institute of Design in Chicago and then the intstitue of design in Rhode Island until his death.
I hope his work will have something for everybody, especially those EOTB fans out there.
And it appears all of his work was in black and white, but if you want to reinterpret in colour that is fine by me.
so take a look, and either recreate one of his shots, or run with some of his ideas
Tag your work ac-siskind
the challenge will run until Friday 13th September
Fabulous choice...count me in... now to channel the artist and see what becomes of it. :) ten days of Siskind. Can't wait to see what people come up with.
I have had my eye on this rusty metal with odd paint strokes on it, and it came in handy this week for this challenge, I loved the red and silver of the original but decided to go with black and white.
@kali66 beautifully done! Nice choice, I found the the L's last night. There's one I had my eye on just have to convince a friend. :0 lol can't do a selfie on this one but it had some really great shadows and didn't show face so hopefully I can talk her into it.
@ikamera commenting here to avoid hijacking Mary Hahn's thread.'There you go a gain with the my skills aren't ...'.lol. Sometimes looking at these artists from yesteryear we can see how our technology alone makes it easier in many ways for us to make images of similar calibre. And your artistic sensibility is well developed and appreciated by us here. . This is all about learning, so just jump right in, I am sure you would find absolutely awesome textures around you which would be perfect.
@kali66 Lol. You are right, I started self-pitying again. Atleast, I haven't done that in a while, so maybe I'm getting better? Anyway, thank you very much for your encouragement, I decided to try it. I went out and got some textures. Will upload them soon and post them here as well so you can tell me if they work.
@spanner Hiya, sorry about that, EOTB means eye of the beholder. Basically find something that most people would not consider worth taking a photo of and making it beautiful!
EOTB is another challenge that is also running at the moment see here http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/19150/eotb16
Thank you. Next daft question. How do I see all of the entries for this? The work on this page is great. I would love to see the rest. Sorry for asking daft questions.
@spanner there are no stupid questions, we all had to learn these things somehow. you can also go to any one of the photos and click the tag (, in this case ac-siskind), on the right of the page in the info box. this will work for any challenge
@grammyn has raised a good point, she finds it a bit hard to understand Siskind's work so I suggested to her and you reading this, that you look up abstract expressionism and a painter like Franz Kline, barnett newman, or Antoni Tapies to better understand what he was trying to achieve.
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thanks for posting here, it keeps the thread bumped up :)
Now I have too many photos with loads of texture, can't decide which ones to upload.
thanks for this challenge kali - loved the drive hunting for this house with brian :o)
ok, limiting myself to 2 entries ... altho i keep going back to his work & it gets my mind whirring so, that might be a lie
EOTB is another challenge that is also running at the moment see here http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/19150/eotb16
http://365project.org/tags/ac-siskind