Wenyan Wang - Style of Photographers

· Lynne Cohen – “No Man’s Land: The Photography of Lynne Cohen”

Lynne Cohen, as an American-Canadian photographer, mainly captured the emptiness and coldness of spaces without human beings involved. These common get people daily uses and businesses in spaces include classrooms, offices, pools, bathrooms, spas, public halls, laboratories, factories, military installations, party room (under daylight), etc. She photographed with an 8 x 10" view camera, which allowed her to record as many details as she wanted, while creating very large prints. People are used to being in spaces with their daily businesses going on and dealing with so much, which gives them busy and involved sense unconsciously. However, when people are removed from the involvement of these spaces, how do we feel? I feel emptiness and coldness, but also remained creepy sense of failing to find out the soul of the places, living behind a thinking of is there still any purpose for them without human beings’ presence. When I stare at these photographs, I cannot stop imaging scenes when people presenting themselves there automatically, which reveals the reality of how I am not used to the emptiness and loneliness. The weird thing is I feel the rooms are still alive not dead when I figure out the function of each place by seeing their names under the photographs.

· Anonymous – “Type 42: Fame is the Name of the Game”

The anonymous photographer who is obsessed with women close up faces, I would say, has a series of black and white photographs recording women characters on television. He or she has these women faces come from either films or television shows. These photographs have subjects mainly out of focus, and the Anonymous is obsessed with capturing dark, with only the women’s faces has glory. Cindy Sherman said “it’s an exhaustive study of what it is to be a woman”. I see it as if a seeking journey of the essence of women, or to change the direction, it is like a weird and ghost-like photographer just endlessly document all kinds of women. Why the actress on TV instead of plain women around him or her? I may answer it as the photographer can get free and easy permission of documenting or to say peep others’ emotional changing status via their facial expression. I would not say the photographer is fascinated only with beautiful and young lady, because there are dimensions with ugly, scary and elder faces as well. That’s abstracting, compelling and grab your attention endlessly even you are seeing only women faces burly out of focus. You just never get tired of finding out what else did I ignore on so common faces?

· Steve Fitch – “Gone: Photographs of Abandonment on the High Plains”

Steve Fitch is a New Mexico photographer who tries to explore and document the hidden truth beneath the surface of architectures. In his series of “Gone”, an abandonment environment was shown neither from distant or a very close view. These architectures include private spaces also public abandoned houses. Inside these architectures, subjects he focused on are our daily plain stuff, like color TV, tri-color mattresses, dirty and shag carpet, fallen and broken wallpaper, yellowish old books, etc. He used large-format camera finding out the short historical events happened on the location, on the small personal subjects, in an artistically way. These things are usually being ignored by the population in their lifetimes, because they are useless and broken, seems to be functionless from the point they abandoned the projects. However, Steve Fitch tried to expose and add “the abandonments” some historical meaning, and also evoke viewers to think the reason for abandoning. The warm color of his photographs has feeling of vintage and sympathy. Where are the people? Where are the memories? Is there only poverty and mass left behind?