Here is the list from Sebastian last time:
americans:
alfred stieglitz
minor white
edward weston
william claxton
also:
ansel adams
french:
henri cartier-bresson
jeanloup sieff
czech:
frantisek drtikol
jan saudek
german:
herbert list
helmut newton
august sander
karl blossfeldt
albert renger-patzsch
and many many more...
Emmm, the truth is, I know none of them... :)
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sebastel says:
these are the names of photographers who impressed me most, and whose name i was able to remember.
well, one can discuss whether helmut newton is german or not, but i think that is less interesting.
i think all of them are worth while knowing ... but that is only my idea.
i did not mention some japanese photographers, especially araki nobuyoshi coming to my memory. (the other one i cannot remember the name)
not mentioned because these are the only asian photographers i know, and somehow i am ashamed not to know chinese photographers. of course i hope this changes.
for most of these, you should be able to find examples of their work in the WEB.
i tried yestersday evening to find work of frantisek drtikol, a czech photographer who worked in the 1920s. (easy to find)
as you are interested in nature/plant photography, you should definitively look for karl blossfeldt.
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-8 19:31
More ashamed of me...
I tried hard to get some names. Unfortunately, I didn't get much except two:
1. Wang Xiao Hui
Wang Xiao Hui
She lives in German. I know her because Georgia mentioned her. She's graduated from the same university of ours. She left some fame in the photo club on campus in which Georgia joined later.
I borrow a book of her from Georgia. And still not return to her,yet. Not finished reading... :p
BTW, I never be the member of photo club. I began to take photos last Oct. :)
Georgia likes her 'Beyond Being' series of flowers.
But later and later, her style becomes harder to understand and the flowers don't look so nice any more.
Her works are shown at least twice in Shanghai Art Museum. The latest one is just 1 or 2 months ago.
2. Zhou Mi
I know him because he's friend of Jean, my friend. And very good photographer.
They currently live in San Francisco.
Dancing Mind
I suppose you will like the style. Black and white. And 'metaphysical'.
The rest of time I check the photos on forum put up by different IDs. Feeling my photos still fall a very big distance behind those good ones.
Then I also remember, once I see some discussion about photographer on Jean's Guestbook.
I remember one very nice:
Sally Mann
I got Karl Blossfeldt
I think it is a very nice text book.
I should say, I like Denise's photos more. :)
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-8 20:59
sebastian's quick reply, just having had a short look.
i like wang's work. but i need to return to her site later, with more time. i should have checked shanghai art museum for photography exhibitions during my stay.
zhou's work is more a problem for me. there are some quite nice ones, but so far nothing that looks so very special.
that picture of sally mann is really good. possibly i noticed her name before, but i can't remember exactly.
concerning blossfeldt: denise will be happy to read this. :-)
but as far as i know, her opinion concerning her own photography is different...
i'll check for some more examples of photography i like, (also later, not a good idea to do this right now - customers wait for answers, you know)
and concerning my own photography, i only see that i fall far behind you .... although i practise for decades now.
almost can't wait til end of work.
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-8 23:19
sebastel, having had some more time now:
my impression of zhou mi is better now. yes he's good. but somehow i do not like his style as much. maybe it is because of the hard contrast he always uses?
wang xiao hui is very interesting. and i like her newer work better.
?
!
in the meantime, i remebered one photographer i cannot understand why i forgot before:
robert mapplethorpe.
you can find a nice selection on mapplethorpe . well, his work was always topic of wild discussions, sometimes arguments or scandals. polarizing at least.
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-9 3:44
About blossfeldt, his flowers is in a very strict style. The first glance makes me feel it can't be real. The strict symmetry, more like a pattern instead of a real flower.
Maybe that's the way he wanted to show us the magic of nature, every small piece of plant are under a strict principle.
Maybe I prefer color, so I feel Denise's flower is nice. Clear, decent, comfortable. :)
About Wang Xiao Hui, I am courius, why you think her newer work is better?
We always get problem to understand some style. So I think it must be some reason, since her work is considered nice by many people.
By the way, Art Museum is not always interesting, but I did visit it for a very nice exhibition. That makes me very happy.
Leather Opera (?)
Almost forget, I suppose you may have some interest in this one?
Huang Yong Yu
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-9 21:01
Finally I've found this. It is a bit confusing here (without knowing chinese ;)), the help is a good idea.
Hope not to disturb you, I just to say some words about Blossfeldt.
His photos originally were models for reliefs and ornaments.
So his intention was neither to be an artist nor to show plants in a naturalistic way.
The effect of his photos comes from the immense effort he made and the beauty
of the chosen objects.
Looking at them I find out about structures in plants: I see that a leaf can easier be crinkled than plain; the strong tension in coiled fruit shells; why stems are strong and flexible at one time.
Blossfeldt's photos show order and symmetry, things we probably do not associate with nature. That way they go below surface and show the beauty of functional structures.
Again and again I am fascinated by these pictures.
Oh, and Huang Yong Yu: when I saw the first picture (with the cat) I had to think of Michael Mathias Prechtl, don't know why.
Michael Mathias Prechtl
Er, I think the topic was photography... sorry! ;)
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-9 22:31
(btw, it's me, Denise)
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-9 22:34
Thank you, Denise. :)
Em, I should do a more detailed help page. There it is.
I see, the middle of the second line is the coiled fruit shell. Twist so much...
Sorry, I edited your reply, put on one of the photos. I tried to pick up one, and I just can't move my mind away from this black cat.
Actually the others are also very interesting.
And this one is cool.
I suppose it is better to be the wolf part in such union
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-10 23:03
sebastel says:
when getting into illustrators, allow me to name alfred kubin.
i first noticed him when seeing this "fabeltier":
and i immediately bought it as poster.
btw: "fabeltier" means 'fairy tale animal' (more or less)
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-10 23:20
This picture is too small.... :(
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-11 8:10
今天看书，想起来这个什么araki nobuyoshi，就是草草上次提到的荒木経惟，都联系起来了
是王小慧的那本书（《我的视觉日记》）看到想起来的。他和王都被收入帕来斯特出版社编的《150年大师摄影作品集》，分别为唯一的日本人和中国人。
王小慧提到这个荒木有一组著名的纪实作品，他太太的葬礼，从死前一天到葬礼等等。每张都有日期。然后有一张是个妓女的人体局部特写，日期是葬礼的第二天。王说非常费解。
这本书里王解释了她的那组《阴阳》人体系列，说是应邀为一个著名摄影杂志出稿，那期的主题是‘左与右’。于是她想到了男左女右，那时她正在教授中国建筑的文化背景，就查了些相关资料解释了这方面的文化内涵，然后找了一个白人男模特和一个黑人女模特拍了这组阴阳。大获好评，评论说‘原来这男左女右也有这么深厚的文化积累’之类……
我非常好奇，她是怎么解说这个男左女右的文化积累的。:-|
同样有趣的是，网上查了一下，那本书叫 Nude Photography – Masterpieces from the past 150 years，但显然她在《我的视觉日记》里把这个Nude Photography省略掉了，只说是很权威的书。我不知道这是不是出于文化差异，受众接受心理的考虑。
I continue to read the biography of Wang Xiao Hui: My Visual Diary, 15 years in Germany. Very interesting.
In the book, mentioned Nobuyoshi Araki (荒木経惟). They are the only Japanese and Chinese in “Nude Photography – Masterpieces from the past 150 years” (Prestel Publishing House).
Also I read the story about her series - 'Yin and Yang - Nudes'. It comes from the invitation for a photo magazine. The theme of that month is 'Left and Right'. Then she came to the idea of Chinese 'Man Left, Woman Right'. Well, that's a tradition, when we go to a fate teller who will predict your fate from your hand, man's fate is written on his left hand and woman's on the right.
So she came to the idea to represent this 'Man Left, Woman Right' with nudes of black and white. That's 'Yin und Yang - Nudes' Series. And it is perfectly successful. The critics said something like it is wonderful to have east culture background of this 'Left and Right'.
Emmm, I am very curious how she explained this 'Man Left, Woman Right' on that magazine.....
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-13 15:50
sebastel smiles (halfway): after two days enforced offline (harddisk broke ...) my pc is up and running again. only that .... windows still refuses to boot.
concerning yin and yang - this concept is not totally unknown outside china. i suppose she did not need to explain much.
btw., interestin coincedence: in very very traditional catholic churches, men and women sit separate. you won't believe: men left, women right.
(this you will hardly see in germany, but in southern italy, some parts of spain and france, it is still usual)
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-15 0:27
Denise has to correct Sebastel:
It is the other way round: the women sit on the left, the men on the right. I am catholic, and remember I have always been sitting on the left side together with the other girls, the boys on the right side.
But it wasn't strict, often wife and husband ore families were sitting together.
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-15 1:35
:)
I remember when in Speyer, it is the Catholic church, the Dom, right? My first time see the confess room, we asked about confession. Hanno replied painfully, 'well, my last confession was at least 8 years ago... You should tell them you did this not so good, did that not so nice... emm, I don't like it very much...'
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-16 23:03
sebastel finally found some words on Wang Xiao Hui.
i got the impression, that her newer pictures interest you, although you stated you prefer the earlier ones.
after having thought about whether i prefer the newer ones - i simply could not put into words why i did - finally i have an idea why it is so.
her older pictures of plants and flowers are wonderful. beautiful. very "decorative".
my problem with this kind of pictures is, why not go out and look at flowers by myself?
now, what at all is the reason why we humans like flowers so much?
looking at this question from a scientific point: there is quite some reason why insects will like flowers. flowers are "built" to attract insects.
but humans?
i am not experienced enough in aesthetics to start a discussion on the question, why something is beautiful, or what the term beautiful actually means. but kind of clear is, referring to beauty when talking of flowers, is similar to the discussion of what came first, the hen, or the egg.
back to the pictures:
Wang Xiao Hui's early pictures (from my point of view) simply "celebrate the beaty of flowers". that is a good point by itself, but it is not as satisfying as the later pictures, which are explicitly related to "erotics" by the title of the series.
in those later work, i see that Wang tries find one of the reasons why humans find flowers beatiful and appealing.
another attempt to do this, using a different focus, is blossfeldt's work, and another different way to do so can be found in mapplethorpe's flower pictures.
all of them explore the beauty of plants/flowers in their very own way ...
hope i expressed my ideas clearly.
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-17 0:12
Denise about confession:
In confessions catholic people are telling god their sins by using a priest as kind of ‚telephone’.
The priest listens, gives advices and finally says something like: 'In the name of god your sins are forgiven, now your soul is clean again. say this or that prayer ten times.' (Very important: confessions at the deathbed, to save the soul from hell.)
In a confession someone can talk about the wrong things he has done, he doesn't have to carry them alone. The priest has to keep the secret, no one can force him to reveal it. But he can give advices. If s.o. confesses a crime, the priest might say: 'You have to go to police. Your soul won't find peace if you keep that secret.' But he won't denounce him to the police.
Do you remember my little documentation about Ettlingen? I wrote about Nepomuk:
'Johannes Nepomuk lived about 1350-1393.
He was a priest in Prag, Bohemia (today: Czech Republik). One day the wife of King Wenzel went to confession. Afterwards King Wenzel forced Nepomuk to tell him what his wife confessed but Nepomuk kept the confessional secret. Therefore King Wenzel let him throw into the river Moldau.'
Today we have psychiatrists who have to maintain professional discretion ;)
It's a long time since I went to church, even longer since I had my last confession. I must have been thirteen, I don't remember it well.
I never liked confessions, I didn't think they were useful. I thought: why do I need a priest to talk to god?
I remember a booklet for children containing proposals for confessions: e.g. 'I have been unfair against my sister, my friends, my pet; I didn't respect my parents; I have been jealous, lazy’ etc.
My standard confession was: 'I annoyed our dog.' I really was glad about this dog, so I always had something to confess ;p (mean girl, me)
评论人：dropin 评论日期：2004-11-17 3:21
Yes, I remember that story about priest. Thank you for the nice disc, Denise. Now I get more impressed. :)
Since priest is 'telephone', surely people can talk directly to god, maybe that's mobile? :)
About Wang Xiao Hui's photos, yes, after some reading, I found the new ones are very interesting.
And I find why it is so hard to understand at the beginning. In English, the series are called 'Eros of Flowers', the theme is clearly stated. I think she got the title directly in German or English, and I can imagine how hard she tried to get a suitable word in Chinese for that. There is just no exact match for Eros in Chinese, at least I can't get one. So she choose '花之惑', that means something like the confusion/illusion of flowers. It just doesn't make sense and is really confusing. From the pictures, the eros is apparent. So the title makes the series insincere, and blurs out her efforts. So I just wonder, what does she really want to say?
However, this problem doesn't exist in English or German.
评论人：乱看 评论日期：2004-11-17 22:07
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