Monday, November 1, 2010

Some Great Photographers and Their Photographs.

Annie Leibovitz-


Sally Mann 

Robert Mapplethorpe-

Why I think the World Sees the Photographs as Controversial.

I think the world sees photographers photographs as sometimes controversial because they do not really understand what the photographer is trying to put out there. Also I do not think that some people are ready to see the photographs that do come out especially when the photographer takes photographs of celebrities because someone is always going to have something to say about it. The media really plays an effect on this because like the Miley Cyrus photograph Miley and her family were fine with it until it hit the media. Once it hit the media and people started to judge the photograph and said how wrong it was then Miley and her family agreed, but only because the media made such a big deal. Then with the Annie Leibovitz, Leborn James one people will just never get over the race factor and that is why that photograph was made into a huge controversy. This problem occurs a lot with photographers photos because they put so much work into it but then people just do not understand and love to judge something that is not theirs. The media also just likes to stir up the controversy more and then when that happens more people start to listen and I feel that is also, why the world then starts to see the photograph as something it is not.

The Photographs that People Saw Are Not Controversial at all.

Many people felt that the photographs that Annie Leibovitz did of Miley Cyrus, LeBron James, and Gisele where controversial because they felt that Miley Cyrus should not pose like that at her age, and that LeBron James, and Gisels's photograph put off racism. But they have it all wrong because the photographs are really just a photograph that Annie put a lot of thought into and talked to the clients about what she was thinking. She talked to Miley about what her idea was and Miley was fine with it until the world talked about the photograph and criticized it for something it was not. This is a statement Annie Leibovitz made "Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it. The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful.", according to People. Though Annie did apologized saying this "I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted." according to People. This statement says it from a photographers eyes that the photo was misinterpreted because the world does not the the beauty in it that the photographer and client do.

The photographs from Sally Mann should not have been controversial at all either because they were of her kids and it was her idea, she was making great photographs. The photographs were not porn at all like people said because the children were not doing anything to each other, or doing any sexual acts themselves. These photographs were simply a form of art of her children that she wanted to express like their innocence, and the definition of art says "Art  encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression", and this is an example of what Sally Mann's did she created these photographs and each one has their own expression.The reason that they did become controversial I think is because the world was not used to seeing the kind of photographs like these and did not want to cope with the fact that her photographs were wonderful because then they might have thought that thinking photographs of young kids was wrong.