Fazal Sheikh

I took some time to look at Fazal Sheikh. He's a documentary photographer that prides himself on spending months at a time getting to know the culture of the people he photographs. I particularly like his work because somehow it transcends the tragedy that's being documented. He's spent time at refugee camps in Africa. He travels all over the world taking these amazing photographs. I think his photographs transcend the tragedy because he does spend months a time and getting to know the people beyond their tragedy and in doing that it forces the viewer to look beyond the tragedy and see the children as children, not merely as a charity case or someone to feel sorry for.

Sheikh does have a book on his website, http://www.fazalsheikh.org/06_the_victor/online_edition/start.php The Victor Weeps. The book is a combination of children's drawings, portraits and other documentary photos all taken in Afghanistan. For me, I think he understand that he isn't sole teller of the story. He takes time to engage the youth of the country and we also get to see things from their perspective. I appreciate this because as an artist it's easy to make oneself the center of attention, but he brings in others to help him tell the story.

Lorna Simpson

I was so intrigued in class as I looked at images produced by Lorna Simpson. I've dedicated alot of time to race and gender studies, though mostly to race. I'd spent time thinking about ways that I could combine my love for photography with my love for African American studies and a light bulb went off in my head as I looked at her images and I came up with a project that I want to work on. I am indeed very exciting. I left class and went to Gorgas library and picked up one of her books. The most compelling thing to me is her use of text with the images she produces.

The most compelling series is titled, "She". It features four images of a single woman, however, her nose, eyes and hair aren't visible. She has no make up on and so it's very difficult to tell if the subject really is a woman or not. There are no distinct features and it says of myself that gender is a part of one's identity. Can I really know who a person is if I don't know their gender or even how the self identify. So, the series definitely presents a problem for me. Nonetheless, as I read the photos I learn more about myself.

This is Me!

There was an art display in the gallery in the Ferg. The photographs were of average women on campus and off to the side they said what they thought made them beautiful. The gallery was sponsored by the Women's Resource Center It was really cool to me to see women of all shapes, sizes and color on display. There were some photos displayed that did not measure up to today's standard of beauty. I love that photography gave those women a chance to challenge the norms of beauty to the masses on campus. It's easy to superficially look at women -and men as well- and not see what really makes them beautiful even if the aren't physically attractive.

I think the language presentation in class on Gillian Wearing further drives home the point. Just as we see the images of "regular" people holding up signs to say what they really think, feel or who they really are the captions to the portraits provided by the women photographed force us to reconsider them and the presumptions we have.