JAROMIR FUNKE & 'THE SURFACE OF THINGS'
Funke was born in Skuteč in 1896 and died in 1945. He was particularly known for being a Czech photographer, and during the 1920s and 1930s, was represented as leading presence of Czech photography. His main speciality in photography was his "photographic games" whereby he fiddled with different materials using photography; these consisted of mirrors, plates, bottles etc. His still life photography created an abstract effect and also used some shadows which made it resemble to photograms which is what was unique and exquisite about his work. EARLY CAREER - In the 1920s, Funke grew to be a successful amateur photographer and began to differentiate his photography work by experimenting with more photography genres such as surrealism, expressionism and poeticism. - 1930-1931, whilst he was travelling, he suddenly developed a deep interest in political photography whereby it expresses the issues with poverty through photography. After several years he became an editor of a journal called "Fotografický obzor"(Photographic Horizons), |
'THE SURFACE OF THINGS' BOOK
The book, also known as "Fotografie vide povrch" was published by Jaromir Funke as a collaboration with Ladislav Sutnar. This book consists of all the works of Funke and his students with the concept of 'Photography sees the surface'. Funke actually created a couple of the "Czechoslovak" books that are similar to the "Neue Sachlichkeit" (The New Objectivity) and hence this book was one of the first of the collection that Funke had created. This collection had a series of 8 different of the 'Fotografovaný svět' (The photographed world). The book includes photographs such as "A sheet of postage stamps, a plant's structure, the surface of a river" and many more. The examples of the images produced in the book were a way to potentially educate us the importance of appearances with specific materials that may intervene with how photographs are abstractly portrayed. It is often described as "the effects of moisture and dryness, roughness and smoothness". |
WILLY ZIELKE
Zielke was a German photographer who was born on September 18th in 1902, and died on September 16th in 1989. He was most known for his unique, exquisite photography of glass still life. He studied photo nature in a state school in Munich called 'Bavarian state school' from 1923 to 1924. Furthermore, he made precise crafted photographs which included still life compositions and was significantly recognised by the master teacher in 1928. He was particularly nominated by Leni Rienfestahl who hired him as an employee for the production of the Olympic films. |
EDWARD WESTON
Weston was born on March 24th in 1886 and died on January 1st in 1958. He was famous for being a 20th century photographer and was titled "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers". Most of his photography surround on still life landscapes, nudes and genre scenes. He was the first to be congratulated with Guggenheim Fellowship in 1937 and further 2 years later, he produced 1.4k negatives using his 8x10 camera. He had always dreamt of being a photographer, starting at a phase with the style of soft focus pictorialism but changed to high quality detailed images of specific objects. |