#icpimagemakers

Robert Mapplethorpe was someone who interested me as he became an American pioneer for modern and erotic photography. He paved a way in the new controversial art form as many of Mapplethorpe’s pictures were seen as obscene and sexually charged. This caused various debates on censorship but also bringing awareness of gay culture in New York. Mapplethorpe revolutionized the art of photography during the 70′s and 80′s as he documented the gay community and culture with the explosion of sexuality during the time. Many of his pictures involved nudity, homoerotic themes, desire, and a sense of identity. Some photos include erotic male and female nudes, still life of flowers, celebrity portraits, and sadomasochistic acts which were mainly taken with Polaroid and Hasselblad medium format camera.

Boris Cortes, ImageMakers (Tuesday Class)

For the past few weeks, ICP Teen Academy Imagemakers have been working on putting together a photo essay with captions. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight how the pandemic is affecting the childhood memories for families through the lens of suburban Northern New Jersey. As of Labor Day weekend, Van Saun County Park reopened its infamous carousel and zoological park after closing in March. Families are now required to wear masks at all times and purchase tickets in advance. In the first image is Seda Karayel, a wife and mother of two, who had just returned home after making the decision to spend the summer in Turkey, due to United State’s lack of control over the pandemic. Both of her daughters, Naz (not pictured) and Ada, had been extremely jetlagged after their long flight. As a high school senior, I recognize that my childhood memories will greatly differ from those of children growing up today. What I remember as attending minigolf birthday parties and chubby bunny tag on the playground during lunch will be learning how to multiply and divide virtually.

Dre Two Guns © Boogie 

New York City is not all it seems to be in movies and TV. Just outside from all the skyscrapers, office buildings and salad bars, a different story is told. A story of neighborhoods destroyed by slumlords, leading the way for gang activity to take over as life becomes a literal fight for survival. Serbian born photographer, Boogie befriends gang members from various neighborhoods around New York City and documents his time with them.  

Evil Eye © Boogie 

I first came across Boogie’s photos while watching Cheryl Dunn’s film, Everybody Street. I was taken a back by the raw images but quickly found fascination through them, as it was familiar subject matter. While growing up in the Bronx, one is no stranger to what Boogie photographs. Boogie’s dark, contrasty, black & white photography, perfectly executes a gritty tone for the narrative. 

DeLorean Movement © Boogie 

Often our perception of gang activity is influenced by music we hear or movies we watch, but here we are offered a direct view into these peoples world. Generally stories like this go unheard, in which allows me to reflect on my own subject matter, on how personal I want it to be and what voices I wish to document. 

A series that inspires me is Subway by Bruce Davidson. For this project, Davidson rode the subway everyday in the 80s and took pictures on color film. This series shows what the train looked like at that time and the different kinds of people on the subway.

This series inspires me because it shows that many different people have at least one thing alike, they all ride the subway to get to where they need to go. Below are two of my favorite pictures from the series.

Recently, one of my favorite street photographers is Clay Benskin. He shoots black and white film on the streets of New York. He truly captures what it is like to walk down the street in New York, something always catching your eye. He was featured on the New Yorker Photo Instagram page and I fell in love with his images. I don’t see as many photographer shooting film when doing street photography, I find that most are shooting digital. Most of his photos have a high contrast, which I think draws you into the images more. There is a certain kind of grit to his photos that is very authentic. I think he is one of the few photographers to capture New York accurately in recent times.

Although street photography isn’t necessarily my preferred genre of photography, I aim to capture emotion in my portraits the way that Clay Benskin does. His portraits are so raw and human and I aspire to create work that conveys emotion so well. He always seems to be catching the perfect moment to photograph, which I think is just a testament to his tenacity. He is always uploading new prints to Instagram, which he uses as his portfolio, instead of his website. 

https://www.instagram.com/clay_benskin/

Last weekend Teen Academy Imagemakers participated in a Lighting workshop with Guest Artist Alzo Slade. 

The workshop provided an opportunity for students to gain hands on practice with the Winter term’s theme, Portraiture and Lighting. Through an in-depth exploration of strobe, hot-light, and DIY lighting set-ups, students learned the tools needed to control and manipulate light in order to achieve both practical and artistic effects in the studio and at home.

Photos by Richard Burrowes and Cristan Carceras Granda

These are the photographs by Robert Capa during the Interwar and WW2 era. His photos do really show the untold and rather of the history that we miss out most of the times just by reading the books that are filled with glorious battles and victorious generals. His photos also allow us to dive into the time when the picture was taken and experience the same emotions that people in the photos felt.