I'm a serious fan of Jeanloup Sieff

http://www.jeanloupsieff.com/sieff.html

and Peter Beard http://www.peterbeard.com/menu.php

if anyone of you guys have some favorites in this art, please post names and link. I want to know more.

I'm not very erudite when it comes to these genres of visual arts... I do appreciate Beard's works though.

One Swedish collage artist that I like is Stefan Danielsson. Horrifying real-life photography mixed with massive blank areas, bodyparts etc, without trying to shock you. He's done cover artwork for industrial bands like IRM and WHITEHOUSE. The IRM cover is, in lack of better words, great:


http://bitedead.blogspot.com/

Sally Mann is of course a wonderful photographer. Decomposing bodies, naked children... haunting, macabre and beautiful.

yes, thank you very much. didn't know about her

http://www.childhoodinart.org/person.php?id=4

Babs Santini...

very small selection of his work can be found at http://www.babssantini.com/art/

among his recent output, I would suggest this one, called Ød Lot.

Maggie Taylor: http://www.maggietaylor.com/

Michael Kenna: http://www.michaelkenna.net/

Lucien Clergue, who surprisingly doesn't seem to have a website... but if you google his name, you will see some very special series of pictures. Erotic and mysterious.

Jennifer Hudson: http://www.jenniferhudsonfineart.com/

Alexey Titarenko: http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/

Frederick Sommer: http://www.fredericksommer.org

Lewis Baltz: can't find a proper website, just google his name.

Harold Davis: http://www.photoblog2.com/

John Custodio: http://www.johncustodio.com

Don Kirby: http://www.donkirbyphotography.com/

Susan Burnstine: http://www.susanburnstine.com/

great, thanx.. checked a few out. don't have time at the moment.. I'm not ready to decide but my wish is to purchase the ones I like. I'll have to google for as many as possible, it's not often I like something to pay for, but I have a bunch now to view and feels quite possitive, thanks !!!

Are you rich?

I answered this question when I made a registration here.

Let us know if you decide to buy a few photos, I'd love to see which ones. What do you like about B&W collage photography? What are you looking for?

i just added the word, cause Beard had such, but turned out his were like diaries, dozens of them he used to stick clippings, small photos and other in and then it came clear to me through a thick 2 volumes edition dedicated to his lifestyle... to me b&w photography is more like art. painters use colors, while b&w can be either boring or fast to come into the contemplative mood of a reality enclosed.

Maybe you know about him, maybe you don't, but I find Lewis Baltz interesting. The whole interview is nice...

Nowadays most photographers seem to regard photography as the best way of recording a ‘real present’ - of course, this is part of the history of the photography. Do you think we need photographs to give us real information about our present today?

Lewis Baltz: No, I don’t think we need that at all, any more; we already know, to the point of ennui, what the world looks like in photographs. Other than in very specialised circumstances, photography has been left behind as a descriptive medium. Of course this loss of utility renders it more available to an aesthetic reading. Since the beginning photography has insisted on its place among the fine arts, now it has arrived, though in ways and for reasons unsuspected by most of its partisans.
In becoming inutile - no longer content-driven - photography became self-reflexive, much as painting did from the time of Manet. Photographs no longer provoke a meditation upon external phenomena, but on the conditions of their own existence. Photography became Modernist at precisely the moment when Modernism faltered, and became commodified at the moment when the intellectual prestige of the commodity is at its lowest ebb. Poor photography. On the other hand, given the recent applications of technology photographs are now quite acceptable objects for the market.

Source: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/01/ ... baltz.html

he has his line of thought. today we can say photography is self-reflexive from its first images without the story behind them.



of course, in Art's History there were/are intellectuals, that is, we'd be talking about logic. Where does photography of the art of living stand, according to this criterion?

It stands on its own, if you ask me. I don't think logic or any sort of intellectualism is neighter sufficient nor necessary when it comes to photography of the art of living. Also I'm not sure if that kind of photography is self-reflexive at all. Maybe the 'self' which is relflecting upon itself, in that case, is the nature of the art of living, or the nature of what from the art of living has been encapsulated in a photograph, etc.

Thinking about your question the idea came to me that in fact, every photography is self-reflexive because it in some way questions the very nature of reality and how we make up images out of it.

You will understand what I mean by watching this short speech by Jeremy Narby.