Andreas Gursky

Gursky’s photos are physically distant from his subjects allowing the people to interact with the culture and influences around them naturally. With this approach, I find the pictures to be realer because the artist is not manipulating the image to his perceived notations of this relationship. He likes to capture the whole picture rather than cropping and focusing on one thing; in this sense, he is not being biased about the influence of cultures are around us. This can be seen in his image of Parliament. Even though he had to take photos both day and night, the final product showed so much. Gursky was able to show the inside of Parliament while the busy life outside of it (the citizens they effect) reflected in the mirrors. This image is truly showing a relationship between the two groups of people though they may never cross paths often. This image can even show how parliament may not always see the people with the citizens’ being represented on the outside in the reflections.

Another image such as the people on the elevator/escalade in the Paris airport, you are really taken aback by how the people are like clockwork as if in a factory setting. Moving along a converter belt one by one, packing up, and moving to their next destination. Gursky makes sure to avoid people sticking out or if they look directly at the camera as to focus more on the whole group. But Gursky is essentially noting these sites of commerce and tourism that draw attention to the industry and global markets within the images.

Even the people on the elevator have a reflection of mass-producing in their medias such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. We have created the software apps to allow people to document every moment in life i.e. mass-producing. By this are the people disconnected or connected? People are definitely interconnected by technology uses and purposes, however, they are more disconnected from each other. There are no true human connections going on between them. The only communication between humans in this is by secondhand like conversations by digital text.

With Gursky’s knowledge of architecture, some of his images are also created within the landscapes of the beaten down pathways, you get a sense of time and story, imagining who walks these paths every day and why? In some images, there is modern interacting with nature (natural).

Deadpan style photography is what we resort to after natural or human-made disasters. We look to ways to cope and comprehend the situations. How and Why did this happen? Photography reporters try to capture images of the whole situation to up close views of after results. I don’t think these close shots necessarily try to persuade the viewers to feel a certain way. The situation such as the Syrian refugees, it is hard to not get those images because people across seas want to know. We want to know how badly impacted those people are. And the truth of the images speaks for themselves as is. No matter the angle a person could try to persuade, it is evident within the eyes of the victims and the landscape. It is rather the stories that go with these images and how those stories are told that persuade people in certain directions.