Photography WebQuest YOUR EYES, THEIR LENS: Getting Behind the Lens of Your Favorite Photographer

WebQuest by Mark Kobasz and Joyce Valenza             

Tasks:

Select: Select three photographers whose work you find compelling in some way

Reflect: In your journals, reflect on their work from both objective and subjective points of view. Discuss how these artists are products of and represent their times, environment/geographic space, gender, ethnic group . . .

Project: For the one photographer you find most interesting, capture five or six images which best represent their style and technique in a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation itself should be simple but use the available graphic elements--font, color, the photographs themselves--to convey, in your own creative way, the artist's style. Also include one exceptionaland original photograph that you've made in the style of the artist. Remember--less is more

Present: As you present your slides to the class, you should

• discuss why you chose this artist
• present the critical facts about the artist's life
• present your own critiques of the work using the seven principles of organization
• discuss what art critics have said about the artist's work. You might even include a relevant quote.

Sample: "Yet Arbus's images of ordinary New York women, nearly always pictured alone, have a more disturbing effect. To an age that loves X-Files-style paranormal these average citizens seem to take on a fierce zomboid tone, staring out of their over made-up faces, hiding behind veils and costumes. They are anything but average." Bishop, Louise. "The Challenge of Beauty." Creative Review 17 p. 63 D '97

• try to find a quote of the artist discussing his or her work

Assessment: Be sure to consult the rubric as you work on your project

Resources:

Aperture Foundation http://www.aperture.org/

Grove Dictionary of Art http://www.groveart.com/index.html

International Center of Photography http://www.icp.org/home/menu.html

George Eastman House International Museum of Photography http://www.eastman.org/home.htm

Masters of Photography http://masters-of-photography.com/

American Museum of Photography http://www.photographymuseum.com/

Photographic Libraries http://www.photographiclibraries.com/

GALENet Biography Resource Center http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC?locID=erde79591

Time/Life Great Photographers http://www.pathfinder.com/photo/gallery/arts/gallery_arts.html

Wilson Biographies http://hwwilsonweb.com/

Artists:

Select from among this list of Mark's favorites, or you may find your own and get approval:

• Diane Arbus
• Richard Avedon
• Mathew Brady
• Margaret Burke-White
• Harry Callahan
• Julia Margaret Cameron
• Robert Capa
• Lewis Jacques Mande Daguerre
• Walker Evans
• Lee Friedlander
• David Hockney
• Andre Kertesz
• Dorothea Lange
• Annie Liebovitz
• Mary Ellen Mark
• Ray Metzger
• Duane Michaels
• Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo
• Eadweard Muybridge
• Irving Penn
• Man Ray
• Cindy Sherman
• Aaron Siskind
• Edward Steichen
• Alfred Steiglitz
• Arthur Fellig Weegee
• Gary Winogrand

*Images from American Memory Collection "Touring Turn-of-the-Century America." http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?detr:1:./temp/~ammem_KhD7

Lange, Dorothea. "Migrant Mother." 1936 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fatop1.html

Return to Virtual Library