Weird strange and Beautiful

Alexander Khokhlov and Veronica Ershova is a photographers duo world renowned for it’s creative projects. Unconventional ideas and daring approach to common shootings are their calling card.

Most talked-about series Weird Beauty and 2D or not 2D were created in collaboration with famous russian make-up artist Valeriya Kutsan. Mix of face art, photography and post-production allowed to create optical illusions. 2D or not 2D series were included in Designcollector’s top-10 of Russian projects in 2013.

In 2013 Alexander and Veronica started new art-project called Table Stories. The series is based on the mix of photography and philology, where authors showed their experiments with wordgames and paraphrases. The high-key images are squared and have the only white table as a decoration. It helped to achieve minimalistic approach in Table Stories and to make it funny, laconic and stylish.

The combination of unusual ideas, photographic skills and careful retouching helps duo to create any visual solutions - from amazing art-projects to peculiar collages for adverising.Alexander and Veronica really care about the quality of their shootings, that’s why the duo collaborates only with top-level stylists, make-up artists, image designers, etc. (taken from here)

http://www.alexanderkhokhlov.com/

Techniques to help the model feel at ease while being photographed

In class the other day our teacher was talking about taking portraits and mentioned ways to help the model relax or feel at ease. While she only mentioned having a pleasant conversation, I stumbled across a person who had another way of making the models relax, in a rather humorous way in fact!

"22-year-old Vietnamese photographer Nguyen Dinh An is making headlines in his country. The attention isn’t for his photographs, but for the bizarre way in which he captures those photos. As the video above shows, Nguyen turns framing his pictures into something of a performance art.

Vietnam Today 247 writes that Nguyen incorporates strange moves into his shooting style in order to put brides and grooms at ease and to induce genuine smiles and laughs. Sometimes he’ll do Michael Jackson dance moves such as the moon walk, while other times (like in the video above), he’ll roll around on the ground like a ninja on a photo-taking mission."(taken from here)

The Napalm Girl

Picture and video below found here

Nick Ut began his career as a photographer with the AP in Saigon in 1966 and covered the rest of the war. There were many close calls for Nick while covering the war. When the Americans and South Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1970, he was wounded three times. The highlight of Nick’s career came on a rainy day on June 8 1972 when he photographed nine year old Kim Phuc, running and screaming down Route 1 naked. It was near Trang Bang village in Vietnam, after a misdirected napalm bomb was dropped on her family home by a South Vietnamese plane. Seventy five per cent of her body was scorched with third degree burns. Nick captured the little girl on film and then rushed her to a hospital, which saved her life. The shot which seared the world’s conscience became the scream heard around the globe and won every major photographic award in 1973; the Pulitzer Prize, World Press Photo, Sigma Delta Chi, George Polk Memorial Award, Overseas Press Club, National Press Club. Along with that the picture was the choice of the 20th century. The picture remains perhaps the most graphic and memorable image of the Vietnam War.  (description found here)

Our teacher tasked us with coming up with picture that we saw throughout a day that we remember, well rather than a picture I ended up having a short animated film, that I ran across on tumblr, stuck in my head.  While it may not have any actual camera work in it, it provokes questions and acts on your inner child and curiosity.   Regardless, I feel like it could inspire others work to go a different direction, if not its still a cute little film.  The short film called Alma is about a small child who happens upon a small abandoned shop, with a familiar looking doll in the window.