Taiwan Based Photographers

See I'm looking for something to do this summer, and photography was the first thing that came to mind. Cause I'll be in Taiwan, I looked up photographers in Taiwan. I found these guys, and their stuff is !!! great.
Garret M. Clarke
Out of the project "Taiwanese Fishermen":

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Brian Q. Webb
I love the way the shadows cut across this picture.

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Steven Vigar

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Got me missing Taiwan and all. Can't wait to get back.

Utopia Project: The Things We Do At Night

             Utopia could be defined as an ideally perfect state. That, I believe, could never be possible. You could get close to utopia, but perfection is never attainable. Which is why I decided to photograph one of the many “fucked up” nights my friends and I have in Oberlin. Through drugs, alcohol, and sometimes, frolicking in the rain, many try to achieve a sense of utopia. Sometimes we believe that that we do attain utopia. Sometimes, for many of us, being with our friends, smoking the “ganja”, sex, drugs, etc, is utopia. But the truth is, no matter how happy we are, we are not in utopia, because the definition of utopia is perfection. Also, I find interesting that the things we do at night are usually related to man made things. We party in man-made structures, we consume man made drinks, etc. Note: the “cocaine” is actually just crystal light.

Persona Project: Exploration

For this project, I focused on the exploratory aspects of dressing in drag. I was inspired, and am continued to be inspired, by my friends, who, after coming to Oberlin, have gradually become more accepting of themselves, and their sexuality. In my photos I do not display before or after photos, nor photos near the end of the process of getting into drag. This is because my characters are just starting to experiment with drag, to explore their sexuality. I hope that the the delicate features of the photos in this project show tentativeness, yet eagerness to, well, explore.

Emulation Project: Richard Avedon

            For my emulation project I chose to emulate master photographer and printer Richard Avedon’s portrait photography. In his portraits Avedon puts his subjects against white backdrops. This amplifies the essence of each subject because the viewer is not also exposed to the subject’s environment. Also, Avedon manages to make each of his subjects glow in the most special way, and the backgrounds in his images a pure white, without shadows or texture. In my project I tried to capture the essence of each of my subjects the way Avedon did, so that each of my subjects could be viewed as pure beings, without the influence of their environments.

Mapping Project: Abandoned

The photographs in this project were taken in an abandoned house in Lorain County. When I found the house, most of the windows were broken, the paint on the walls was faded, dirty, and peeling, and there was rubble all over the floor. Strangely, there were miscellaneous objects scattered amongst the house that suggested that the house has been continually visited by humans, probably occasionally inhabited by squatters or transformed into a “hang out” spot by hunters, drunken teenagers, and more. 

The main purpose of this project is to convey personalities in the objects, and to show a sense of personality in them.

What struck me the most was that the objects---whether they were jackets on hangers, boots, bags, radiators, or a photo on a nightstand---were left there by people. There was such a great contrast between these “living” objects and the decaying and abandoned condition of the house. I found myself wondering, “Why did someone leave these here?”, “Where have these objects been?”, and “What’s the story behind each object?” I hope that these photos inspire similar thoughts in the viewers of these photographs.

An example of this is how in one photo there is a star spangled curtain with a white radiator. It seems like whoever put it up was trying to be patriotic. One photo shows a nightstand with speakers, matches, tape, a cassette tape, and a picture of a family. It creates personality, imprinted from whoever lived there in the past.

What is interesting, though, is how the decay bleeds through into the objects. For example, in some photographs there was layers of dust coating some objects. The photograph with the coats on the coat hangers seems normal at first, as if it were a photograph of a house that still had inhabitants, yet a closer look shows cobwebs extending from the coats to the wall, showing the same sense of decay and abandonment.

Spencer Tunick

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Album Cover

This is too cute.

Nan Goldin