Photographer Research: Lucian Perkins

Lucian began photographing in collage at the University of Texas. After graduating, he returned to the University of Texas to teach. While teaching, he studied photography under Garry Winogrand. After this, he took an internship at The Washington Post. He stayed there for 27 years. Shortly after joining, his interest in shooting international conflicts grew. He won "News Photographer of the Year" for his shooting in Russia, plus some fashion photography. Related subjects, no? He also won a Pulitzer Prize for a four year project on the effects of poverty and crime on a family living in Washington D.C. He won a second for a portfolio of Kosovo refugees. The Kosovo Conflict was a very personal time in my life. My father was in the Air Force during this, and he was sent over to fly refueling tankers. Because this photographer shot the conflict, it was one of the reasons I selected him to research. He tends to focus on people, mainly refugees and military members. He now works as a freelance photographer in D.C.

This image is the one which made him famous. It is of a refugee boy staring out of the back of a bus. This image helped him win a Pulitzer, and characterizes the Kosovo Conflict in a picture. The child has nowhere to go, because his home is destroyed or he is being hunted. The pure hopelessness in the child shows the state of Kosovo after Milosevic and and the NATO bombing. From the looks of it, he is trying to break out of this decending spiral the war pushed him into. It is not working. It is a true war photograph. It shows the actual face of war, no propoganda what-so-ever.

This is one of the oddest photographs I have ever commented on. Blinky, from pacman walks down the street on Halloween. Sounds like something which would show up at my family's Halloween party. I can see nothing wrong with the composition. While this image may not relate to th overall topic of most of his images, which is war, it's just funny.

This is one of the photographs which allowed him to be accepted as an intern for The Washington Post. The woman was one of the first group of female seniors in the United States Navel Academy. This image shows the senior woman chewing out a group of freshman, in this case for messing up the menu. Lucian was able to take a shot at a very historic point for the academy. The first co-ed class in the 132 years of the school, it was a turning point for women in the military. The composition is perfect. It must be easy to shoot stock-still recruits in white uniforms. They look almost scared.

Assignment 7: Life and Death

This assignment was a bit odd for me. I eventually decided on my favorite place to shoot, the pool. The lifeguard room and the scenery at the pool and center provided a good place to take pictures. The light was good and I was able to get some pretty good shots in. The weird part was my camera rewound the film before I shot all 36 frames. This left me with a bit of a shortage of images to use for the project, but I pulled through. My personal favorite is the close-up of the tree branch. The light from over the building represents hope and life from above. The rest of the tree is the rest of the world, filled with life, but the branch is the most important. The branch is the sole individualism of life, standing out from all the others. Just a symbolic picture in my mind. The contrast of the trunk is absolutely phenomenal, and I do not think the light could have been better. Another interesting occurrence was the glare on the Pool Rules sign. Rules keep you safe, they keep you alive, and they have a spirit to them. The glare on the sign acts as that spirit in the picture. I will admit it is slightly blurred, but still it is a very interesting picture. Not my best, best work in the world, but it hits the top ten on my assignment list. I could not hit the creative milestone the "Fish Out of Water" allowed me to make, but I still rather enjoyed it.

Assignment 6: Fish out of Water

This, I must say, was my favorite assignment we have done this term. It gave us a good chance to let some creativity loose which we had not done too much before. I took this assignment like I took the portraits in Slade's class. When I got this assignment, I had two thoughts: 1. The definition of "Fish out of Water" 2. My portrait assignment. I let my creativity from that spill over into this assignment, and it worked. All of my pictures turned out amazing, but my favorite is the rifle bullet in the group of shotgun shells. Because the table it was shot on (no pun intended) had a glass top, it almost looked like they were floating. Also another one of my favorites was the six bullets with the bullets still there, with the shot one in the center. It was shot on the same table, but has a different effect because of the angle. Also the blurred background from the focus gives one of the most interesting background for any of my pictures. I got that part right from the portraits. This is some of my best work ever.

Assignment 5, Contrast

This assignment was challenging to say the least. The low contrast was the hardest by far. The normal high contrast was fun, but trying to get it to have "normal" contrast was a nightmare. The low contrast was kinda' easy and worked out well, but trying to fix the contrast was near impossible. But, after everything, they came out as good as they are going to get from me, and I will just try to not mess with the laws of contrast, along with physics. Not too good of laws to mess around with. I personally like the normal high contrast ones the best, and thanks for finally giving us a chance to shoot another roll.

Assignment #3 Journal

My pictures for this assignment did not like the toning process. While a couple had a big change, most of them did not seem to change at all. The NT sephia and the WT poly had some big effect, which I liked, but the rest did not seem to change much. I believe the NT and WT selenium somewhat increased the contrast, but it was rather hard to tell. On the other hand I had an enjoyable time with the toning, and maybe I'll try again sometime. But for now I will leave the toning to the people who have trained for it.

Journal Entry #2

My prints came out better than my first assignment, less rushed, as you said. The technical components are all in place and the assignment is completed. I cannot really discern a difference between the LPD and Sprint developers, but I do see big differences in the paper types. I like the warm-tone paper because of the yellow tint it gave to the print, and it made the prints somewhat better to look at. The prints are all in focus, with correct times and filters, and it should be my best work of the year so far.

Yevgeny Khaldei

For my research assignment, I chose this WWII Russian photographer. He was born to a Jewish family in present day Ukraine. He built his first camera out of his grandmother's glasses. He first started working at a Russian broadcasting company named TASS as a press photographer. He shot in World War II as a Red Army photographer from 1941 to 1946, recognized for shooting multiple famous events such as the capture of the Reichstag and the Nuremburg Trials. He also shot many of the great Russian leaders such as Stalin, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin. His images are war camera quality, and they have very good composition giving off very strong vibes and powerful images.

This is the image which made Yevgeny famous. It is Russian soldiers raising a flag atop the newly captured Reichstag building. This is actually a recreation of the flag raising. A flag was raised the day before, but it was taken down by Nazi fighters in the building. Sound familiar? Iwo Jima, anyone? Anyway, it is also very strong in the composition and the message it gives. It gives a "We have fought long and hard for this place, and it is now ours" through very symbolic means. It was also an image which was ridiculously photoshopped for content. Just like the cigarette in one of the Beatles famous album covers. They took out a looted watch to make it look like they had not been looting the place, replaced the flag with a more dramatic one, added smoke for effect, all courtesy of the Russian FCC. All in all, it is a wonderfully created image, and my favorite of the bunch.

I like this image because it gives a vibe of reconstruction and a return to the normal. The three people are just sitting there, possibly on a beach, relaxing even with the remnants of the war sitting right behind them. It shows how people can adapt for any situation, any time, and make the best of it. Not my favorite image of the bunch, but it is still nice.This is three political leaders lounging around, from left to right: Churchhill, Truman, and Stalin. This image is a famous one taken at the Potsdam Conference in Germany during July 1945. During a small break of the meeting, the leaders settled down for an impromptu photo session. It shows how the war is fought on two fronts. The commonly seen army front, but also the political front with the world's leaders battling with words. The focus is perfect, but it is hard, at first glance, to see the faces and distinguish who they really are. I could see Stalin in an instant, but Truman and Churchhill are a bit hard to make out. Might be just me.I like this image because of the amazing composition and the strength of the image. It shows an officer with only one leg and a civilian , possibly his wife. He shows how everybody is a casualty of war, not just the armies. The armies lose massive amounts of men, and the civilians lose their cities, economies, and production capabilities. He shows these losses through this image, the lost leg, the rebuilding in the background, the bleakness of the people, but also the light of rebuilding.