Essay on the critical appraisal of Ansel Adams
There is an open question that defines photography theory as much as it plagues it: does a photographer take or make a photograph? Ansel Adams’s 1935 book, Making a photograph: an introduction to photography could well be considered the definitive response. A photograph remains an abstraction, even in its most primitive state as a sort of document or record and Adams’s skill lies in his ability to conceal his role as contriver, abstracter, imaginist, within the rhetorical apparatus of scientifically objective reality.
Essay on the works of Andy Goldsworthy
It is immediately evident that Goldsworthy’s works, in general, strongly accentuate texture and shape. Goldsworthy describes the working process as a tactile expression, implying the involvement of a multi-sensory extension of the body, a recurring artistic intention, especially through cues signifying touch and vision. For me, looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins.
