Brian Duffy

During the 60's he was one of the most influential photographers in Britain. However one day he just gave it all up and burnt most of his work. Recently his son has discovered what was left of his work and this inspired him to take it up again.

He was a lad of the war and caused a lot of trouble. He didn't want to do anything until he discovered art. And whilst at art school he discovered the textiles class and wanted to be a designer. When he got a job for design company he got his girlfriend at the time pregnant and needed money fast so he took an illustrator job where most of the time he just made tea. Then he was asked to photograph a composer he started photographing everything for them.

This image was taken during the 1960's. The model is Joanna Lumley who at the time was a struggling model and single mum.  Prior to this image being taken Lumley had become one of Duffy's favourite models and as soon as he found out she was a mother he told her to bring her son with her. I find this image very strange to look at because Duffy has used contrasting clothes for the two models and the hair colour is different. Lumley is also wearing quite dark eyeshadow. This amount of dark areas in the image is surrounding the face of the young boy; which is emphasising his importance in this image. The fact that Lumley is holding the boy close to her and to her face is also showing the emotional attachment that a mother would have for their son and the importance that they have in their lives.

After 3 years at vogue he was restless so he went into advertisement and set up his own studio. He then moved to France and they loved the 'dodgy' images because they considered it to be a different way of visual expression, whilst the British would just say that the camera is broken. 

I think that this image was used as an album cover which I think is trying to show David Bowie as both the creative artist through the face paints and show that underneath when its all washed off he is still a human being. Just like us he has feelings which is shown in his facial expression and skinny structure of his shoulders. I think that this is very similar to some work produced by Annie Leibovitz of John Lennon.

His home based studio would consist of the living area being in the basement and the studio was upstairs. Whilst working in his home the elite would visit like John Lennon.

Taken in 1965; this image shows John Lennon looking very relaxed and happy for the image. The black jumper is the classic look for all the members of the Beatles. Whilst they were on stage they would also wear dark suits. The background looks like it would have been a dark colour as well; using the right lighting even a dark backdrop can be used to create tonal variance that looks really smooth for black and white photography. The simplicity of this image and casual feel to it would suggest to me that it might have been used in a magazine as the image for an interview with the singer/song writer.

Annie Leibovitz

She photograph's everything from royalty to pop and rock. she has no fear of the controversial like the John Lennon image. Leibovitz's life is her subject, her kids are very important and they are also a main subject. Coming from a large family taking photos and videos was natural and most of her childhood was in the car. Which already puts the world in a frame. She has been set up from childhood to put things in frames.

Her first images were taken in the Philippines, in a war zone/riot like community. Her ambition was to be a teacher but realised that she had to be an artist before she would be qualified to teach the subject.

Cartier-Bresson was her first influence, which is clear by the documentary style of her early images.

Rolling Stones magazine was her first photography job and she discovered that a magazine gives her a canvas to fill and a chance to travel. She begged her boss to let her photograph john Lennon's first in depth interview. Rolling Stone bosses decided to give her space and she flew with it and did all work for the photography. She would travel with specific people for up to a week taking photograph's of there life making all there images intimate. to help with this she would adapt so that she could talk to anyone and be part of the 'gang'. Leibovitz joined the Rolling Stones on tour and became part of the team. she became intrusive and everyone trusted her especially behind the stage and the bands personal life's and habits.

This is the last image ever taken of John Lennon and was very controversial because this image shows that he was still vulnerable even with his fame and his unconditional love that he had for his wife. He could give up everything he has as long as he had her. I love this image because it is so passionate and honest with his feelings. The Rolling Stone magazine is targeted at music lovers for indie, pop and rock genres which Lennon fits into. His death and fame of this magazine is a recipe for controversy and huge sales of the magazine that they may have never experienced before.

She would always call her ideas stupid and simple even though everyone else would call them fantastic and clever. Up until this point she was massively on drugs, this massively influenced her work conduct. Vanity Fair magazine put her in rehab and took her in. This is the start of her set up scenes and extreme use of natural and flash light. Vogue also employ her which gave her the budget she needed to create the masterpieces of fairytale stories. However she also takes images of famous people to humanise them. She shows the insecurities and their personalities.

This image is very bright and uses lots of models including famous faces like Keira Knightley. It is very effective because a lot of the references to the movie are accurate, the yellow bricks, Cairn Terrier, people in the background to make them look small and the good witch in a large, very bright gown. I think this image is especially great because of the number of models to control and complexity of the layout including the floor, dresses and thorough lighting through out the whole image. This image is obviously part of a magazine article shown by the text in the upper left corner. This might be to promote movies that the actors are in or maybe a celebration of the Wizard of Oz.

A large amount of her work uses natural light to create shadow and tone therefore I am going to attempt to create one with natural light intruding into confined spaces.