Peter Gasser

 Peter Gasser is one of America's premier artists. He specializes in the art of photography. An art that is so hard to be excellent at,
Peter Gasser really has the art down and knows how to produce amazing images. As this quote from one of the Getty's many books published on photography, Gasser states that photography is an act of love, it can reinstate the world around the photographer and the viewer. I fell the same about photography as he does, in fact, this quote basically sums up what I think about photography.


He was born in Switzerland in 1947 and has always had a strong connection with the arts. He loves music an has since he was a child. Gasser feels that music can determine a persons photography more than they know. There is a strong connection between the photography a person takes and the music that a person listens too.

He has recently turned from landscape photography to shooting people, which is where he resides in his art today. He has had many famous icons that he loves to study, such as Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, and Paul Caponigo. Like them he is a superb crafts man when it comes to his photography. He produces his own prints and develops them himself in the old style in a darkroom.

His photography is quite amazing because he isolates a certain element of an area and focuses on them specifically to create unity in his pictures as well as a sense of individuality for the subjects that he is shooting. He has a way of making them look special and unique.
They are some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen. I have just recently found this artist and can not stop looking at his prints because they are just so very beautiful! I love them! I like how he plays with light and makes the subjects look so interesting and deep. He is just an amazing photographer in my opinion, and I would one day love to shoot images like he does. The complexity in his pints is also amazing because they just have a way of stunning the viewer whether its the first time you have seen his pictures, or you are a follower of this artist. I just am in love with these and they are truly a form or art for me. It seems as though you can really tell exactly what he was feeling and thinking when he takes each and every one of his photos and that it what I love about photography.

Final Project #2

So today we finished our projects for our final. We also started installing a little bit. But the majority of our time was spent painting the figures and putting them back together after they began falling apart during the weekend. It was somewhat disappointing to see them all fall apart, but we figured out how to get them back together, and it was better from then on. They look pretty epic, and I'll have pictures on thursday about them.
I think that I will continue to write on my blog, however I'm a little hesitant because I don't really like it. But I think I will post some of my pictures so some of my friends that I don't see a lot can keep up with my photography. I do think its useful for that.
I find blogging a really interesting subject because of the way that many people feel about it. It bothers me mostly because of the fact that whatever I put up here is accessible to everyone and it will never go away. Which is why I'm a bit hesitant  to put my pictures up here because people could steal them. So that's a little unnerving. However, I do put watermarks on my pictures, so that will help a little bit.
I have an art history test this week. I'm not really excited about it. Its our last one however, so that'll be nice! It covers Romanesque and Gothic art mostly. I think that these two time periods are really interesting because its like they forgot about the classical artists and styles and just started doing whatever. It is very interesting to me how the arts were only used to teach people about religion and not really for hte sake of doing art. It makes me somewhat sad. I guess, however if we didn't have these times we wouldn't have the art we have today, so for that I am happy!

underwater photography

So lately I have become really interested in the art of underwater photography. I think that this is a really unique art form because of the way that people look underwater. The liquid has a unique ability to catch almost everything that makes up your body and move it in a way that makes it beautiful. You can shoot many things underwater, but my favorite pictures that come from under the water is of human bodies.
This is an extremely challenging  area of photography because of the special equipment that is used as well as the fact that water has a way of distorting things that shooting around can be really hard. One of the major things that water distorts are the waves lengths of colors that the person, animal, plant, or other subject puts off. It can be especially tricky to get what you see in real life to translate onto the camera's memory.
I think that this is probably one of the the challenges that the photographer meets with a happy heart. I believe that you have to be a pretty dedicated person to work on your images that hard to ensure a beautiful shot. There are ways to prevent the loss of color from happening as bad however. You should always use a wide angled lens so that you can get extremely close to the object that you are shooting and you should use a flash to restore some of the color in the object of your focus.
Many times you can shoot underwater with the camera that you already own, you just have to buy some simple things, like a water proof case and flash, to keep your equipment safe. Many like to shoot underwater because it produces beautiful pictures and they are ones that can not be replaced.
I have never shot underwater, but I really would love to try it out. I think that it could be a really fun experience and it would help me further my portfolio and my skill set for the future job that I want of being a photographer.

Some more of my pictures and what I think about them

So I took this picture this summer, actually when I was driving up to come to orientation for college. It was taken somewhere in Oregon, and I really like it. I think that its a little different than the stereotypical picture of person with camera in car mirror because of the surroundings that were happening when I was taking the picture. I think that my mom was like freaking out because I had just gotten my new camera, and I was literally holding it out of the car to get the shot, and my dog was like nudging my other arm, we had all been in the car for like ever!, and everyone was pretty tired of this trip lol.  So what do I do? add some excitement to our trip and start taking pictures. :) I also think that this picture is down right sweet because of the fact that the mirror is perfectly crisp, but the outside is blurred, this is pretty hard to achieve, and I kept taking the picture until I got this effect. I also like the mountain in the back....... kinda looks like a pyramid (my art history nerdyness coming out, sorry). Any ways, I just really like this picture, and it kinda means a lot to me because if you notice it shows my class ring on my finger, so its kinda like looking back at the past, high school, while the current is passing by me, which is something that I try to avoid, because I want to live my life to the fullest.

So this picture I took at a wedding a few months a go. It was some of Ben and I's friends getting married, it was super cute! Anyways, this was after the wedding, and we were getting ready to leave, and someone handed me this rose. I thought that it was beautiful! So, since it was a wedding, and there was white everywhere, I layed it on a white surface, because monotone is very appealing to the eye in pictures like this.
This is actually one of my favorite pictures that i have taken in a long long time. I like how the rose is a bit worn out, and how you can really see that in the picture, it really makes me have an emotional reaction to this scene because you don't know if it was at a wedding or prom or something, without me telling you. It is not very specific to the event, which I think in some pictures, works. This is one of them. I really love how the depth is also portrayed in this picture because of the way the stem lays in the background. It is just a really beautiful composition.

Last one for today. I took this picture at a county fair in Twin Falls county, where I'm from. It was at the rodeo, and I was so excited to be going! It was the first rodeo that I'd been to in awhile, so it was pretty awesome! I love the sun-rays that are present in the picture and how it bounces off the lens, hence the dots. I think that the image content is really cool too, because I love horses. This may not be the best picture, but it is definitely not a bad one I think. I really just love the ruggedness of the dirt and the whole idea of the beginning processions at the beginnings of rodeos, so its a really stunning picture for me. I also like how it reflect something that this part of the country takes seriously, and that is the sport of rodeo, and also the beauty of the opening scenes of this epic sport.

Owyhee County Historical Society Museum

This weekend I had to the chance to drive the treacherous roads to Murphy, Idaho. Apart from it being a learning experience for me, since I am just learning how to drive, it was a trip that was packed with information about the Owyhee Indians. Much of what remains of the historical things that these Indians used are in this museum, preserved for all to see. I really wished that I had my camera, so I could show you what the museum looked like, but I forgot it. I should really start carrying it around with me, so because it seems lately you never know what I'm going to come across in this great land. Just in case you don't know where Owyhee county is, I've included a map. Its the biggest county in the state of Idaho.

Any who, I loved this museum. It was small and personal, which are the exact museums that I like. There were so many things to looks at when you first walked in, but it was not overwhelming, so I read it all! First there was the history of the Horny Toads that populate the land, then a day in the life of an Indian that would have lived there, then there was the history of what happened when the westerners came over and displaced the Indians, and even an first eye account of how the Indians fought back.
My favorite part of the museum was, well I actually had several, but I think that the one that resignated with me the most was the exhibit that included around 200 spurs and 500 or so bits for horses. I liked this one the best because I am an avid horse rider, and love the metal work that goes into these pieces of art, or at least that is how I view them. I thought that many of the pieces were wonderfully crafted and you could tell that they were made with expertise. The most amazing thing that I found out while I was there was the fact that all of these artifacts were collected by one man, and he kept record of everyone that he had, as well as where he got them from, and if the history was given about how old it was, who used it and such, he had it down. I truly believe that if we did not have people like this man that collected all of these things, and really searched for the history of each item in his collection, a lot of our history about this land would be gone. We have already lost so much history, it a shame, but without individuals like this, much more would be gone.
I thought that this was a really interesting museum and it held a lot of old art and artifacts that I think have become so everyday to us in our society that we quickly forget to realize the art in everything.

Final Project!!

So my final project idea was rejected. I pitched to the class that we should make a collection of origami animals or shapes and then display them in a vitrine for the public to see. It was rejected, which it should have been, compared to the rest of the ideas, so I'm ok with it. :) So I chose to be on Cara's team, on which I am a part of making clay sea animals that have ran away from the set because their series, Nautical Dude! has been canceled. However, 50 or so years later, they have been found, and are on display for the public to see.

So these creatures consist of molded clay, seashells, and acrylic paint, not yet applied. I had a lot of fun creating these characters, they look really awesome! I took some pictures of the ones that I have created for you to see. They look really cartoonish, which is a huge accomplishment for me, since I have never been able to create characters like this. So I'm really excited to reveal them during the

museum exhibition that our class is putting on during finals week! So here they are... each of the creatures is complete with a shell that
they either live on, call their home, or is attached to them for protection. I think that they look really cool and I had the most fun making this project so far. I also think that they will be a great part of the exhibition, and I'm really excited about showing them off.

Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons was born on January 21st in York, Pennsylvania. As a child he went door to door selling wrapping paper for some pocket change. As a child his biggest art icon was Salvador Dali, as he said that he loved the way that he distorted the everyday images and made them fantasy. He attended the School of Art Institute of Chicago as well as the Maryland Institute College of Art. After college he went onto Wall Street and was a commodities trader while trying to make it as an artist. He finally got his break when he received recognition from TIME magazine in the 1980s.

He then started his studio in New York City, very near Andy Warhol's The Factory. He even ran it in a similar way. Koon's employs around 30 aspiring artists to make his art for him. None of his pieces are actually touched by him, however, he comes up with the ideas. He is ridiculed for not being an artist, however he says that everyone is an artist, everyone has ideas and then has others fulfill them for them, just no one admits it.
He specializes in recreating pre-made objects, or just bringing them together. He has gotten himself in a lot of lawsuits because of this. He does not claim the objects as his, however, just the mere idea of bringing them together. There are two categories for his art, that almost every piece can fit under, or so it seems to me. These categories are: Over 10 ft. or made of metal. An installation that meets both of these criteria is the exhibit named Statuary, which are a series of large, steel, blow up toys or balloon animals finished with a mirrored finish.

Koons has had a very tumulus love life. He and his college girlfriend had a child, then given up for adoption, but now has reconnected with him. He also married a porn start, and they had one child, then she ran to Rome with the child. Koons won custody of the child until it went to Roman Court, where he lost it, ending the marriage. He is now married to one of his aspiring artist, Justine Wheeler. They have been married, happily may I add, for almost 10 years.
I have a hard time accepting Koons' work as in fact art. I mean many artist take pride in creating the forms and the ideas themselves, where, rather, he has others do them for him. I have an extremely hard time with that. However, the forms that he makes are very beautiful, and just a pieces, I consider them art, but I do not like the background behind them.

Mick Rock

Mick Rock, known as "The Man Who Shot the Seventies", is a photographer that is responsible for creating many of the images of iconic rock bands from the seventies to present day. He is most known for shooting Queen, Joan Jett, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, and Motley Crew. Along with these and many others, he is the main photographer for David Bowie, since meeting him in 1972.
He was hired as the main photographer of Rocky Horror's Picture Show in the late 1970s as well as touring with David Bowie, shooting him live and on location of many of his concerts. 
In recent years he has published many books on the images that he has taken of iconic rock legends. he is also working on may new things, like an exhibit in Liverpool, Berlin, New York City, Tokyo, Los Angeles, as well as Amsterdam. These exhibits include some of the old images but mainly focus on the new images that he has taken in the past few years. These subjects include Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, the YeahYeahYeahs, The Killers, Kate Moss, and Michale Buble.
he lives in New York City with his wife Patti and  daughter Nathalie. Nathalie is a model, also shot by her dad, during New York Fashion Week in Times Square.

I think that he is a very interesting artist, as well as an influential photographer in general. He has paved the way, and was one of the firsts to be worldly recognized,for photographers today to shoot risque shots as well as shoot what they really feel. I think that his work is pretty amazing and I think that along with shooting many of the icons today, he is a legend for shooting the crazy rock stars from the 70s and 80s.
I think that he had a hard time on some of his pictures, which you can trace back to some of the events that were happening during the time that he was shooting. Like when he shot Queen II, you can tell that there is something behind the scenes of this shoot. This is because this was shortly after Freddy Mercury announced that he was dying from AIDS, and it was shortly before their release of Bohemian Rhapsody, which was a very controversial song at first.
I really admire Rock for his intuitive shots as well as how creative he is with his angle. I think that this is one of the things that has set him apart throughout the years. The way he holds his camera and sees these icons as just normal people is really awesome because it just shows them as they are, when they aren't being rock starts, or making rock history. I think that is why people connect to his shots so easily, because they are real. They bring the legends down to our level, and who doesn't like to live like icon Sydney Barrett in his messy house or sitting on top of a car.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol, as we know him today, was born Andre Warhla on August 6th, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the 4th child born to his parents, having two older brothers, and a brother that he never meet, seeing as how the family immigrated her from Slovakia in the early 1900s, and he died before they moved. His father moved here in 1914 to work in a coal mine, his mother shortly joined him after the death of her grandparents in 1927. However, his father died a short 4 years after from an accident in the coal mines. His family was devout Byzantine Catholic, which he was a believer and a avid one at that till the day he died, despite his homosexuality.
As a child he was diagnosed with Chorea, a symptom of having scarlet fever as a child. This disease left him bed-ridden as a child, which made him an easy target for ridicule from other children in the community where they lived. This made him cling to his mother and draw to help the time and the illness pass. He says that he does not resent that time because it was time he needed

to develop his skills and preferences towards the arts. The main infliction that this disease left him with was the inability to control his movements, so he worked on refining the random and rapid movements so that he could continue his art pieces.
He had his first solo gallery opening on July 9th, 1962 in Los Angeles. This exhibition marked the start of pop art in the west. The exhibit included his 100 Campbell's soup cans, 100 Coke bottles, 100 dollar bills, and his tribute to Marilyn Monroe, seeing as how she died a few weeks before the opening, Marilyn Diptych. He was ridiculed for making a business out or art and making iconic American images available to the world.

After this opening he had enough money to open his first studio, which he offered to many up-in-coming artists as a haven for artistic development, sexual experimentation, and just as a hangout. It was called The Factory. The studio was in downtown New York and was the place for many of his pieces of artwork to become the icons they are today.
Unfortunately, one of these artists that he opened his doors to, Valerie Solanas, tried to murder him on July 3rd, 1968, only two days before the assignation of JFK. This artist was part of the factory scene and appeared in many of Warhol's videos and production because of her beauty. While in The Factory, she started a movement named S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Down Men). I think that you can figure out what their main opposition was. Andy Warhol was seriously injured by the shot fired by Solanas, damaging his heart, lungs, and spleen. It is said that the physicians had to hold his heart and massage it, so that it would regain movement. Solanas was arrested and said that that main reason why she shot him was because he had too much control over her life because he was in love with her, which was by no means true, Warhol says.
In the 1980s his work really took off when he started painting pop icons, such as Michael Jackson. This paining lead to him producing Thriller, which was a major success in Jackson's career.
He dies on February 22, 1987 due to a cardiac arithmea during his sleep while recovering from a gallbladder surgery. He is buried in the St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Some of my pictures

This is one of the photographs that I took while visiting Rome in the Spring of 2008. I took it in the District Olympic Rome, a neighborhood near the Coliseum. I think that this is a really stunning picture because it has nice line and really nice detail. It is in perfect focus and even has a sense of depth when you look at the picture. I think that this was one of my favorite pictures that I took in Rome because it completely captures that essence of the neighborhood. We spent a lot of time there and we were able to get to know quite a few of the people that lived in the quarter.
It was quite and not very lively since it was that time of the afternoon that many people in Europe take a nap. I think that this shows that because there is no one in the picture, as well as the color of the print really makes me think of what it would look like if you were sleeping there.
I think that the most interesting part of this experience was the meeting all of the people  that took residence in the district. I think that many of them loved their lives, and some even wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world, unlike many of the people today. There was one older woman that told me how her son had lost his job, due to the very beginning of the recession there, and how he came back home to live with his mother. She said that it is sad that he has no work and that they are struggling for money, but she wouldn't have it any other way. She loves having him home.
I think that the biggest difference between their happiness and ours is the fact that they seem to be happy with anything that life deals them, even if its not what they had planned.  I think that this is something that our country has lost in the midst of trying to get to the top, no matter what it cost us or anyone else. I wish that we could just go back a few centuries and remember what it was like to frankly have a loaf of bread in the house, not to mention the butter that we hold low on our chart of importance. I think that maybe I would like to do a piece on this one day because it is something that is very interesting to me. I try to be thankful for everything that I achieve or am given, even if its not what I want, and I think it would be really interesting to research that through other people and see how they react to this situation.

Snow

So today we woke up and there was tons of snow outside!! so much so that school was canceled. I like this fact. :) Anyways, the snow kind of inspired me to do a little photography journey one of these days when it isn't snowing outside, but there is still a lot of snow out there. I wanted to go outside and find a random car that has been there for awhile and has frost on the windshield. I wanted to take a picture similar to this one. I think that this would be really cool because every snowflake is different and they are so hard to preserve, unless you find an opportunity like this. I think that these pictures are really pretty and they really inspire me to go out and take lots of pictures one of these days soon and give them to my mom, because I know that she'd love them .
I think that these single flakes of snow, that have been frozen on the window are and excellent example of Christmas and the spirit that comes along with the holiday season. I really think that a lot of people forget how joyous and happy this time of year is and they simply forget to just be grateful for the snow that is around them.

I love them snow!And since I've been living in California for awhile I haven't really bee able to see much of it. So I enjoy every chance that I can get to go out and look and play in the snow. I think that it would also be cool to do a piece on snow angels and how everyone's snow angel is different, just as we are all different. I think that this would be really interesting, if I could get it to develop right.
I think that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year! I know that that is really stereotypical of me and really lame, but I truly do believe that there is no other time during the year that everyone seems so joyous and happy. It is great to see families getting together to celebrate whatever religion they profess, or simply to just spend time together as a family. I think that that is something that our world takes for granted now a days, and it is really sad.