after class last week, i was still thinking about what it was about some of joel sternfeld's photographs that made me not like them as much as william eggleston's or stephen shore's work. i know i said "clunky" at the time, but i was finding it hard to explain even to myself what i meant. then i remembered david lachapelle's marylin manson schoolbus bus portrait... and that was it. i realised that i was being unfair to the sternfeld pictures because some of the amazing coincidences he had happened upon and caught on film reminded me of the theatrically contrived situations that david lachapelle is famous for. i will re file my internal library.(top: Joel Sternfeld McLean, Virginia, 1978 bottom: David LaChapelle Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow: "Burning Down the House" Vanity Fair 1997)
2 comments:
good comparison and while I like some of Lachapelle's work Sterny gets my vote every time. The natural theatre of this particular image and the elephant in the road is remarkable and to think he shot it on a 10x8...
thank you for this thoughtful post rhian!
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