If you’ve picked up a magazine in the past few years, you may have noticed a particular trend among the covers. Seemingly flawless and metallic skin tone; light that plays with your ability to detect its source; perfect backdrops; vivid color clarity. More than likely the photographer who took those photographs was Jill Greenberg (or someone desperately trying to emulate her style). If you google her name, an array of topics come up discussing her technique, her lighting; essentially tutorials on how to achieve her look. And honestly, I would be guilty of checking those tutorials out. The Jill Greenberg idiom, for those who are interested in commercial photography, has set the modern stage and standard for magazine cover and layout art.
But why? What makes her images so cool? After all, there doesn’t seem to be any underlying meaning behind many of her photographs. In a way, much of her work with celebrities emulates the glamorization of royalty in old paintings. In her portfolio of portraits, we see celebrity after celebrity illustrated in the most convenient of lighting setups where even the most unattractive subject beams with a luminescence that you can’t ignore.
More than anything, most of her work could be classified as character studies. Most subjects are familiar (either celebrities, CEOs, sport stars, and animals) to the majority of her audience but demand an intrigue with her blend of familiarity and fanciful. Moreover, seldom are her subjects dirty. They often come across as advertisements expressing their most perfect qualities. In her set titled, “Monkeys and Apes” all of the animals appear not only clean, but groomed and even made up. One orangutan even has his hair styled in the now seemingly universally fashionable punk mohawk.
In many respects, her work has come to embody the modern commercial conception of cool. However, she does venture outside commercialism. In particular with her, “End Times” depictions of numerous children boohooing, she steps outside the commercial realm to pose a thought-provoking message. She explains that the honesty of children’s emotions demand your attention. Emotions that we as adults have learned to suppress all of our lives.
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I remember watching Jill Greenberg's video in class and thinking that her photographs looked like it could be a painting. The images are very tangible looking,and its obvious thats he tampered with the original photograph she took to make it look so airbrushed. I'm not that impressed with the fact that she used a drawing tool on the computer to enhance the way these children look, but I do love the way she captures the raw emotion of these children, and that it sparked so much controversy because people thought she was cruel to make a baby cry. What her reaction to this was, that babies have no filter on their emotions. One minute they're crying the next they're laughing. I can appreciate the way she is trying to get perfection from her image, but why does she feel the need to make these pictures so pure and perfect? Are flaws not beauty? I think it's great that she can take a portrait of a bear, that is usually presented to us as a ferocious animal, and make him look like a beautiful cuddly teddy bear. Why we must we always look for the perfection in things instead of capturing what is real?
ReplyDeleteI’d love to see Jill Greenberg do a series of crying adults, the type of adults who criticize artist her artist integrity of crying babies. Even after Greenburg explained her reason behind capturing these photos and the methods she used in bring tears out of child people still claim her photos as cruel and unusual. In my opinion the photos are as beautiful and typical as seeing a baby smile. Furthermore, the children where in the care of their parents when this shoots took place and we quickly embraced after it was shot. There were no extreme or abusive acts that where administered to elicit a crying response, so what is all the fuss about? Making a baby cry is as easy as taking a candy from a baby. These are true emotions that should not be over exaggerated as some vindictive display. At the end of the day you either like the photos or you don’t.
ReplyDeleteI loved watching the video of Jill Greenberg in class. I think that it is interesting that she sort of hand paints her images on a computer. Her portraits remind me very much of portraits done by Martin Schoeller. Her portraits like Schoeller are so raw, powerful, and in your face. Each artist captures the many details of the face of whoever they are taking the portrait of. I enjoy how Greenberg does not take the standard, run of the mill portrait but does it with her own style and approach. Her portraits definitely stand out in my mind compared to some other photographers portrait work.
ReplyDeleteI remember we have looked her work of the bear and those crying children. The idea of her work is so special and outstanding. She is really good at capture of the moment that she may imagine for a long time and she can always did it. Those children pictures are so impressive. It reminds me about my childhood I which I would have some took picture of me. That would be so sweet to have it so that I can take look at when I turn to really old. And also she is an amazing woman who is really good at work with large group of people and also animals. She combined the natural and other elements into photography.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that Jill Greenberg can produce amazing images. I love the way that she is able to capture the raw emotions of children and the spirit that lies within animals. the problem I have is the work that is done to the images once the camera is out of the equation. I don't like looking at an image and instantly knowing that it has been photoshopped beyond the norm. Skin tones take on an unnatural metallic sheen. I don't understand why an image isn't acceptable in its raw form anymore. Why does a child's face have to be photoshopped?
ReplyDeleteI also don't like the means she took to obtain the "true" emotions she was searching for. She portrays these images as true heartache and despair that we would assume is from a truly traumatic experience. But no, it is from a woman simply stealing a lollipop from a spoiled child for no reason but to see that child weep uncontrollably. I agree that the outcome of the photo shoots is beautiful to the eye, but at what cost? The images look fake. I have seen entire images that have been photoshopped into creation that look more realistic than some of Greenberg's images.