Lessons
Meet Your Master
00:47 2The Early Years
08:30 3Going To War
08:03 4Influences: Cartier-Bresson
08:29 5Other Influences
08:06 6Tell A Story
17:16 7Conflict Zones
15:27 8Finding Subjects And Stories
12:55Choosing The Light
08:15 10Street Photography: Great Things
12:04 11Street Photography: Spontaneous Moments
14:13 12Street Photography: Engage The Street
13:16 13Interiors - Using Existing Light
06:14 14Portraiture - Reveal The Moment
10:43 15Portraiture - 9 Key Tips
08:27 16The Iconic Portrait of Che Guevara
02:00 17Photographing Children
12:37 18The Afghan Girl
05:59 19Using Juxtaposition
06:37 20Landscape
10:14 21Composition
06:52 22Cityscapes
08:20 23Shoot In All Weather
06:39 24Editing, Printing, and The Book
06:39 25Making Pictures For A Living
02:20Lesson Info
Using Juxtaposition
(gentle piano music) Some of my favorite pictures are ones where two objects, or two people, or two situations are juxtaposed, and you get this wonderful contrast or comparison between two divergent ideas. This is something which has been done in photography, and in fact art, for forever. I think of the work of Robert Doisneau, André Kertész (mumbles), Garry Winogrand. There's also the humor associated with juxtaposition. I mean nobody does humor better than Elliot Erwitt. Many of his pictures, again, juxtaposed things that has divergent elements that sometimes come together in kind of a funny situation. Many great photographers have used this sort of device to kinda put two elements together, which make a comment. Two divergent ideas that come together to say, make a comment about life in this world. (soft music) (gentle piano music) One of my pictures that I think refers to juxtaposition is this girl dressed up as a Geisha in Kyoto, Japan, walking out of a subway entrance. This was...
a found situation and when I saw her, I realized that this was something which was very incongruous, this traditional way of dressing and then this sort of modern subway, but I thought the two together was a kind of a humorous, kind of unusual juxtaposition, taking this Geisha out of context and putting her out of a traditional setting and putting her into really mundane, very kind of ordinary setting of a subway exit. (soft music) The color in her dress juxtaposed with this sort of sterile background, I think makes an interesting comparison. Also the lines in the picture somehow converge to her figure. So you had this sort of very traditional, colorfully dressed woman juxtaposed with this very sterile background of this very ordinary, very mundane subway exit. (gentle music) So I think it's very important to be observant of your surroundings and as you walk down the street, you seek things that play off of each other, that make a comment about how they juxtapose against each other, I think this could make a wonderful picture. If you look through the work of so many wonderful, famous photographers, you'll find this is something that's repeated throughout the history of photography. (gentle music) I made this picture of a monk in India in a tea shop, he was having a Coca Cola, but what I found sort of interesting was his juxtaposition between this monk, this traditional Buddhist monk with his kind of enormous Coca Cola sign in the background. You have this sort of modern world juxtaposed with a traditional world, and the way they kinda play off of each other, these two divergent directions, one of kind of more inward thinking, more meditation, more traditional, and this sort of multinational, this sort of global brand and how this is the world we live in and how these two divergent elements come together to make an interesting comment. I think there's a harmonious color palette to this picture. The red wall, the monk with the maroon robe. You have this typography of Coca Cola, which is kind of a universal symbol. Everybody recognizes it even if they don't understand what it says, they see the shape. And it's this sort of contrast between this sort of traditional meditation practice and this sort of multi-national symbol which talks about modernity and very, in some ways, very opposed to the monastic life of this monk. (gentle music) Another example of juxtaposition is this photograph I made in Jaipur, India of some elephant mahouts, these are attendants that care and work with elephants. This was just around lunch time. So it's kind of a little bit of an incongruous situation where you have these two men taking a nap, just next to this elephant and it seems almost kind of a precarious, almost dangerous place to be, but this is the way they live and this is the way they work. (gentle music)
Ratings and Reviews
Adriana L-G
For me this is not a class, is more the photographer talking about his photos and his experience. It is a little repetitive but I enjoyed. From Masters of Photography I loved Joel Meyerowitz's class and I recommend it strongly. In case you need to choose.
Student Work
Related Classes
Documentary