Week one activity

Tracey Moffatt "Something more series"

Tracey Moffatt is an Australian Photographer who is well known for her highly regarded formal and stylistic experimentation in film, photography, and video, her work draws on the history of cinema, art, and photography as well as popular culture and her own childhood memories and fantasies. Her “Something more” series is no exception of her amazing works of practice when making a photograph. Themes such as struggles between individuals, childhood cruelties in suburban life, the toughness of life on the ‘frontier’, the stereotypes and relations between black and white Australians are apparent in her works. Referencing the artist’s own life and experiences create a reality within the photographs and supports the evidence that these racists attitudes did happen in those times. Ultimately, Moffatt’s work deals with the human condition in all its complexities. Something More is the first of Moffatt’s photographic series which demonstrates all of the elements that have made her work so popular.

Week two activity

Abdul Abdullah "Them And Us"

Abdul Abdullah is an Australian artists who challenges the nationalism, attitudes and racism that is put upon him as a young Australian Muslim. His phtographs have the intentions to challenge and show his audiences that the political statement on how Australians view Muslims have changed since the attack on September 11th 2001 on the world trade centre. Due to the attack on the world trade centre he is thought to be an ‘outsider amongst outsiders’, his practice is primarily concerned with the experience of the ‘other’ in society. After the attack it was a struggle for him to grow up as a Muslim, his parents were insulted because of their Islamic culture.

Week Three activity Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat is an internaitonal acclaimed artists who uses her phtotgraphs to influence other Iranian people to fight against the politics and the government. Her photographs works in to issues of gender, identity and politics in Muslim countires. Neshat’s earliest works were photographs, such as the Unveiling (1993) and Women of Allah (1993–97) series, which explore notions of femininity in relation to Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in her home country.

Week 4 Cindy Sherman

Cynthia Morris "Cindy" Sherman is an American photographer and film director her images are the centre of an inspiring array of character studies created over decades. Sherman expands on contemporary society's fascination with aspiration, narcissism and the cult of celebrity, and explores the resulting emotional fragility. In fall 1977, Sherman began making pictures that would eventually become her groundbreaking “Untitled Film Stills.”

Week 6 Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange is an American documentary photographer who is best known for her works relating to the Great depression. During those times many families were in financial debt and many men were unemployed. The Great depression influenced her to make photographs such as the "migrant mother" which documented the experiences of a mother who has migrated to Australia to feed her children who were starving.

Week 7 David Lachapelle

David LaChapelle is an American commercial photographer who challenges immorality in the 21st century. He challenges society by using appropriations and hyper-real techniques. His popular work called Jesus home boy does just that.

Sally Mann is an American photographer who challenges the issues of morality in contemporary society. Every day more and more children are acting far from their actual age. The ages of kids doing risk-taking behaviors such as drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes are becoming increasingly younger.

Zhang Huan is a Chinese artist based in Shanghai his photographs are undeniably linked to his cultural and political background. Zhang Huan's identity is different from ours in the western culture he was born in to a newly communist country.

I made my surreal photograph by taking two pictures. One of me ripping my shirt open and the other one of a beach. I had this idea I got off from the interent while searching through Thomas Barbey's works.

Eng Yommanak