Matthew Jordan Smith

“It’s always been about the people,” Matthew Jordan Smith said when asked what excites him about photography. Back when he was 10 years old, Matthew would continuously get caught sneaking around with his father’s camera taking snap shots of his family. When he was 12 years old, Matthew’s father bought him a Pentax Honeywell. Matthew would shoot anything and everything, but his shots always had people in them.

Matthew Jordan Smith went to college at the Art Institute of Atlanta, where he got his first exposure to fashion photography. He began hearing about Parisian and Italian photographers, and the professors would show images from Zoom, Italian Vogue, and other high-end magazines that quickly turned his focus to this genre. “I loved the creativity rather than the documentary approach of journalism. I could use my own creativity to capture an image that was totally my own style.”

This approach of getting to know the client and talking to them on a personal level is something that has worked well for Matthew Jordan Smith over the years. “My job starts way before I get into the studio. I get online and I research the person as much as I can.” If it’s not someone famous in the industry with a lot of information available, he talks to them before the shoot and before the makeup and hair. “It’s critical to get this information before they get in front of the camera as it helps them to feel relaxed. I’ll talk to them about things such as movies, vacations, and music.”

In fact, Matthew Jordan Smith has an extensive collection of music that he uses during the shoot to make his clients comfortable in their surroundings. On the computer, he has almost 8,000 songs in addition to hundreds of CDs that aren’t yet digitized, so he’s able to meet the musical tastes of almost anyone. Matthew loves having young interns around that can keep him up-to-date on the latest trends in music and pop-culture.

Matthew Jordan Smith’s style of imaging has never really been about a light or a camera. “For me, my style is more about connection and evoking certain moods. Yes, I like to bring my subject’s personality out, but I also want to make an image that is distinctively Matthew.”

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David LaChapelle

David LaChapelle born March 11, 1963 Fairfield, Connecticut, United States is a photographer and director who works in the fields of fashion, advertising, and fine art photography, and is noted for his surreal, unique and often humorous style.

LaChapelle attended the North Carolina School of the Arts and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His first photograph was of his single mother, Helga LaChapelle, on a family vacation in Puerto Rico. She wore a bikini and held a martini glass on a balcony. From then on he was obsessed with photography.

His first professional job as a photographer was offered by Andy Warhol for Interview magazine. LaChapelle has four published books of his photographs, including LaChapelle Land and Hotel LaChapelle, both containing vivid and bizarre portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Manson, Drew Barrymore and Uma Thurman.

LaChapelle directed singer Elton John’s show, The Red Piano at Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace, which premiered in 2004. The show features extensive use of video technology on an LED screen backing the show that, when built, was promoted as the largest and brightest of all time. Several of John’s songs during the performance are accompanied by short films by LaChapelle.

LaChapelle’s film Rize, a documentary on the krumping style of dance that invaded South Central Los Angeles, premiered at Sundance in 2005 and was released theatrically that summer.

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Gordon Parks

 Gordon Roger Alexander Buchannan Parks worked in photography, music, film, poetry, Journalism, was also an activist before his death on March 7, 2006.  He will be most remembered for his photo essays and as the director of the film Shaft. 

Gordon Parks was the youngest of 15 children, born in Fort Scott, Kansas in 1912.  The main influence in his life was his mother who did not let him justify his failures with the being black he made a comment that his mother told him that “If a white boy can do it, then you can do it too, and do it better or dont come home.”, this influence is what instilled in him this self confidence, ambition, and capacity for hard work.  After the death of his mother he was sent away by his father to live with his married sister, but did not get along with his brother in law, he and his brother in law did not get along, and after a fight he was evicted, he had only lived there for a few week.

He first began his love of photographry after veiwing photos of migrent workers, and then bought his first camera a Voigtländer Brilliant, for $12.50 at a pawnshop.  He was prompted to get into fashion by the clerk who developed the film.  He then got a assignment at Frank Murphy’s womens clothing store.  His work was noticed by  Marva Louis, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis’ elegant wife. She encouraged Parks to move to Chicago, where he began a portrait business for society women.  Parks moved from job to job, developing a freelance portrait and fashion photographer sideline. He began to chronicle the city’s South Side black ghetto and in 1941 an exhibition of those photographs won Parks a photography fellowship with the Farm Security Administration. Working as a trainee under Roy Stryker, Parks created one of his best known photographs, American Gothic. 

After the FSA disbanded, Parks remained in Washington as a correspondent with the Office of War Information, but became disgusted with the prejudice he encountered and resigned in 1944. Moving to Harlem, Parks became a freelance fashion photographer for Vogue.  Parks renewed his search for photography jobs in the fashion world. Despite racist attitudes of the day, Vogue editor Alexander Liberman hired him to shoot a collection of evening gowns. Parks photographed fashion for Vogue for the next few years. During this time, he published his first two books, Flash Photography 1947 and Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture 1948.

A 1948 photo essay on a young Harlem gang leader won Parks a staff job as a photographer and writer with Life magazine. For 20 years, Parks produced photos on subjects including fashion, sports, Broadway, poverty, racial segregation, and portraits of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Muhammad Ali, and Barbra Streisand. His 1961 photo essay on a poor Brazilian boy named Flavio da Silva, who was dying from bronchial pneumonia and malnutrition, brought donations that saved the boy’s life and paid for a new home for his family.

Parks was married and divorced three times. His wives were Sally Alvis, Elizabeth Campbell and Genevieve Young, a book editor whom he married in 1973 and divorced in 1979. For many years, Parks was romantically involved with the railroad heiress and designer Gloria Vanderbilt.  Parks lived at the fashionable New York address of 860 United Nations Plaza on the east side.  Gordon Parks died of cancer at the age of 93.

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Assignment 5

Prayer

Contemplation

Mafia Thoughts