Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky was Born on the 15th of January 1955 in Leipzig, East Germany. From 1978-81 he went to the Universitat Gesamothochschule Essen where he studied visual communication. He attended this university to learn from Otto Steinert, a famous German photographer who was the creator of beautiful, surreal photography such as ‘Mask of a Dancer’. However, Steinert died just after Gursky arrived, only allowing him to visit a few lectures. He proceeded to go and learn at the Dusseldorf Art Academy between 1981 and 1987 where he most likely discovered his passion for large scale methodical photography due to his teacher's distinctive image of industrial machinery and architecture. Such inspiration is shown when you look at his teachers, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s work such as Water Tower. Another clear inspiration for Gursky was the British Landscape photographer John Davies, who, similarly to Gursky takes large scale shots that often show discrete repetition of objects, shapes and leading lines. This sometimes creates a a dystopian feel to his images, like in the photo of Agecroft Power station where the huge structures loom over the surrounding landscape, billowing smoke, creating an ominous presence.

I chose Andreas Gursky for three main reasons. Firstly, the scale of his images. Each photo feels intricate and deeply thought out yet still holds a grand nature. Gursky shows, in every image, humankind dwarfed by nature. This is something I need to experiment with my images. Most are close up and personal, using a zoom with a lower f value. I need to take inspiration from Gursky and create large scale pictures, focusing less on the individual and more at the wider wold. Another reason why I chose Gursky is due to his subtle repetition of, shapes, objects and colours. A great example of this is Gursky’s photo of Montparnasse. It shows an apartment complex of huge scale. This photo is full of repetition. Theres the repetition of the square windows of the complex, the repetition of similar colours in each window the hundreds of vertical and horizontal straight lines. There is repetition everywhere in this picture. However, although there is constant repetition it still manages to not feel forced. It still manages to feel like a natural image. This is most likely why people love his images so much, because humans love repetition and symmetry. This is why I want to take inspiration from Gursky’s repetition. Because I find it beautiful. Finally, I chose Gursky because of his incredible use of photoshop to perfect his images. I want to experiment and try and use Gurskys style of photography to improve on my images and general photoshop skills to make myself a better photographer.

 One of the pieces of his that has influenced me most is his 99 cents photograph. This picture is a visual assault, containing an immense amount of detail, edited in an attempt to make the picture as visually appealing as possible. At first glance it appears as a simple photo but as you look deeper into each detail of this masterpiece it becomes more apparent how much effort was put in to create this piece of art. He captures seemingly mundane and everyday places, transforming them into incredible spectacles of the eye through digital manipulation. Rows and rows of items creating perfect horizontal and vertical lines, parallel to the borders of the image. The elevated position of the camera allows the viewer to see everything within the shop, tens of thousands of items on display. Gursky also incorporated repeating textures, colours and patterns. This repetitiveness creates a sense of comfort and order for the viewer despite the almost overwhelming number of things appearing in frame. Personally, I love this photo so much because Gursky has transformed this mundane setting into a grand diorama.

 Another photo of Gursky I adore is Chicago Board of trade iii. This again has an overwhelming of the senses, a continuous theme for his photography. This photo is a merge of several different pictures to create a surreal, otherworldly, overwhelming experience. Due to the multiple pictures, there is no one focal point, makes the room hard to read, emulating the hustle and bustle of the Traders seen below. This is further conveyed by the blurred nature of the image and the bright colours emphasises the movement of the image. The reason why I love this image is because how he digitally manipulates the image to further emphasise and convey the qualities of the photo, instead of alter what the picture is trying to convey.

Overall Gursky has become one of the most influential photographers for me. This is due to how he creates such grand, awe inducing images that almost overwhelm the audience due to the scale. His edits on these pictures emulate the feel of the photo, without it appearing unnatural, a quality I want to recreate in my experiments. Also I just love his pictures. They are incredibly beautiful, full of detail, allowing you to look at them for hours without becoming bored. The symmetry of the photographs makes them pleasing and calming to look out, making every photo interesting and intriguing, a quality I want to have in my photos one day.