Photographer Profile ~ Alex Prager

Alex Prager (American, born 1979), a self-taught photographer, takes her cues from pulp fiction, the cinematic conventions of movie directors such as Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock ( and the work of acclaimed photographer William Eggleston.) Resembling movie stills, her unnerving photographs—crisp, boldly colored, shot from unexpected angles, and dramatically lit—feature women disguised in wigs, dramatic makeup, and retro attire. Focusing on the actress’s face to capture one intense emotion, Prager engages in the construction of images that are intentionally loaded, reflecting her fascination with and understanding of cinematic melodrama. [via MoMA]

Alex's work was recently exhibited at MOMA as part of the 'New Photography 2010' exhibition.

*Click on images for larger view

Behind the Shot: "Since my mum had recently come back to live in LA, I used her in lots of the pictures, as well as her friends. I did a lot more setting up than usual – it was as if I was making a movie. I often watch old films for inspiration; if I like a scene, I'll pause it and take pictures of it. I don't remember the name of the movie that inspired this – it was a scene with Marilyn Monroe getting out of a taxi in the rain. I thought it looked beautiful, with her bright blond hair and yellow dress. I didn't want to recreate the image. I just wanted the idea of the rain and the taxi.

I shot this on the streets of LA. As I was using lights and a rain machine, I needed a permit. I'm really not used to doing things that way. I wanted a liquor store with a bit of colour and a quaint, old-fashioned feel. I drove around LA for three or four days looking. LA is so huge I can usually find what I want eventually.

The woman, Irene, was a friend of my mum's. She'd been a model in her 20s and was used to being taken care of. But we didn't have much of a budget: there was no trailer for her, the car was a fake and leaked. We couldn't control the rain machine, so she kept getting soaked; she was miserable and didn't want to get out of the taxi. I wanted her to look behind her like she was looking at something mysterious but the water was pounding down so hard she would only look down, to stay clear of all the leaks. I was trying to direct her with a walkie-talkie and she couldn't hear me. It was nuts.

And then she looked up for one second and that's the shot I got. Her face was perfectly lit. There's a lot of emotion in there – that's because she was unhappy for real." ~  Prager

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/

Alex Prager was born in Los Angeles in 1979. She was raised by her grand- mother in a small apartment in the suburb of Los Feliz. Her nomadic upbringing saw her splitting her time between Florida, California, and Switzerland without truly settling down long enough for a formal education.

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/


Behind the scenes of Alex's photoshoot for BOTTEGA VENETA

Bottega Veneta SS'11 AOC with Alex Prager from BootLegs on Vimeo.

http://www.alexprager.com/

http://www.alexprager.com/




Accustomed to running a one-woman show on her shoots, where she usually plays photographer, stylist, set-designer and everything in between, Prager was ensnared by the collaborative nature of creating a film. “It’s like taking every art medium and melding it into one,” she says. “It’s incredible!”
http://www.alexprager.com/

Here are some fantastic shorts by Prager that were influenced by film classics.

Eraserhead


The Invisible Man



http://www.alexprager.com/



See more of these shorts here

Photographer Profile ~ William Eggleston

William J. Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennesse, but grew up in the small Mississippi town of Sumner. He became known as "the father of color photography" for his striking photos of people, events and landscapes in the South.

Although he had been been a professional photographer for several years in the South, it wasn't until a visit to New York City in 1967 that Eggleston became known outside that area, when the curator of the Museum of Modern Art saw a collection of Eggleston's slides and was so taken with them that several years later he arranged an exhibition of Eggleston's work at the MoMA--the first individual exhibition of color photography in that institution's history--and it helped make Eggleston a household name in the art world. It wasn't long before his photos were exhibited abroad to great acclaim. He won the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 1988, the Gold Medal for Photography from the National Arts Club in 2003 and was awarded the Getty Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center of Photography in 2004.

Eggleston's early photographic efforts were inspired by the work of Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, and by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's book, The Decisive Moment. Eggleston later recalled that the book was "the first serious book I found, from many awful books...I didn't understand it a bit, and then it sank in, and I realized, my God, this is a great one.”

“Eggleston’s spare and richly hued pictures  

have cast a spell on everyone from Sofia Coppola, David Lynch, and Larry Clark to Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Juergen Teller.”

~ Style.com

"... the commonplace 

becomes

 resplendent"

 ~ Film Maker Michael Almereyda 

on Eggleston's work

see another interview with Eggleston here

The Contax G2 that is used by William Eggleston. He used 90mm, 45mm and 35mm lenses.