VIRTUAL ESSAY

There are two photographers I want to share with all of you today. First of all, I would like to talk about Lee Towndrow, who is a visual artist in New York City, U.S. Moreover, his work of photographer has appeared in Time magazine, The Paris Review and Das magazine.  His picture has varieties of styles, specially with personal normal life. That was totally illustrated what people always do when they are on vacation or how they feel.  I posted some examples of his works of art below.

http://leetowndrow.com/weekend/Lee Towndrow
'Weekend'
2013

http://leetowndrow.com/weekend/Lee Towndrow
'Weekend'
2013

http://leetowndrow.com/weekend/Lee Towndrow
'Weekend'
2013

http://leetowndrow.com/weekend/Lee Towndrow
'Weekend'
2013

http://leetowndrow.com/weekend/Lee Towndrow
'Weekend'
2013

However, those picture were made by different time and place but we still can notice there is only one topic on those photographs- easy life, and happy time. With the development of society, more and more people are always under pressure, such as jobs and family, and I think the selected photographer wants to use this group of  images talking about how people enjoy their weekend and what they always do on the weekend as well. More importantly, photographer tried to transmit a positive attitude. For example, though we all have ourbad days, we should focus on talking about the good things in your life and the things you have to look forward to instead of  the annoying little things that upset you. We can easily see how happy and relax from their face through these pictures.          
The following photographer I would like to say who named Alex Prager , as she was inspired by Lee Towndrow's work of art that started her photography journey. Let us see following pictures.                                                                               

http://alexprager.com/#!/photography/Week-end
"Week-end"
2010 

http://alexprager.com/#!/photography/Week-end
"Week-end"
2010 

http://alexprager.com/#!/photography/Week-end
"Week-end"
2010 

http://alexprager.com/#!/photography/Week-end
"Week-end"
2010 

http://alexprager.com/#!/photography/Week-end
"Week-end"
2010 

Alex Prager is an American art photographer and filmmaker who lives and works in L.A.  From all last 5 picture I posted above, we can see her style of photograph is similar with film. Her photographs primarily use staged sets and models to create " film-like"images that invite a myiad references, not only to the history of Holloywood and photography, and also the cinematic image in art contexts. 

-What is the similarities and differences between the photographs of the followers and the work of the selected photographer. 

For the similarities of followers' photographs and selected photographer's work of art, they both captured good timing of person's facial expressions that makes audience understand what they feel like when they are under camera.  We both know that they are both film-maker and photographer, so they will adjust picture a little bit to make it get better and better, but they will not change any truth on images because they were trying to protect the reality of the information which was showed on the photos.  

Most importantly, the main topic they want to say is how people enjoy their weekend. Different people have different ways. They may choose other way to spend their deserved weekend.  

For the part of differences I want to say. Apparently, these two groups of picture have complete different style although they both have same topic, because Lee's art is closed to person's normal life, and more based on their real feeling. On the other hand, follower Alex Prager chose other type of shooting, as I mentioned before, he is film-maker, so all picture he made is kind of 'film-like' style.  Obviously,  all poses of model in pictures are set up by follower.  It may make viewer misunderstand there are some fake scenes on there. For the photographic type of these two groups of picture, Lee Towndrow's style is pretty closed to documentary photography and Alex Prager used the type of artistic one. 

—The reasons I believe that the followers were impacted by the selected photographer.

These two groups of picture are all talking about how people feel like about weekend, or how they live on the weekend. However,follower(Alex Prager) is kind of move-like style, even thought she used similar photographic way from the selected photographer(Lee Towndrow), so I can see this work of art which was made by Alex Prager is inspired by Lee Towndrow.  

 —The most important aspects of the work of the selected photographer through the images of his/her followers. 

By distinguishing between the selected photographer's art and follower's, I think the most important aspect in their photos is person's real life. Although Alex edited color and style of images, but these two photographers all cared about the reality of photos, I believe they want to express photo's reality and real mood and emotion what people having in photograph, because this is one of most important component in art of photography.

Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Prager  

http://alexprager.com/#!/photography/Week-end

http://leetowndrow.com/weekend/