Jordan matter vs. Natsumi Hayashi

Hi! This is my second blog post and today I have decided to talk about photographers. The two photographers today have strong characteristics depicted in their shots and some of them actually made me laugh.

The first photographer is Jordan Matter from New York. He captures the “moment of aliveness, celebrating all aspects and emotions of everyday life.” (Jordan Matter). Moreover, he had a thought about taking pictures of dancers. Since dancers are storytellers they display passion with their bodies. One of his quotes about dancers was, “They often create a fantasy world or offer us as deeper look into familiar settings. They bring to life what we feel but what most of us, lacking their artistry and athleticism, are unable to express physically.”

His photographs constitute of a variety movements of the dancers and their rather extraordinary performances.

 January 2011. She takes pictures of herself and mentioned, “The most difficult part is perfectly timing my jump and the shutter’s release. To get one photograph, I sometimes take more than 200 shots,” (Hayashi). Her photographs are simply photo shots; she does make use of computer graphics by inserting herself. Her purpose of these works is to express someone free from Earth’s gravitational pull. “I feel as though I am not tied to many things and able to be my true self… It is clear that such my feeling is only an illusion, but I hope that the illusion can be converted into reality and fixed in the photographs piled up as a diary open to the public.”

I was mesmerized by her works especially the mood inside the photos. By looking at the photographs it felt like she was actually floating around and sometimes I had a dream where I would float around the room as I could go up higher and higher, no limits would stop me.

Two amazing artists have similarities by telling a story through the pictures, but completely different styles. Matter displays passion and expressive body movements of dancers, whereas Hayashi demonstrates herself in the photos floating around rather than jumping. Another thing I felt was that Matter’s photos showed time flowing, such as rain drops, jumping, but in Hayashi’s works, time seemed to stop.

As my personal choice, Hayashi’s photographs caught my first sight. Her works fascinated my eyes questioning, how was she able to have such a natural pose on air?

If you are interested to see more works of two artists, feel free to visit these sites!

https://www.facebook.com/JordanMatterPhotography

http://yowayowacamera.com/

http://mem-inc.jp/artists_e/hayashi_e

References:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/levitating-photos-natsumi-hayashi-first-exhibition-japan_n_2948097.html#slide=2251695

https://www.facebook.com/JordanMatterPhotography/info