23 Comments

1. 

   jamiefilosa

   23 February 2016 at 11:49 8 years ago

   Reply

   Group 9

   Jamie Filosa
   Gina Householder
   Destiny Farihi
   Charles Watson
   Shannon McGuinness
   Molly Poyer

   We thought Mary and Nan both showing the same thing, poverty, drugs, and similar styles. Mary shows the sadder aspect of this lifestyle while Nan glorifies it. We thought it was cool that Nan glorified the transgender community and make them known as the third gender. We learned that Nan was actually attracted to a drag queen during this time and lived with them and photographed them. Mary wanted to show a different side of Seattle and that if street kids can exist in a nice city like Seattle that they can be anywhere. We also noticed her photos were all in black in white. Mary focused more on kids. Both focus on the things people don’t want to talk about but need really should.

   1. 

      jamiefilosa

      23 February 2016 at 11:54 8 years ago

      Reply

      We also thought that the color played a huge role. Mary’s pictures are really clear to the negative aspects. The black and white helps with this. Nan’s are hazy and more vibrant to show the more fun aspect. You also have to think a little deeper into what the picture is trying to show you. We also noticed a lot of people were wearing makeup. Nan had a lot of pictures were people were physically beaten. We think this might be because in that time the gay culture was very underground and was a pioneer. She did a good job of bringing to light some of the things that happen to gay and transgender people.

2. 

   breezyhastie

   23 February 2016 at 11:57 8 years ago

   Reply

   Nan Goldin & Mary Ellen Mark: Group 19 & 21

   Nan Goldin is known for her work that includes the LGBT themes. When looking at her photographs you can see transwomen and there is a sexual connotation towards the photos. Her photos have a sort of grim to them. She shows things that people necessarily don’t want to look at. We think she is bring attention to social issues.

   Mant of Mary Ellen Mark’s subject tend to have physical and mental disabilities. All of her work is in black and white. Everyone in her photos look sad and depressed and we think that she is trying to show how horrible these people are living.

   Both of them like to photograph the outskirts of society. The weird, unnoticed, and forgotten. They are both trying to be a voice for people that can’t speak for themselves. They want to bring attention to the people society sometimes forgets about.

   Brianna Hastie
   Regan Cameron
   Christian Aguirre
   Daniel Bursch
   Marlon Fernandes

3. 

   artsyash

   23 February 2016 at 12:00 8 years ago

   Reply

   Photography is a way to preserve a memory into a single snapshot that can be analyzed and viewed in a myriad of ways. The focus of our discussion was photography, and primarily that of Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark. Goldin’s primary focus of her work has LGBT themes and images who started her work around the late 80’s, early 90’s. Mark was known for her documentary and advertising photography; she’s published photo essays for big magazines like the New York Times and Rolling Stone, she has work dating back to the mid 70’s. Goldin’s collection has images of men wearing make up, curlers, and even a pregnant man with his face done. Mark has primarily black and white images that are centered more around everyday people, she focused on the vulnerability of humanity, like families in poverty who are stuck in a cycle of drug abuse, teen girls with babies, and about runaway kids. We feel like Mark had a message of how mainstream doesn’t necessary reflect the “real” life and what actually happens. It is more of a fantasy that to most people is unreachable. Goldin was trying to show how the LGBT community shouldn’t be shunned and ostracized, they should be celebrated due to them being unique and special. They’re just regular people living their life and the treatment they get isn’t what they deserve. Like normal people, they also live with struggle and adding more to that just makes their life worse and Goldin wanted to show how great they were to relieve their stigma.

   Group 7
   Ashley Batres
   Florenz Baltazar
   Helen Lee
   Tyler Kedis

4. 

   fahrenheit393

   23 February 2016 at 12:00 8 years ago

   Reply

   Nan Goldin: Her pictures show the human body, very fragile, and vulnerable. A lot of the people look sad, depressed, or serious. Some of the people look like possible drug addicts. Lots of the girls looked abused. One of her focus groups is people within the LGBT community. She said she found interest in those that affiliate themselves as transgender, and not t0 psychoanalyze them like how most people do, but to admire and show respect to their sexuality

   Mary Ellen Mark: A lot of her pictures seem to take place in 3rd world countries. Also a lot of her pictures are documentary style and seem to capture moments of struggle. Her focus seems to be on the impoverished, and on taboo ideas, like guns and kids smoking cigarettes. In a nutshell the pictures she takes are “away from mainstream society and towards its more interesting often, troubled fringes.”

   Sean Hernandez
   Dorothyrose McMahon
   Kimberly Gutierrez
   Johathan Behzadian
   Gregory Plantenga
   Daniella Galindo

5. 

   Andrew

   23 February 2016 at 12:03 8 years ago

   Reply

   Group 12:
   Andrew Andrade
   Cheryl Peng
   Erick Diaz
   Alexander Lucero
   Rosa Velazquez

   We found both photographers work very strange. Both contained very dark images like violence, sexual acts, drug abuse, and sorrow. I thought it was interesting that nan had an obsession with the gay and transsexual community because they were so free and not afraid to be who they wanted to be openly. Nan’s work also displayed themes of love, gender, sexuality and domesticity while Mark’s photos portrayed pictures of homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction and prositution. Getting away from mainstream society.

6. 

   madisonbraverman

   23 February 2016 at 12:04 8 years ago

   Reply

   Group 5!!!

   Natalie Guevara
   Maddy Braverman
   Alfonso Madrigal
   Jennifer Garcia
   Crysta Tim
   Rejina Hernandez
   Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark are both very exquisite photographers. Nan Goldin took photos on a very personal level, therefore most of her photos were of people she usually already knew. Additionally, many of her scenes were captured from travels and interests of Goldin’s life. Her work glorified the drug scene, and although that was the group of people she was surrounded by, she did not want to promote drug use. Goldin’s photos were mainly in color, which helped resemble her admiration and interest in drag queens and how those individuals recreated their looks through a variety of color.On the contrary ,Mary Ellen Mark’s work was mainly black and white. Furthermore, unlike Goldin her work was more impersonal as her photos would be considered more as “street photography”. Our group believed Marry Ellen picked out universally relatable scenes to photograph. She captured people that the common public could relate to and documented their struggles and the social issues in society. Both photographers focused on sub-groups of people who did not fit the societal world. Both artists had a section of photos that just focused on the LGBTQ association, as the people in that community have become more prominent over the years. We believed both photographers work was empowering and thought provoking.

7. 

   Christopher Chadwick

   23 February 2016 at 12:04 8 years ago

   Reply

   Group4

   Our group has found that Mary Ellen Mark’s pictures feature a dark theme. By this I mean that the subjects that are featured in the photo make the viewer feel upset or have a feeling of dispair. In one picture she has a child smoking a cigarette. In another she has a picture of a person coming from a funeral.

   Nan Goldin seems to focus on the LBGT community. She wanted to show her subjects as a third gender, as another sexual option. Her photos highlighted a very controversial topic at the time. Many people did not accept the subjects of Nan’s photos for who they were. While it is better today, our society still has a ways to progress.

   Francisco Miranda
   Carlos Nava
   Christopher Chadwick
   William Luna
   Enrique Vega
   Mia Miller

8. 

   morganmooreart110

   23 February 2016 at 12:05 8 years ago

   Reply

   Group 6
   Alanna Godinez
   Elizabeth Moledo
   Christopoher Moore
   Dominique Gomez
   Katherine Shinno

   To compare Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark would be to compare a dream and reality. Our group thought that because of Nan Goldin’s choice of camera/filters/film used, her shots took on a dream-like aesthetic with the colors being soft and her subjects living in their own world. Mark’s photography, in our opinion, dealt with more intense issues such as poverty and health. She also photographed celebrities for work. Goldin brought attention to the LGBTQ community and social rejects. Both photographers grew up in a suburban landscape with a quite normal upbringing. Mark’s use of black and white photography included much more detail; each shot included more of a story behind it. Goldin was exploring cultures that weren’t commonly accepted.

9. 

   Hannah Mandias

   23 February 2016 at 12:05 8 years ago

   Reply

   Our group agreed that Nan’s content seemed a lot more candid than Mary Ellen Mark’s photographs (which were posed for a sense of significance). Additionally while Nan Goldin’s photos were of people that she actually knew and were involved in her life, Mark looked for strangers with interesting back-stories to photograph. Goldin’s themes heavily emphasized sexuality and the LGBT community whereas Mark photographed issues that society tends to stray away from (homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, etc). The appeal of both of their photos lie within the backstory of their subjects rather than the photo’s overall aesthetics.
   Reuben Dyce
   Amber Bolden
   Colleen siongco
   Jing Huan Ooi
   Leon Phung
   Hannah Mandias

10. 

    oscolorblind

    23 February 2016 at 12:07 8 years ago

    Reply

    Group 16

    Carlos Cucufate
    Oscar Alvarez
    Glenda Castillo
    Tiffany Tran
    Joshua Hyun
    Aaron Valenzuela

    We noticed that although Nan Goldin’s work had color in it, it was still able to portray a dark serious tone to her images and show the social issues that she felt were important, Mary Ellen’s art was mostly black and white but was able to incorporate movement along with angles of people to show serious pictures without a dark kind of tone to them.Both are american photographers but focused on different ways to take their pictures, Mary Ellen Mark took pictures that seemed to be more like a documentary and portraits, white Nan would take her images to show themes of drug violence, sexuality, and crude humanity. Nan’s photos may also be a way to show the violence that she herself had gone through, showing bruised eyes and hurting. Her taking these images can be a way of showing light to a serious subject that she experienced. Mary Ellen Mark photographed people who were away from mainstream society. Her photography was more street and had more motion that would invoke thought just by taking pictures of real people in real places. Both took pictures of popular issues like LGBTQ and their mistreatment in society or issues like guns and everyday life and even povery.

11. 

    leessandy

    23 February 2016 at 12:07 8 years ago

    Reply

    Group 18
    Brandon Nhem
    Meng Chu
    Kyu Jung Lee
    Hunter Mervosh

    Mary Ellen Mark: She puts different perspective on things that were not being focused. She portrays reality in her photos like disabled people and not being ashamed of it. Her photos are mainly black and white, emotionless, allows to focus on the message, and not the beauty of a photo. She’s capturing the soul of the people.
    Nan Goldin: She started the “grunge” area, most of her works are mainly themed with gay, LGBT, sex, things very controversial (it is banned in Brazil to shoot photos of underage kids). Her photos are mostly what people would call “hard life” (subculture group), things that aren’t really being seen easily.

    Both of them captures portraits and tries to tell story behind it. They both show cultures that are not popularized, more in minorities groups. Both seems “documentary-film-like”, each photo has powerful message that they want to deliver. Not sure if these people are professional models, because both photographers made the people in photos look very professional (especially with delivering emotion).

12. 

    avirdelarosa

    23 February 2016 at 12:07 8 years ago

    Reply

    Group 10
    Leah Perez
    Elidia Ramirez
    Devon Carus
    Aaron Dela Rosa
    David Brown
    Cassandra Topete

    Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark are two revolutionary photographers who tackled social issues relating to their generation.

    For Nan Goldin, her color saturation/washed out style of photos portrays the various scenes of the LGBT community. Influenced by her friend to dive into the community, many of her pictures features friends, family, and lovers. Her emphasis on LBGT reflects how their rights were overlooked during her time. The main reason for Goldin to feature this topic reflects her desire to show transgendered as a third gender. The plethora of emotions throughout her images shows how LBGT are simply like others in order to suggest equal rights.

    As for Marry Ellen Mark, the dull/black & white images suggest a bleak side to society. Showing expressionless/solemn faces within an array of everyday activities allows Mark to portray her surroundings in a “darker” perspective. Through her images, she is able to capture social issues such as homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. The fact that many of her subjects are children emphasizes her cause in the sense that their “innocence” is tainted by various stigma/problem within the community.

13. 

    Nancy Tran

    23 February 2016 at 12:08 8 years ago

    Reply

    Mary Ellen Mark was an American photographer known for her photojournalism/documentary photography. Mark’s photographs are mostly black and white. She documents the lives of marginalized people in the United States and other countries and explored the complicated state of contemporary womanhood. Her work shows different perspective of societal concerns such as homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness and teenage pregnancy. Nan Goldin is an American photographer known for visual narratives detailing her own world of addictive and sexual activities. Her first published works were black-and-white images of transvestites and transsexuals. She photographed pictures of her life such as making hundreds of colour transparencies of herself and her friends lying or sitting in bed, engaged in sexual play, recovering from physical violence against them, or injecting themselves with drugs. Goldin said her work originally came from snapshot aesthetic. She re-envisioned how identity and gender could be defined by camera. Our group thought that Mary Ellen had a more rustic and urban grungy background. She’s trying to capture the hidden majority instead of capturing elegant people. While Nan’s photos are from drag queens and other types of groups of bisexual and gay community. A lot of the photos are more vibrant. There are many photos of them in action and they seem to be more of photos in the moment.

    Group 11
    Nancy Tran
    John Stouras
    Jhonatan Ramos
    Jayson Fields
    Symone Pallett
    Maison Chiu

14. 

    eliyee

    23 February 2016 at 12:10 8 years ago

    Reply

    Group 3

    Elijah Yee
    Tiffany Van Glider
    Katherine Pantoja
    Lainie Le
    Rebekah Johnson
    Hilario Saucedo

    Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark are both incredible female artists of photography, who demonstrated their lives onto their work. Both were also introduced to a camera at very young ages and began their work right away. Nan Goldin focused most of her art on the LGBTQ community. As she lived with them, she admired and respected the sexuality of drag queens. She wanted to glorify them in her art and portray them as a wonderful and beautiful third gender. Mary Ellen Mark focused much of her work on the troubles and social issues of her times. She explained that she wanted her work to be focused away from mainstream society and focused more on the more interesting and troubled times. Both photographers presented controversial topics in their message and art, but did so in different ways. While Nan Goldin focused more on the subject on her photos, Mary Ellen Mark focused closer on the mood and the whole setting of her picture. Goldin centered in on the nature and rawness of her subjects with color, while Mark captured the overall environment and her message of injustice in black and white.

15. 

    Sam

    23 February 2016 at 12:12 8 years ago

    Reply

    Photography can capture many beautiful sceneries, but also display different aspects of people’s lives. Our group thought both artists have done so, but in different ways. Nan Goldin tends to take many photographs of the LGBT communities because at one point she lived with them. She had much respect and admiration for them so she wanted to show the world as well. Although she did receive criticism for her sexual images and images that support heroin. However, she has shifted her photographs more to children over time. Her photographs also had more color to them compared to Mary Ellen Mark, who had black and white images. Mary Ellen Mark’s photos focused more on the struggles of people around the world. She traveled to many places and took pictures depicting social injustices that people may not see. For example, Mary Ellen Mark photographed victims of sex trafficking in order to bring more attention to it. Both photographers share the same goal of trying to expose the social issues that infect our society

    Sam Tan
    Valerie Laslo
    Jazlyn Tabar
    Catherine Chin
    Annie Ronning
    Ngozi Ekwedike

    1. 

       Sam

       23 February 2016 at 12:13 8 years ago

       Reply

       Group 2

16. 

    haleyandersonsite

    23 February 2016 at 12:13 8 years ago

    Reply

    Mary Ellen Mark was famous for her intimate portraits of the street. She worked strictly with black and white photography and strived to represent the people truthfully through the pictures she took. It was subtle in color because she wanted the people to take away more than just what was in the portrait, she wanted to evoke thought and emotion through her pictures. She moved away from mainstream society to capture the things that we did not see such as pain and hardship. Nan Goldin, on the other hand, featured the LGBT community in her work. She lived with them, and found them beautiful because they could recreate themselves. She also recognized them as a third gender. Her work was personal just like Mary Ellen, but vibrant. She featured herself in some of her work, and also friends and family. She documented her life through photography; whatever she was surrounded with, drugs, people, etc she photographed it. She was one to expose the ugly truths of our society such as abuse, and bring attention to controversial issues. We also noticed that there is a distinct similarity between these two photographers. They aim to tell a story in their pictures. All of their work highlights people in their everyday lives, and through these pictures we are able to tell a lot about them and their situation.
    -Group 8-
    Jesus Viramontes
    Tareena Woods
    Julio Garcia
    Haley Anderson
    Bianca Dominquez
    Jennifer Lee

17. 

    eddiescastle

    23 February 2016 at 12:13 8 years ago

    Reply

    Justin Marquez
    Eduardo Castillo
    RaVen Montgomery
    Adilene Leon
    Both Mary Ellen Mark and Nan Goldin focused on the people who were not typically seen as the normal crowd. Mary Ellen Keller took photos of children acting or looked much different than what we would normally expect. Kids were smoking next to each other or there would be a mother with two babies feeding her children on the streets. Nan Goldin also focused on the anti norm, but set her sights on the transsexual or gay community. Many of her pictures include cross dressing and same sex couples. It may not seem as controversial now but at the time it was an unpopular opinion to be in favor of the issue. Both of these photographers give the observer an uncomfortable feeling. It displays the issue on a silver platter instead of hiding it under the rug like most of society had done. Mark brought prostitution to the lime light and placed it front and center. Goldin made the LGBT community the norm in her artwork and reminded the observer that these groups of people do exist. This made us feel bad,in a way, because we as society focus on those that have everything and pay no attention to those who have nothing.

18. 

    chriswils

    23 February 2016 at 12:13 8 years ago

    Reply

    Group 17
    Mary Ellen Mark’s photography seems to tell stories and bring to light social issues such as loneliness, drug addiction, prostitution,homelessness, etc., while Nan Goldin’s photos have a theme that features the LGBT community.

    Mary Ellen Mark really emphasizes the class struggle and uses the absence of color to show that you don’t need color to be aware of what is out there and what people are facing. By removing the color of the photographs, it makes her work seem more serious and showcases the severity of these social issues.

    Nan Goldin took a bold approach and took the concept of LGBT and the struggle that they face, fighting and changing the social norms of today’s society. By using photography, she takes aim to help the LGBT community to showcase to the world that there are not necessarily two genders, male or female. Transgender people exist and in some other countries, there exists more than four gender categories. The images that show physical and emotional abuse portray the common issues the LGBT community faces. Although Goldin’s photographs contained color in them we found them to have a darker story within them.

    Regardless of the difference in the style of both photographers we felt that they both aimed toward bringing awareness through their photography.

    Group 17
    Valentina Ramirez
    Marylin Try
    Lorena Rubalcava
    Anthony Estalilla
    Chris Williams

19. 

    anthonysanchezblog

    23 February 2016 at 12:14 8 years ago

    Reply

    The two artist we talked about today were Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark. Nan Goldin’s photos always seem to have dim lighting and a women as the center piece. Her first show was based on gay and transsexual communities. Her idea for this show was to identify them as their own gender. The people in the pictures seem very unhappy, this can represent how the gay and transsexual community felt during the time. Mary Ellen Mark’s photo’s were black and white for the most part, which also gave a melancholy mood to the pictures. Mary wanted to focus more on the people on the “outside” of society. Photos by both artist seem to tell the situation that the person in the photo is going through whether it be a domestic issue or societal issue. One photo caught the attention of our group, this picture was the photo of a little girl smoking a cigarette. This picture tells a story of a very dangerous upbringing which falls into the category of domestic issues. As a group we favored Mary Ellen Mark’s work since the photography seemed more appealing at the surface of the photo.
    Anthony Sanchez
    Leslie Echiveste
    Gabriela Hernandez
    Bez Middleton
    Peter Bay
    Francesca Butler

    1. 

       anthonysanchezblog

       23 February 2016 at 12:14 8 years ago

       Reply

       GROUP 14

20. 

    artistinsightx

    23 February 2016 at 12:14 8 years ago

    Reply

    Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark both glamorize the lives of people in our society who have been victims of abuse or alienation. Nan Goldin centered many pieces on drag queens and people in the LGBT community because she found them fascinating. Nan Goldin’s work has been censored on many occasions. We feel that Goldin kept her photos as explicit because she wanted to remind her audience that there is a dark place that much of society wants to ignore. The images accurately emulate the lives of the people who live in this dark world, not to please her audience but to create thought provoking art. Mary Ellen Mark uses lots of black and white filters. the black and white filter allows the focus to be on the subject of the photos. Mark tends to use children as her subject. Possibly because children are a symbol of purity but many children have been faced with so many challenges so early on in their lives, it’s diluted their innocence.
    Group 13:
    Vanessa Betancourt
    Danielle Garcia
    Aaron Satterfield
    Christine Kim
    Megan Stevens
    Enrique Plascencia

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