Laura Letinsky

I did some research on Laura Letinksy (or here). My color photography professor thought I would like her, and lo and behold, I guess I'm an open book. She is a professor at the University of Chicago.

Her images are usually mostly monotone, but often have bursts of color from, for example, the apples in the above image. She uses diffuse lighting to create a soft feeling to her photography, of which I am personally a fan.

She also has humor, I think, in some of her photography, like this one.

That's exactly what happens at a party. The tableclothes never ever look remotely the way they did when the party started. She says, "I am not interested though in the allure of the meal that awaits an unseen viewer’s consumption. Instead, I photograph the remains of meals and its refuse so as to investigate the relationships between ripeness and decay, delicacy and awkwardness, control and haphazardness, waste and plenitude, pleasure and sustenance."

After looking at her photographs it seems like she shoots photos that represent the aftermath of a party or gathering. Empty tables that show signs of lots of previous activity. Birthday parties but with a simple white background and no people to speak of.

She says  of her recent work of still lifes, "I began this work in 1997 as observations of forgotten details, remnants of daily subsistence and pleasure. For many years I had been intrigued with Dutch-Flemish and Italian still-life paintings whose exacting beauty documented shifting social attitudes resulting from exploration, colonization, economics, and ideas about seeing as a kind of truth." I agree to this statement. It's a modern take on still life paintings