9 shots is a street photographer who captures peoples emotions and motions in everyday situations, the images he takes are natural and portray stories without effort. The high contrasting monotone images are what I believe makes the images 100% more captivating. The images he tends to capture show raw emotion and often show isolated expression, he also edits his images so that they give the look of being underexposed and show a dark grey tints or shadows to his images. The majority of his images are black and white and are captured at a wide and low angle .Both aspects on the images are high quality and well focused; the background images normally consist of some architectural building or industrial aesthetic and the main focus- such as a specific individual or group are captured in highly focused and crisp frames. 9 shots particularly took my interest as I find that I can relate to the images. The images that he takes are something I would very much like to capture myself. I love the over all style of his photography and the image make you feel that you are there living in that image as they are such everyday things and are in an everyday scenario. ' the world Carry's on spinning as you capture the moment' a quote from 9 shots himself.
Martha Cooper
Martha Cooper is an American photojournalist who is best known for her iconic photography in the 70's within the New York graffiti scene. Her imagery has been published round the subways within New York' underground since the 1980's and her most iconic photographs have appeared in the National Geographic and Smithsonian magazine. Coopers work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide in the likes of New York's museum of contemporary art and Rome's stolen space gallery. Martha later on produced a book in collaboration with Henry Chalfant; the book is a documentation of the early history of graffiti movement in New York city; the book was originally published in 1984 and was sold world wide. Martha started off her debut into the art world by shooting graffiti in broken into train yards; her photographs were captured by the social decay of todays culture. Her fascination with the underground world was portrayed through her creativity- this later became a document into the rise of a hip hop domination during this time.
The influence of graffiti in today's society
Throughout this generation graffiti has become a massive part of the social scene, with graffiti plastered around nearly every corner. The art form is very controversial primarily with the older generation- labelling it 'an eye saw' however within todays generation it is seen as art. Influencers such as Banksy are the inspiration behind new and upcoming graffiti artists. In the graffiti scene stencilled art is seen as tame in comparison to hip hop influenced compositions however this does not compel artists from expression. Both types of graffiti; stencilled and freehand can be seen as totally different forms of expression; stencilled graffiti is said to be portrayed as more of a social or political statement where as freehand is typically more a display or talent and art. As previously mentioned Banksy's influences on society in particular 'Blek Le Rat' is often considered the godfather of stencil graffiti; Banksy an anonymous street artists who's main focus was on the creation of street art demonstrates throughout his portfolio political and social commentary, this is an inspiration to young youths amongst this generation.
Only the ignorant would commonly see graffiti as vandalism, however the impact of the graffiti scene in today's society means that a lot more young people have taken to the streets to intimidate gang rivals in an attempt to mark their territory, this can be done by the way of 'tags'. A tag is the most common form of graffiti where by the artist writes their name or gang name on their own personalised style. The repatriation of the same tag over and over on every piece of graffiti is how artist such as Banksy got well know for each art piece.
