Work of Larry Sultan

I had never heard of this photographer, Larry Sultan before.  After looking through his work I got the sense that it was somewhat documentary.  As in he was taking in his surroundings and documenting what was happening as it was happening.  He has one series where it looks like he is documenting pornos being made.  This series, 'The Valley' has mostly photos of nude women and some men in these huge houses in California, with some film sets and what looks like directors.  He was photographing what was going on behind the scenes instead of capturing what the movie was filming, he was catching moments behind everything else.

I didn't really relate my own photography to  this series but coming across another series called 'Pictures from Home', I started seeing more things that are similar to my aesthetic.  This series includes many images mostly of Larry Sultan's parents in (probably) their home.  The first photo that caught my eye is below:

 And some more from the series:

These photographs in particular caught my eye because of their compositions, and subject matter.  Each one is weird and takes you a moment to understand what is going on in the photo.  I am not sure what Larry Sultan's process is in terms of setting photos up, I am not sure if he intentionally set all of these up, or saw something interesting happen and was just able to capture it.  But these remind me of photographs that I intend to make when I am inspired.  Sometimes I will get to a place and can't help but feel inspired and into everything I see.  And it's great if I am with someone who knows me well and who I know well because whether it's a home where someone is comfortable and doing household activities, or it is a new strange place and there is more exploring going on, I can ask that person to just do their activity and I will most likely see something they do as interesting for a photo.  It seems like in this series, Larry visited his parents in a house that he knows well and was able to just photograph what was interesting.  But each one has a strange, uncertain vibe.  The parents looking at the sunset should be soothing but because of the angle and intensity of color in the background and shocking light in the foreground, it is almost an uncomfortable photo, it's worrisome, almost like the parents are looking at a fire in the distance.  

These photographs reminded me of my aesthetic because I like to find strange shadows and juxtaposing things in an everyday action or scene that isn't always turned into an image to be seen.  Things are passed by a lot of the time and I hate passing them by.  I like seeing extreme anger and extreme happiness happen between people and capturing it.  I like seeing someone sitting in a weird way and getting it.  I like the nervousness that something weird has been captured in a camera for people to see when awkward things are not something people normally want to continue to think about.