Analysing a photographer

John Divola AO1

1: Basic information
John Divola is an American photographer born in 1949. His Zuma series, 1977-8 takes place in abandoned
buildings and started at Zuma Beach, California, when he stumbled upon a particular building that sparked
his creative interest.
2: Visual qualities
The photos in John Divola’s Zuma series are in
abandoned buildings that on look the sea. He
3: camera uses the window and door spaces to frame the
settings background and the foreground is interesting
and captures your imagination. Some of the
This picture is mostly in pictures have full foregrounds, with lots to look
focus so would have at and for the eyes to engage with. Others are
used a relatively high more empty. All draw your immediate focus to
aperture. It is quite the background through the use of composition
bright which could be and framing, but they also make you take in the
complimented with the rest of the picture.
ISO. The colours are
bold and the picture
looks highly contrasted In this picture I am first drawn to the door or
which could have been window frame bringing my attention to the sea
achieved through and sky in the background. I also notice the
editing later. chaos and destruction of things around. It
makes a very interesting image because it is
intriguing and invites you to think of a story for
it. At the same time of the destruction, the sea
makes it look pretty.
4: My work
I will be inspired by John Divola’s work through my learning of framing
where I will be trying to draw attention to something and make an
interesting image through using a frame. Similar to his work, I will also
try to use frames that I spot in my surroundings.