After half an hour of repeated clicking on StumbleUpon, I happened upon this artist. Brandon Merkel publishes little of his personal life, aside from his age (29) and his location (NYC). His work, however, I think says a lot of him as a person; I find this refreshing, as it allows his work to stand alone.This work stood out to me for several reasons: the colors, the textures, and the subject matter. Merkel uses an intense yet rustic palette. If I were trying to replicate this effect I would probably use a sepia photo filter to overlay over the image. Some of his works appear muted and desaturated-- like the bottom three, though I think these fit with the brighter tones of the top two. Merkel's work can also be characterized by its use of texture: the artist uses water often to contrast the desolate, decaying scenes he photographs. While some budding photographers fall in to the trap of going in to an old building and declaring each and every snapshot "art," Merkel truly achieves this goal by shooting beautiful scenes with debatably ugly subjects (such as the messy room in the middle photo).
Though Merkel's work bears little resemblance to my own, we seem to be drawn to the same sorts of venues. Though while Merkel shoots a large scene with intense colors, I generally choose small details to capture in black and white. His work inspires me to go in search of reflections though; I find the bottom two photographs fantastically stunning.
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