sam kaplan
Sam Kaplan was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He went to Wesleyan University to study sculpture and photography. After graduating in 2007 he moved to New York to start his photography career, at first he just assisted photographers and let them teach him. He started taking pictures at a studio space shared by other photographers. He started emailing his images to random clients, he said he had no idea what he was doing. Eventually he started working with his friend, a designer, to make promos for himself.
Kaplan said he enjoyed props usually found at dollar stores or Home Depot. Most of his work is "conceptual still lifes" however he also does commercial advertising. In his photos he usually uses a solid brightly colored background or a plain white one, a lot of his photos have patterns in them. You can notice a lot of symmetry in some of his work, as well as lots of balance. Many of his pictures involve food or household objects.
Kaplan was influenced by many of the photographers he assisted. He says "There’s not one specific person that inspired me to get into the business". He says every assignment is different, that "each assignment is a collaboration in order to find the best visual solution to a problem". He tries to shoot for himself and trusts his instincts. He wants to get his "voice" through his photos and he is very passionate about his work.
Kaplans work is very complex and interesting, it makes you think and its very visually pleasing. Thats the kind of thing I want to have in my work. I try and use bright colors and interesting shapes in my work, much like Kaplan. He's not afraid to take risks and that has really influenced me. Kaplan says you should always follow your instincts so that's what I try and do in my work.
Original my version
untitled
sam kaplan
source: sam kaplan photography
Food 35
sam kaplan
source: sam kaplan photography
Pencils
SAM kaplan
source: sam kaplan photography
Comparing
My first photo didn't turn out exactly as I hoped. I could not get enough pieces of candy for the background but I still think it turned out pretty good. The second photo turned out surprisingly good because at first it didn't look very similar, I added the fake shadow to make it look more like the original and that really helped. Finally, my third photo. This photo was not as easy as I thought it would be, we didn't have that many pencils so I had to crop it down a lot. I had to edit the pencils to look more yellow, but the photo still looks really similar. In conclusion I think my photos look very good and even though they might not have been perfect at first but after editing they really improved.
My first photo didn't turn out exactly as I hoped. I could not get enough pieces of candy for the background but I still think it turned out pretty good. The second photo turned out surprisingly good because at first it didn't look very similar, I added the fake shadow to make it look more like the original and that really helped. Finally, my third photo. This photo was not as easy as I thought it would be, we didn't have that many pencils so I had to crop it down a lot. I had to edit the pencils to look more yellow, but the photo still looks really similar. In conclusion I think my photos look very good and even though they might not have been perfect at first but after editing they really improved.
Artist statement
For the first photo I used gum since I couldn't find the type of candy he used in the photo, I colored each of them and counted them out to make sure they where the correct amount then I placed them in the right order and used a piece of paper as the white background. For the second photo I separated an egg yolk from the actual egg and placed it on a sheet of white paper. Finally I took a bunch of pencils from my house and sharpened them and used the shavings to replicate the original. I think the best photo is the egg, I used my fake shadow techniques to create a very similar photo. I think all of my photos turned out very good.
For the first photo I used gum since I couldn't find the type of candy he used in the photo, I colored each of them and counted them out to make sure they where the correct amount then I placed them in the right order and used a piece of paper as the white background. For the second photo I separated an egg yolk from the actual egg and placed it on a sheet of white paper. Finally I took a bunch of pencils from my house and sharpened them and used the shavings to replicate the original. I think the best photo is the egg, I used my fake shadow techniques to create a very similar photo. I think all of my photos turned out very good.