David Levinthal

Levinthal is a photographer whom uses vintage Barbie dolls and sports figurines within his images, he makes the come to life by placing them so they act out scenes from graphic novels, war stories and highly charged political moments that have taken place. Some of Levinthal's subjects have included things such as WWII battle scenes, baseball heroes and cultural icons. He reenacted scenes that he remembered from when he was a child and he would watch television and films using these figurines.

Toys are, by definition, objects of play. In the hands of photographer David Levinthal, however, these objects of play play with our objectivity. He turns the innocence of toys upside down, using tiny figurines to create lurid scenes, some of which are vaguely menacing, some of which are painfully touching, some of which are horrific, some of which are deeply disturbing." http://www.davidlevinthal.com/article_ut.html

 
Here is a quote from David Levinthal;

“I first began to work with toys as the subject matter for my artwork in 1972 while I was a graduate student in photography at Yale. Initially I was interested in the toys merely as objects. As I continued working I began to try to re-create the feelings of childhood play by photographing toy soldiers on the floor of my bedroom and using simple painted wood blocks to represent buildings and cities. I quickly found that narrow focus that came from photographing objects less than an inch tall gave the toys more life and a sense of realism that was not inherent in them. Setting up the toy figures is just the beginning. The set itself is just the background. It is a scene. And it is within and from that scene that the images themselves are found.” - http://www.artspace.com/david_levinthal

 

 

Eadweard J Muybridge

Eadweard J Muybridge was known for his motion picture photography, as well as being known for invention the zoopraxiscope which was one of the earlies ways to show motion picture. Muybridge' pieces are made up from sequences, he had numerous images which were placed on a wheel and when the wheel is spun, they look like they are moving hence the term motion picture.

The image here;  

is one that Muybridge is well known for, he wanted to prove that when a horse is galloping all four hooves are off the ground at one time. By putting taking these images and making them into a motion picture he was able to prove that point.