<![CDATA[vincent laforet.]]>I love the endless versatility of photography, and my latest find is the perfect example of it. The depth and breadth of work on New York-based photographer Vincent Laforet’s site is outstanding. In fact, he’s got so much totally different stuff going on that it’s hard to know where to start. My personal faves are his “miniaturized” shots of big time sports events. He uses a technique called Tilt-Shift to give the “Honey, I Shrunk the U.S. Open” illusion of everything being miniaturized and almost model-like.

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I love the plasticized, surreal quality of the photos and the unnatural vibrancy of the colours. It really does look like someone’s created an extremely detailed little sports diorama and carved thousands of wee sports fans out of plastic.

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He’s also got a beautiful series called “Aerials”. I love the structure in the picture below, and how it shows that even though each person just walked in and found their spot on the grass, there’s always an organizational structure running through everything we do.

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Vincent’s doing all right these days. His work has been featured in the world’s best magazines like National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Time, Life, and Newsweek. In 2005 he was named one of the “100 Most Influential People In Photography” by American Photo Magazine and it’s not hard to see why. His more traditional journalistic documentary photos are the epitome of “a picture’s worth a thousand words”. There isn’t a single shot that doesn’t evoke and portray emotion. He’s captured several heart-breakingingly honest and hardcore images from the war in Afghanistan and the devastation to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

And to top it all off, in his “Adventure” series he’s got some ridiculously beautiful pictures of Paniolo cowboys in Hawai’i.

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