project progress

Over my last few rolls, I have been attempting to hone in on my photographic strengths thereby enhancing the quality of my output and extending my own creativity. I am really excited with the amount and quality of my printable negatives. I was able to take 10 scans off two rolls that fulfill my aesthetic needs and my conceptual focus.  I am really happy with them and feel they incorporate a very unique aesthetic that is more distinct than my last batch of successful photos.

Unfortunately a big section of the door was cut off this one, but I am trying to see if I like it better cropped this way.  I think the photo is still strong and shows well a fluid concept.  The stark symmetry and angularity help draw the eye to the center of the photograph, where it pans out and explores information in the belly of the photo.  Or maybe we scan the perimeter of the entrance first, learn that it is a greenhouse, perhaps a very old or abandoned one.  The contrast of the geometrical shape of the cinder blocks and the stacked matter on the sides creates such an array of shapes.  The slight tonal differences make all the information pop in a subtle way.  I pulled this roll, too.

On a conceptual level, I think this photo draws upon the absence of people, life, and the presence of matter made by man.  There's an unnerving presentation of artificial and natural life inside this greenhouse, stripped of life itself and only seeing its skeleton.  The plastic bag in the center on the ground sort of resembles a lifeless body.  The way it is situated and sprawled out hold the quality of a body, despite its inanimateness.

I talked to Phil about this photo in class today and he said he wishes there was a body lying beneath the plastic.  I thought about what he said and I decided that I wouldn't make a decision like that because I want to give the viewer freedom.  By showing them what they should look at, I am depriving them of an imagination. I love that Phil inscribed his own vision onto my photograph.  Why put a body there if I got him to think about a body without one truly being there? Photography can be so deceitful in the best way.

I think I need to do a bit of burning in the center of the photograph, but I haven't learned how to do that yet.  There's something super geometric about this photo--the sporadic shape of the leaves, the angular shape of the buildings, and the figures running.  You wonder what they're running from. Their faces are kind of blurred from the motion and the scale, but the barrenness of the background induces some anxiety.  And then the trees start looking kind of eerie and the sun becomes blinding and burning.  There's definitely something inherently creepy about this photo.  I like that I used people to make it, which i usually stray away from.  i didn't pose them, I photographed a moment, but it nearly looks like a really well posed photograph that looks unstaged. I don't know, I'd like to hear what other people say about this photograph.

All in all, I'm really excited to keep this going. I've already pushed my boundaries and I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can create.

Angela Strassheim

I wish I could see a proper chronology of Angela Strassheim's work from her very early days through to her present work.  I would be interested to see how she evolved over time eventually creating something like the body of work titled, "Evidence".  Through her other photography, I can see she has a keen sense of aesthetics. For this reason, among others, I understand why you recommended I look at her work. A lot of her photography is very satisfying compositionally. It seems like she pays attention to the borders and the physical weight of the photograph in the eye.

This photograph, for example, illustrates precisely the attention to composition and the movement of the eye within and around a photograph.  The combination of the placement of each individual toy, the asymmetrical but similar bedding pointing toward the girl in the middle, the wide angle lens used, and the overblown light exposure on the little girl in the center creates a very distinct world.  The picture resonates as intentional, but not forceful.  The angles of the toys, their shadows, and the beds kindly guide my eyes to the center of the photograph, where we see a girl separated into a heavenly world.  Looking up at her, we can see that her world is so close but so distant from reality. This picture gently discusses the power of imagination and freedom.  The height of the camera also makes the toy horses look larger like life, and make the girl up the couple of stares look like a goddess of her imaginary land. I feel that there's so much to say about this photo but it wasn't begged of me.  Maybe this happened because I was immediately distracted by the photograph's aesthetic beauty and playful use of colour.

Now for some photos from "Evidence"

What I love about this photo is that it stands on its own. Without knowing what it's about, it's beautiful.  It is suggestive and provocative, yet subtle without knowledge of the title of the work.  I find the frame within the frame striking, as my eye is immediately drawn to it.  Then it approaches the radiator, partially illuminated, seemingly by car headlights or some other direct form of light. But then I notice the discolorations on the walls and their shapes.  Once i reach this discovery, my sense of ease created by the beauty of the photograph is disturbed by a dark and morbid atmosphere.  And suddenly I feel like all my previous positive emotions are null and I am overcome with darkness.  How powerful!?

I love this bathroom picture too. There are so many different textures and details to look at.  The objects underneath the tub, the rust (?) mark on the sink, the black structure to the right, the reflective walls, the shadow of the tub, the filthy tiled floor, etc. My eye jumps around from bit to bit.  It's a very heavy photograph, printed very dark. But the highlights and variety of grays within it anchor it. 

As I was looking through her photos, I stopped at this one. I passed the others of houses from the outside, but this one struck me.  Looking into it more, I am interested by the windows and triangular roof of the house at first.  Then I'm drawn to the curtains in the windows, then the bushes peppered on the lawn in a perfect line seeing me to the right side of the photograph.  Then I'm lead to the foliage, the overcast sky, the contrast of the grass against everything else colorless. I think there's something eerie about the photo due to all these aspects. The half-bare trees, the dark triangular shape on the roof, the dark cloud hovering over the house.  I'm not sure if it stands on its own, but in context of "Evidence", it speaks loudly.

Larry Clark

Larry Clark makes interesting photographs. I'm enticed by his sense of adventure and the sense of spontaneity that exudes from his photographs. Nearly all his photos look as if they were taken in an unplanned moment. Candid and uncanny, yet intentional and understandable.  Succinct, yet speculative.

The photos themselves reflect the method in which they were created.  Kristine mentioned that Clark did drugs with teenagers and shot them. I don't know the details of this experiment, but the photos are intriguing. I'm not entirely sure what to say about them.

This one is sexual but not pornographic. It's innocent; it reminds me that we have nude bodies beneath our clothes and that is all. There are no attachments or judgments intrinsic to the human form. The subject and the naturalness of the photo coming from several aspects of it evoke this unique feeling inside me.  It's almost nostalgic for a moment that never happened.

I am truly moved by the expression on this boy's face and the seeming genuineness of it. I love the way the light from the window is overblown, yet everything inside the car is clear. Without drawing attention to itself, it creates a focal point and encapsulates a sense of wonder and fantasy. What's beyond the car? is he even inside a car? It's secretively suggestive and provocative.

Also, I can tell that this was a very intentional negative and print. Clark must have done some intense enlarger maneuvering to get this print to look the way he wanted it to look, and I appreciate the effort and the beautiful outcome.

I wanted to include this image because I was just working on a print that involved water droplets on a car window yesterday, so it struck me for that reason especially. I don't know what time of day it is. it looks like it might be night time with intense light coming from outside the car. Maybe it was just before dusk and he printed it darker to get that beautiful tone of grey in the subject's face. Whatever the environment was like, the way Clark went about shooting this environment and printing this negative is harmonious and perfect.  It's dramatic due to the lighting, the sharp focus, an the shallow depth of field.

project focus

As I'm looking through all my photos that I've made over the course of the semester so far, I am finding it hard to find a thread that connects them all.  I know what I'm interested in: interesting shapes, angles, lines, aesthetic groupings of things. People, animals, plants, and patterns. Architecture, special fleeting moments, getting lucky. I'm interested in a lot of things. I like to switch it up because i admitfully get bored easily.
When i look at the work of other photographers, I am most inspired by these same sorts of things. When looking at Eugene Atget and Garry Winogrand, I gathered pictures with reflections on bodies of water and intriguing and aesthetic candids of people and characters.  I gathered photos of reality that also commented on it, like this image:

What I love about this photo is the harmony between the aesthetic composition, the conversation happening between the subjects, and the candidness of it (the fact that this moment doesn't look like it was staged. Of course, it could have been, but it has the quality that it was not, which is important). Another example of what I'm talking about is this other photo by Winogrand:

I think one thing that these photos have in common is they have a distinct locative quality. We know where these are taking place via the environmental and social.  The first one looks like a couple of parents took their rowdy kids to the zoo because of the obvious animal, and because we can relate to being a kid, having a kid, or seeing a kid behave in this uninhibited way in public places. On second thought, I don't think those are the parents, but they might be strangers, gawking at the courage and sense of adventure these children have. She's envious of the freedom that the carefree nature of the child affords them. She's constricted by her social position. The children don't even see her; they remain in their own worlds.  The woman envies this sense of life. Or maybe she's just intrigued by the couple of "animals" who got out and ended up right next to her.

The second one looks like a mom and her many kids maybe? They're definitely in a city, and she's definitely a mother of several. They need to get from A to B, mom has an agenda.  In a similar way, the girls off to the left in the photograph are in their own worlds, oblivious to the world of the adult.  And they are content being lead by a leash by hardworking mom and big brother.

The fact that we can relate to both these photos due to their distinct sense of location and social situation makes them memorable. This intrigues me. How do we make a photograph memorable?

I want to expand on my photography of places and architecture by exploring new, unique places and creating unconventional photographs there and in familiar places alike. I'm not sure if this is too broad, but I can narrow it in the coming week.

^ (Winogrand) Candid! More or less, we know where they are based on what they're doing, how they're doing it, and how they're dressed.

^ (Atget) The reflection picture I mentioned earlier. An interesting take on a wooded area. Unconventional, aesthetic 

^ (Atget) Lots going on in this photograph, I kind of know where this is. There is an emphasis on aesthetic composition and interesting shapes and lines.

^ (Atget) Gosh, I just think this is gorgeous. It's simple, and effective. It's something I would make, I think. Very angular, very pretty, hard not to like (unless you think it's cliche). But it's a great print and a great photograph altogether. I think i want to go a little more unconventional than this. More like this:

Justine Kurland's visit

I really, really enjoyed Justine Kurland's appearance and talk at Purchase.  She is an inspirational photographer to me. Her work is calculated and harmonious, both visually and contextually.  I loved hearing Justine talk about her photos. Viewing them now on the internet is a different experience.  Being able to listen to justine describe the situations she was in when she made the photos made them all the more interesting. The images most definitely stand on their own, but when they stand with her words they are much more assertive and forward-pushing.

For example, this photo's story is so powerful without words. A pregnant woman and her reflection, nude with mud boots, surrounded by lengthy trees, their reflections, and crystal clear water reflecting an overcast sky.  The earth tone colors humming against one another are soft but bold. The human figure standing like another tree in the swamp.  Justine said this woman was in labor when she made this photo--and suddenly it becomes all the more enticing, exciting, and robust!  Now the water beneath her legs sort of means something else. Now the isolation of her body in the middle of a forest becomes so much more stark and heavy.  Now she is a reflection of time and space and nature all at once in one detail.

One of my favorite things about listening to Justine's critique of the senior photography was awesome.  The way she talked about photographs inspired me to think about viewing photographs in similar ways.  She addressed content, composition, story, and technical details of framing and subject matter.  She was honest, objective, and found successful ways of pointing out things that worked and things that didn't.  She had so much to say about each piece and each collection of pieces as a grouped set. I didn't agree with everything she said, but i found it insightful and helpful, despite the fact that she wasn't critiquing my work.

current events post

I found this week's assignment challenging, but intriguing.  I decided to read an article that I had sitting open on my computer for a while, but hadn't gotten the time to sit down and read yet.  It was about the two deaths of young people at the first day of the New York City EDM (electronic dance music) festival Electric Zoo.  It struck my attention because electronic music and the festivals they draw have been the epicenters of social arguments in my life between me and my former friends.  As a [non-EDM] festival-goer, I am interested in the culture that surrounds festivals.  Wherever you go, whoever you ask, people will say that music festivals are unlike anything else.  They create their own world for a weekend where people can bond over the particular culmination of musicians invited to perform at the festival.  It's a holiday, a home away from home.  In fact, a lot of festival-goers go to many festivals.  People truly do feel at home here.  It's paradise--a place one can be passionate about their love for music, and all they have to do is buy a ticket and find a way there.  But this article talks about a third component--quite possibly the most important component to EDM festivals: the drug MDMA.  The article is written by a former drug dealer/promoter/artist booker who decides he wants to leave the music business.  He exposes the awful truth behind the EDM scene.  Basically, he reveals that these particular kinds of festivals don't operate correctly without MDMA, better known by its street name, Molly.  Drug dealers pay off law enforcement and concert promoters in order to get their drug into the festival and sell it to the young people who won't go to these festivals if the drug isn't available.

So this leads to an inherent problem.  Lots of kids want drugs, so supply becomes inflated and shabby. Like Walmart for drugs. Dealers capitalize on the high demand at the expense of quality.  The issue is that kids don't know this and are overdoing drugs they don't even know they're putting into their body. They're applying what they know about MDMA to this Molly crap they are finding at festivals from strangers who will tell them anything to get their money.  Festivals--their home away from home.  We trust our families, right?  This is a different kind of "family".

As you can see, I'm relatively passionate about this. Reading this article opened my eyes to the industry of EDM, and the drugs that infiltrate them. The drugs that FUEL them.  It's without a doubt just as important as the music itself.  Drugs kill young people frequently at electronic music events.  It's a huge problem and it really only slapped people in the face when an entire multi-million dollar music festival (including drug income) had to be cancelled because of two deaths on the first night.  It got me thinking about our reliance on drugs of all kinds, whether they are recreational or pharmaceutical.  How people "don't give a fuck" and people who do give a fuck look up to those people who don't give a fuck. It's one thing to not give a fuck about your homework or your dirty laundry or what people think of you, but it's another thing to not give a fuck about your LIFE/wellbeing/mental and physical health.  It's absurd! People are blind and allow themselves to be. Especially impressionable young people. Especially 14 year old girls listening to Miley Cyrus on the radio talking about doing molly and coke at dance parties and thinking it's acceptable because of that.
I played with some vitamins I have and made some photos of my roommate with them. I liked what windows this project opened for me. i don't know if i'll like the picture or if i'll print them, but it was a great exercise. i unfortunately don't have my contact sheets on me, they are drying currently, so i don't even have a reference point. But i'll see tomorrow!

post 2 - response to "Why People Photograph"

Robert Adams' "Why People Photograph"

I found the excerpts from this piece inspirational and identifiable.  I found myself highlighting, underlining, and annotating a fair few lines that resonated with me.  For example, on page 15, he writes, "They've [photographers] been given what they did not earn, and as is the way with unexpected gifts, the surprise carries an emotional blessing." Sometimes I feel weird opposing senses of guilt and pride when I make a photograph I sort of just stumbled into. So many photographers plan their photographs, which I find amazing. But I fail to recognize the unique pleasure and candidness that arises out of taking a camera with you where you don't know what kinds of photo's you'll make.  This event instills in me an emotion much like the one Adams describes.  I feel as though I have been thrust upon with an undeserving gift, but feel an immense gratitude that it was presented upon me and that I have a tool to make it become a photograph.  On a shallow level, this idea can be quite stark and uninspiring, but on a much deeper level, this idea is piercing and quite overwhelming when in the midst of its experience.

I took this photo on Randall's Island and printed it last autumn. I'm quite pleased with it. One of my favorite photos I've ever taken and it was not planned (with the exception of the composition). The man just biked into my shot and thus the opportunity was perfect.

"Smart is okay, but lucky is better," Adams elaborates on page 16.  When a photographer shoots to satisfy an intrinsic, immediate desire within themselves, it keeps them alive. In my experience anyway, this is why I shoot.  I love capturing moments that deserve to exist longer than the moment in which they are born.  Beautiful moments that can provoke inspiration, beauty, emotion, or memories are moments I seek to capture, wait for, create, or manipulate. I love luck. I think luck is the essence of free will and spontaneity. It's the opposite of mathematics--reliance, dependability, 'absolutes', finite ideas. It's creativity, it's bridging gaps between circumstances that don't occur together.  It's humor. I love when Adams talks about humor, too. He quotes Mark Twain saying that "analyzing humor was like dissecting a frog--both die in the process." Humor is a life that moves forward like time. We can't really explain its complexity, and it's one of the most powerful things known to us.

My bassist, playing in his underwear.

I don't even want to claim that this photograph is funny, I was merely photographing a funny moment. Someone might smile when they look at this, because it's sort of a ridiculous pairing of dramatic lighting and composition and the visible situation.

I love the way Adams talks about money and dogs.  I can't help but connect these two sections.  Dogs do what they love to do because they love it. The reward is intrinsic to the activity, much like artists and photographers in particular. We do what we do because if we were left to our own devices, this is what we would do. Money, however is a strange third-party incentive. If I told a dog I was going to pay it to be a dog, and if it had a consciousness, what would it do? For some reason, with humans, it's nearly like a double-negative.  The more conflicting incentive, the less passion there is behind doing these things we once loved.  There's a sense of identity loss in work for work instead of work for play.  A dog has no problem chasing a ball around all day until it's passed out, but a dog wouldn't be a dog anymore if it needed an incentive to do this awesome, fun thing.

I'm not really sure if my comparison is making sense anymore, I'm just writing and seeing where this goes. The last paragraph of the Dogs section reads: "Art depends on there being affection in its creator's life, and an artist must find ways, like everyone else, to nourish it. A photographer down on his or her knees picturing a dog has found pleasure enough to make many things possible."

I love photographing animals, and I love seeing the way humans interact with animals. Animals are wonderful symbols of affection in the way they show it to humans. In this picture below, my friends are all staring at dozens of koi fish that gathered around them at the short of a pond at Pepsico.

This is another one of my favorite photos of my own.  I think that when humans are in the presence of each other, we can experience the same sort of affection we love about animals. Comfort, acceptance, love, and compatibility create an open sense of connectedness and freedom. Capturing that on film can create nostalgia in anyone.

Why do I take pictures?
I make pictures to remember, to forget, to make moments last longer than they intrinsically lasted.  I make photos to make things seem like things they aren't--using the camera to deceive and abstract the world around us. This interests me just as much as making photos that depict true, familiar reality--candids and secretly taken photos. What's wonderful about photos, however, is that they are never familiar.  As much as we can relate to what we see, we have never seen any novel photo before, so the situation is new, the people are new, the trees are new, the scene is new, and the composition is new.  I make photos to help me and people that see my photos construct and break down our realities.

Blog Post I: Lee Friedlander

Out of all the photographers we looked at in class, I was most intrigued by Lee Friedlander.  His photographs resonated with me in a way the others didn't. While I could appreciate and get inspiration from everyone's artwork, I was most inspired and captivated by Friedlander's work. It reminds me of my own. I feel that when I'm looking through a viewfinder, composition is one of the most important things to me. Aesthetics, balance, framing, and context interest me more than subject matter or technical mastery.  Lee Friedlander seems to have an emphasis on those former aspects while also bring the latter aspects into manifestation.

Lee's photographs look candid and planned simultaneously. I personally love successful candid and street photographs--ones that evoke a sense of nostalgia or ones that almost appear posed.  I also love photos that do this in a different way--photos that are staged in such a way that make them seem to be candid. Friedlander's pictures encompass this style.  They are aesthetically pleasing as well as emotionally identifiable.

I love how Lee plays with shapes and lines. Both these photographs above are just a couple of examples that show how he does this so beautifully.  In the top one, the shapes are defined by contrasts between light and dark tones. Almost all of the lines are soft--the curve of the bedpost, the frame of the television, and even the darkness creeping onto the wall on the left side of the picture makes that edge much softer. This is contrasted by the vertical lines of the bedpost. They are defined by white highlights and contrasting shadows. The deep blacks and the bright whites put the more subtle tonal ranges into context. My eye is not drawn to stark tones. My eye is drawn to the beautiful textured bedspread in the foreground made up of soft greys and the television screen comprised of similar grey tones.  This isn't my favorite photograph of Friedlander's, but I can find so many great things to say about it.
As I was flipping through Lee's photographs, the second one caught me. Its asymmetry and line flow is really interesting. Starting from the left, we see the contrasting shadow of the guardrail cast in a diagonal toward the corner of the photograph, then the nearly perpendicular line of the actual guardrail protruding forward from what appears to be a point in space on the horizon (the horizon being another line). Then we have the vertical posts of the guardrail which sort of mirror the vertical telephone poles and their telephone wires, one parallel to the horizon, the other pushing out from the same point the guardrail seems to be pushing out from. Then we have the rectangular billboard, and the lady figure who lays upon it.  The curvature of her body nearly matches the curvature of the end of the guardrail--the tip closest to the camera. And then the road appears to be continuing out of the edge of the guardrail, in the same angle, from the same point on the horizon. Even the plants on the left side of the road accentuate that same line, getting bigger as they are closer to the camera, creating an illusion of depth and a sense of fluidity.

Lee Friedlander creates a mystical world not only with candid-looking photos, but also by experimenting with light and shadow.  His photos beg you to wonder what is going on, what happened before and after, and what time of day it is. They are mysterious enough to make you ask questions, but practical enough to allow you to form your own answers, creating a sense of comfort and nostalgia when viewing his photos. I am truly inspired! I want to go out and make photos like these, concentrating on light and shadows, people, and intriguing moments.

 

So many shapes and tones. It's wondrous and yet familiar.

A beautiful candid--I'm not sure if it actually was, but it gives that impression.  We're at a party, people are mingling and happy, and falling in love with each other. This photo is perfect--but almost lucky. I'd love to know Lee's process, or the background of this photo and the people in it.

Double exposure? I love how the clouds are manipulated to be this mid-dark grey, and the tree is a silhouette. It's eerie and dream-like. The addition of the koi fish over it adds to that dream-like quality.