Comment here for In-Class critique!

Brainstorm!

Forelorn

Fear

Hobble

In motion
As 3D object

Rearranged

Blog Prompt #26

These will be out of order, but this is the order that I thought about them in:

6) If I had unlimited time and resources, I would love to have my cousins in full costume, but the costumes, although fairy-tale in design, would be made from the same bright, patterned fabrics as the t-shirts and jackets we wore as kids, since to us, we WERE wearing the regal accouterments and armor that the rulers of our imaginary world would wear. I would source old family photos, and make costumes from there. I would also try to build models of the various castles and forts, which I would combine into photos of the actual area where we imagined such places.

5) I really want to do a good job on this project, because it holds a lot of sentimental value for both me and my family. When we were kids, "Benselot" (As we dubbed it, playing off my cousins' last name of Bensel) was real to us, and we spent nearly every day after school and entire summers inventing stories, making characters, and playing in this world, which encompassed the entire farm and woods surrounding my uncle's house. When we were playing in this world, we had power, we had wisdom--in short, we were everything we hoped we'd become as adults, and even then, we imagined that we were adults. To return to this place, AS adults, will be interesting....did we become who we hoped we'd be?

4) Imagination, childhood, lore, innocence, memory, history, time, growth, decay, hope, childhood fear, mystery, dreams, nature, shadows, returns, roles, nostalgia, stories, wonder

12) If I removed people from this project, it would become much more about decay and the passing of time, rather than of memory and a return to wonder. In fact, the project would probably change entirely. In my opinion, it really needs the people. The people make it.

1) One negative thought I've had about the project is that it will become so personal that it will only have meaning for me, and no one will understand the allusions I make. I guess the opposite thought is that by not understanding specific allusions, the viewer will be struck more by overall impression, and the images will become universal in that way. I will concentrate on making strong visual images, so that, whether the allusions are understood or not, the images will still be effective.

2)The opposite of my project would be to concentrate on the lives of my family now in our various separate spheres, instead of the sphere we all shared in childhood. It would have to concentrate on the mundane, the unexceptional...the dull aspects of the reality of our daily lives. It could be interesting to make diptychs showing our lives now with what we imagined we would be, or what our role was in that childhood world.

3) A consistent theme will definitely be nature. Our world was almost entirely outdoors, and the creatures we imagined that populated this world were all nature-beings. The complete opposite would be something metallic or industrial.....which I could actually include quite easily because the forest we played in was often used as a dumping ground for old trucks and farm equipment. In our imaginations, we didn't see these, but the photos would obviously show them.

10) I assume that it will probably rain, and I'm going to have to find another way to take these photos. The photo that I have the strongest image in my mind about might not be possible if my uncle got rid of his goats. The pictures might turn out blurry too. BUT, to reverse these assumptions, the weather could be perfect, they could still have goats at the farm, and my shutter speed will be fast enough to cut out the blur. I assume it'll be difficult for my cousins to get into character after all these years, but hopefully we'll have enough time that it will be relaxing and fun for them.

7) In its simplest form, this project is a series of childhood vignettes. It's like taking a collection of toys and photographing them, or a picture of a child's room.

16) I love the idea of this being a narrative. I think I would have to include the same people in each image. I could show one of my cousins making a journey through the farm, making stops at every important landmark, talking to the "inhabitants" (i.e. my brother in various roles).

Project 5 Written Statements

This was a tough project for me, because I actually liked a lot of my images, and my works-in-progress critiques did not exactly help in choosing four images from the lot. I ended up choosing six, because I thought that five worked well as a series, and in fact, the sixth could be a part of that series too now that I think about it. I'll start with the track picture.

The goal was to create an image that combined the energy and excitement of one of my favorite paintings with a modern arena for showcasing athletic prowess. The image has a lot of lines and curves that direct the eye around the image, and the image almost seems to spiral in on itself, towards the chariot drivers. I kept the harsh light of the upper right hand corner because it seemed more like outdoor lighting with bright sunlight. The strong diagonals of the stairs and track lanes add to the energy of the image, and since the image of the charioteers is just hazy enough to not be completely lost, but not so defined as to detract from the field house behind it, the images blend and create a single, intertwined image.

This started with the subtle disruption idea. I was really enjoying combining mundane scenes with various unexpected figures, either famous or just out-of-place, and the idea came to me to try combining an old painting into a modern setting. I thought the dynamic poses of the horses, seen racing head-on, would look cool racing around the curve of our track. The horses' heads even direct the viewer toward the curve in the track.

To create this image, I brainstormed first of course, and walked around the indoor track, taking pictures at various heights and at various locations. I then took a photo of the etching, and combined the two photos using Photoshop. It was another successful Photoshop endeavor! I learned how to combine two images so that one faded into the other.

I think I've already covered this one, but the basic goal was to create a dynamic image that expressed both the excitement of racing, past and present, and the tradition of racing, while juxtaposing our modern institution of sports with the far more dangerous and sometimes fatal sports of the past.

This work draws inspiration from both paintings and modern sports photography, with its trend of taking racing photos head-on. The photo obviously makes use of an engraving of a painting, but puts it in a modern context. I think that a bit of inspiration comes from movies like Ben Hur, with its chariot race scene. My work strives to recreate the past, but as an echo. Its presence is not real. At the same time, the modern track facility hearkens back, in its design and purpose, to an older, more violent past. We have turned athletics into a business; an institution, even. We have made it safe, we have added equipment and arbitrary rules; yet we put the same amount of importance on the outcome now as we did then.

The second set, which consists of 5 photos, are taken in a variety of ways. To save on time though, and to spare everyone the trouble of reading about every single one, I'll analyze only a few of them, but talk generally about the set as a whole. The green cast photo was framed so that the large head was to the side, and the reflections on the glass created a visual line that led to the eye of the head. The emphasis was with the head, and the perspective was meant to feel as if you were actually standing there. I was hoping that the head size would be ambiguous. The lighting remained hazy and green, and this worked well as a way to add mystery to the image.

Each image is about a world. Or a single world in several stages. I wanted the images to be disorienting, in that the viewer would be unsure as to whether or not what they were witnessing was real, kind of like our own ideas about "lost worlds." What we imagine and think we know isn't necessarily true. The haziness of the lighting, and the various color casts gave each photo a specific mood, and helped to reinforce the idea of a mysterious world, in violence, in peace, or in ruin.

To create each image, I got very close to my subject and simply took the shot. I went to a pet store to photograph, so the lighting was almost entirely from above, if there was lighting at all, provided by various full-spectrum fluorescent lights. Depending on what cast was in each fish tank to begin with , and what decor was set around, the image would be given that cast. I had to shoot the photos through glass, so I used no flash, and had to touch up some parts in photoshop. I enhanced the colors as well to create a more saturated environment. It was fun to discover the ways in which I could enhance entirely different colors in the photo from what was actually there in the environment.

I've always had an active imagination, and I've always been fascinated by history, so I thought it would be fun to try to create the illusion of various worlds through fish tanks. I wanted to invoke ruin and decay, but also discovery, history, and mystery. I wanted to tell the story of a lost world, its destruction, and its remains.

My work draws inspiration from Arthur Tress's Fish Tank Sonata series, but instead of blatantly photographing the fish tank as a physical object, I look into the fish tank as a way to become immersed in this other world. There are no borders, no boundaries of glass that we can see. It could be a world, for all we know. It draws inspiration from Eleanor Antin's work too, since it's about constructing a kind of history. The fish tank is itself a constructed reality that fish must spend their lives in. Human strive to make it look natural, but the fact is that it's still a glass box. Much of history, or our notion of history, is just a construct as well.

Part II

At critique, others seemed to interpret my images as what I had described them as. They thought that the chariot image was strong, and got across the idea of a modern re-conception of something ancient. The lost world images seemed to appeal to the class, because some were so disorienting that it was hard to tell what they were, and some appeared so real as to be actual ruins. They thought that the mystery and somewhat alien quality came across.

In the chariot picture, the layering of the two images is working well. Because you can just barely make out the chariot race, it gives the image a dream like quality. Some people thought that some of the details of the chariot image were lost in areas such as the upper right hand corner, but I actually like the harsh lighting in this corner. I think I might like the horses to stand out just a little more, and the chariot drivers, but I don't think the faintness hurts the image. The class responded well to the color casts of the lost world photos, and I do think that these color casts (something that was not planned), help in creating a dream-like, fantasy aspect. Some critiqued that the reflections should either be more pronounced, or edited out. I do like the reflections in the green-cast photo, since they make an interesting line that leads to the eye of the Buddha head. I do wish the photos had printed out a little lighter though. And maybe I would print them larger next time, although when they are in their small form, I think they are more easily mistaken for actual places, since the details that alert the viewer to the fact that it's fabricated are less noticeable.

The chariot photo could be the start of a series of modern-day places with their respective "echoes" from the past. Things that are a normal part of life with their older equivalent....like a carriage outside of a car shop, or something like that. The lost world could be the start of a longer narrative series, about the creation and/or destruction of a world.

Projection In-Class photo

Works in Progress Critique Project 5

Here is my image for our in class assignment on incorporating 3D images, scans, and photos of ourselves in another image. I finally figured out how to do it! Yes! It doesn't look like much, since my whole objective was just to learn the techniques, but the general concept is just memories of my trip to Austria last summer, juxtaposed with my tired-self during the school year, bogged down by work. The memory was the biggest part, so that's why the notebook is largest, but I wanted to convey a feeling of space, so I made the figures small. Being fascinated by all the snails there is one of my earliest memories of the place too.

Blog Prompt #25

Well, there are quite a few photographers on this list, so I admit that I didn't get to look through them all, but these seven stuck out to me before I even made it to the bottom, so I'll work with these...

To include in my gallery:

Erik Sumption

It was the bold colors and forms of Sumption's photographs that first caught my eye. I especially love the reflection photo--the saturation of the colors in the reflection make the photo abstract, and almost like a painting, which I'm always dawn to.

Keith Lewis

Here again it was the painterly quality of the photographs that appealed to me. The subject matter seems to take its inspiration from romantic and classical paintings of nudes, and the lighting in each is both diffuse and richly warm.

Chris Sembrot

This artist only submitted one photograph, but the wealth of detail and texture in the image makes it one of my top pics. A fish eye lens must have been used, as it looks distorted in that way. The horse nearly blends in with its wild surroundings, and the man almost looks suspended, the single, softer-looking element in the midst of the ruggedness.

John F. Martin

I think I just really like costumed portraits, that, while covering up the true nature of their wearers, still express something about them. I love the detail of these "characatures" ; these fantasy personas. It's as if they're all characters from a single play, and the job of the viewer is to construct the story from viewing them.

Ljubodrag Andric--favorite!

I love the "airiness" of these photos. Each is so clean and simple, with small figures placed in open sky, fields....open spaces, in general. The environment is surreal, and the figures are alone, but not lonely. They seem in harmony with their environment, and comfortable despite a slightly uncomfortable vastness.

Justin Borsuk

I feel like this is a simple technique--take multiple shots of something, and then layer them over one another--but Borsuk manages to do it in a way that feels new. His photos convey motion, but at specific moments in time, rather than a continuous blur of action.

J. T. Burke

The thing that draws me to Burke's work is that they don't look like photos--they look they illustrations. They're very unique, and I have no idea how he accomplished making them, but I like that they're surprising in that way. And of course, I like illustrations. :) There's a kind of symmetry to many of them that reminds me of chinese paper cuts, and pop-up books. Yet, if you look closely, you realize that they're not actually symmetric, but each part is uniquely formed. Pretty cool stuff.

Blog Prompt #24

a) One way you could recreate the photos of Eleanor Antin would be to make a kind of diorama tableaux, using things like army men or plastic people. Like her series on Helen's Odyssey, the use of Barbies could be representative of an idealized representation of femininity. Placing objects that are normally small within a landscape could also be disorienting. I like the idea of creating opera scenes in real life as well.

I like the idea of the Arthur Tress fish tank sonata series as well. In fact, using fish tanks as background is interesting, because so many people like to recreate scenes on land underwater. Taking small glass containers, any number of "fish tanks" could be placed in various locations. The photos would have to be taken outside, in order to get the lighting right. The trick would be finding things small enough to put in the "fish tank"--of course, if the container appeared to be regular sized, the appearance of a giant penny or something else could be quite disorienting.

b) I haven't really thought too much about the final project yet (I'm still trying to get this most recent project underway) but I really like the idea of this constructed reality stuff. One of my favorite things to study is folklore, so I think it would be neat to create images that have an ancient, almost magical feel about them. Every culture has folklore, and every individual has a personal folklore, or at least, a unique, personal interpretation of their culture's. When I was a kid, my brother, cousins, and I made up an imaginary world in the forests surrounding their farm, and we played in this world almost every day. It was real to us. Now when we go back we like to reminisce about that time, and even like to come up with "what happened" to this land after we "left." I think it would be cool to go back and photograph this world, and through editing, return some of the magic to it. Another idea I've had in the back of my mind for some time now is to take portraits of my friends wearing tribal-esque costume created from their possessions--a way of constructing their identity through their surroundings, and the way material possessions can sometimes come to define us, or smother us. These are just ideas though.....