Super Super Hurry Time

I couldn't pick three, I'm all sorts of confused with what I like.

Blog Responses 8,9,&10

“My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.” ~Richard Avedon.

This is a pretty bold thing to say, but after some reflection, I'd have to agree with Avedon. It's a way I've never really looked at it before, but if a photograph shows you a look at the world, isn't the looker important? The subject matter behind the camera is just as important as that in front from that perspective. Taking photographs at different moments, different angles, or different anything can change the meaning of a photograph. Each creative decision made by the photograph reflects a piece of his personality. Last week's quote talked about photos taking a part of the subject's soul. Perhaps it's time to consider that they can take part of the photographer's as well.

“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ~Ansel Adams

Adams's quote is kind of along the lines of Avedon's, but I disagree with it. I think making a photo if a huge part about being a photographer, you've got to throw yourself into your work to get the full experience out of it. That being said, I find the idea of capturing an event or subject you have absolutely no control over very beautiful. Sometimes you have to sit back and let things happen, like when that last "what the hell" shot you take at random winds up being the best one. In most instances, you do make your photographs, but if photographers don't recognize the times to just let be, they're kind of in the dark.

“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” ~John Berger


I'd agree with this quote. It again relates to the previous. A photographer only has so much creative liberty in what they photograph. At the end of the day, it has to exist. Painters on the other hand, can pull entire abstract subject matters out of their imagination. In a painting, the viewer really does see what the painter saw, either literally or in the mind, but usually a mix of the two. Photograph is a sample of life. As a much more literal art, viewers are able to take in the subject matter and skew it in any way they wish to meet their needs. Sounds strangely like real life...

In-Progress Crit

Contemporary Photographer Reflection

I was going to write about Jill Greenberg for this prompt. Then I googled Mark Laita just in case. Plans cancelled. In a sense you could call his work a series of a series, but I think it's something more than that. Each piece contains two photographs, side by side. Compositionally, the two balance each other out, but it's in the subject matter where the content really lies. (Is that sentence like saying a circle is a circle?) Regardless, Laita takes very specific, minute details of society and compares them side by side. Often these details are the extremes of any spectrum, such as obesity vs. anorexia. The title of this work is "Created Equal", a reminder of humanity in each of his examples. The desaturation and balance of composition is vital to strike this point home. As the viewer stares at each subject, there's a deeper connection than just appearance. When you can lock into their humanity, they don't look as different anymore. Actually try it, it works.

It was really difficult to pick, but the picture below has to be my favorite. Laita plays with the idea of cowboys and indians, but in a very modern light. The cowboy looks semi-traditional, though it feels more like the outfit is more for show than for any practical purpose. The shocking part happens when you look at the Native American in the Lakers jersey holding a bottle of liquor. They're still opposites, but in a much different lighting.

The fact that Mark Laita had to travel the entire country just to find these people amazes me. It represents a meticulous thought process that I'd like to incorporate into my own portraiture. Sometimes just the thought behind a photograph can be stronger than the photograph itself.

Blog Response 5,6,&7

“I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.” ~Mary Ellen Mark




This quote, like prompt #6, sort of suggests an ethical question. Is honesty always the best policy when you're trying to capture somebody in the photograph. I'd argue that's probably best after a shoot, but I'd consider it okay to shoot without necessarily being upfront with your purpose or concept. This way you might get them to act more naturally, more open, and less conforming to whatever your idea is. If that's what a photographer is going for, that's certainly an option. I'm not saying there is a right or wrong answer about keeping your model in the know, but I don't feel as if it's a mandatory obligation to inform them of everything to do with the project. Ethics is also not always my strong subject, so maybe I need to look further into the matter. The soul idea interested me, as I have heard that Native Americans used to fear photography for that very fact (sorry if that's a gross generalization, or even untrue, it's just something told to me during some middle school history class). I wouldn't agree that a photograph is taking away a soul, it's simply directing others to it, a simply recording. Maybe I am being too harsh about the quote, it has good intentions, and it's rather important to respect your models.

As far as the ethics behind digitally editing photographs really, really depend on the situation. When it comes to fine art, I am all in for digital manipulations. I see it as one more tool to drive art. Digital manipulating is a medium itself, and must be learned just as one would learn to move a paintbrush or sculpt a small animal or anything else. To deprive the world of any art medium suggests a fear of growth or exploration. That being said, I do think it's wrong to trick people with edited photographs in the mass media. Just like a video edited at the exact right point, a fake photograph can ruin reputations and shift political and social ideologies. Sometimes it can be fun, like when the world got to laugh it's ass off at photos of Iran's nuclear program, discovered to be photoshopped almost immediately. I'm a little on the fence about editing fashion photography to the point of unrealistic extremes. Evidence shows this makes a negative impact on the way females view themselves in society, told well by this Dove Commercial. Ugh, that neck part always freaks me out. I'm always alright with healing a couple of zits out, but being a male that's rather indifferent about everything, I'm not sure where to draw the line.

I find that as so many images get put on Facebook a day (why do browsers still recognize Facebook as a typo?), that the photos stop being a slice of life and start just becoming life. Sorry if that sounds lofty, but I don't mean it in a positive way. When I can find photos of myself on that site from giving a speech to exiting the bathroom, they kind of stop being special. I don't want to make a generalization of all of them, as there are always a few gems. I like the portraits in advertising and the news, however, because everything seems so thought out. That may not be true, but at least there's more of a system than random cell phone pics and that last Friday night you don't want to remember. Fine art is even more different. Everyone has such different content and statements, it's hard to even compare it to the prompt.

Assignment 2: Recreate Again

For my portrait recreate, I decided to work off a surrealist photograph titled Afterlife. It's more of a composite photograph, where I wound up spending more time editing than taking the original photographs.

I tried to get as close the the original as possible, but that became a little tricky to reproduce digitally. The original feels like it was done through traditional techniques, so I guess the challenge for me was to try to put my "hand" back in the process. I tried adding some noise and blowing out sections of the photo to match the original, but I still feel like the "digitalness" is too apparent in the photo. In retrospect, I lit my subject from both the front and the side, but now I'm wishing I only used the side light to increase the contrast.

Lesson learned, I guess. There's only so much you can do while editing, and I'm now realizing how important it is to get everything perfect in the original shots. I had a lot of fun experimenting with this surrealist angle, and it's really sparked my interest in trying to make mor

e photo composites like this in the class.

Assignment 1: Explore

I'm very interested in the turn my project took this week. The photos that I thought would sure become my final three turned out just not making to cut when I started editing. Simple things I wouldn't catch when simply looking at the screen of the camera: like being a teensy bit out of focus or having too high of an ISO. The peer review also affected my decision. Some photos I was simply going to throw into the discard pile got flagged, and it forced me to take a second look at them. Without further ado:

This piece was done as a response to the fluorescent lighting prompt. It was an interesting angle, and I tried thinking of interesting ways to attack the scene in editing. I wound up desaturating the image pretty harshly, but pulling back some color in the books to provide an atmosphere of imagination. Perhaps the subject is revisiting his childhood through excitement in the library. Regardless, in what started as a quick fix to get a prompt done turned into a piece I'm really happy with, and didn't exactly expect to turn in.

My second piece was a response to the monochromatic prompt.I decided to shoot in the hamster cage because of it's typically vomit-inducing colors, leading me to think I could find something interesting. The stairwell was nothing but blue, and I got some bizarre compositions because of it. In the peer review, someone mentioned that the while balance was too blue, which got me to rethink the picture. I started to run in a different direction and experimented with cross-processing, a technique created by developing film in the incorrect chemicals. Cross-processing is even easier in the digital world, mostly playing with curves and the works.

My last piece was in response to high-contrast lighting. When I began shooting though, I got really interested in the shadows my brother was casting on the walls. I opened up the frame a little bit to include the shadows as part of the subject and came out with a half-way decent composition. I played around a little bit with the exposure and the saturation, but out of all the editing, this photo was left the most untouched.

Blog Response 3&4

“Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.” - Duane Michals

I'd suppose I agree with this quote, but it does seem to be a little over-dramatic and inclusive. I see this as an argument for photography as an art form, a debate that comes and goes rather frequently. Photography certainly is an art, and I like that this quote suggests the emotional content that can go into a photograph. It kind of hints that a photo is half of what's in front of the camera, and half of what's behind it. That being said, this quote should not be all-encompassing, as I do think that some photography has purpose outside of art, such and news and event photography. I'm not saying that these forms can't be art, but the priority should be the story rather than making a deeper statement.

"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." - Lewis Hine

I think the biggest thing a camera brings to a story is the sense of an environment. When a story is told verbally, all concentration is given to the subject (for good reason) leaving many other important details out. The atmosphere of the photo is closely tied to the story's mood. I find it interesting that a story can be told in the mood of the teller's choosing, but a photograph gives that power to the audience themselves. In that light, I'd have to agree with the quote. I think photos are necessary in portraying the environment of grave events that one can't possibly understand outside of the situation, such as war or natural disasters. Words might be better left to more specific things, like that joke you heard from your uncle on your 12th birthday. These points definitely form a continuum, however, and the actual appropriateness of words vs. photograph most typically fall between.

Recreation - Jeff Wall

Getting Jeff Wall's The Destroyed Room for this assignment was a bit odd, because essentially I was doing a recreation of a recreation. In much of his early work, Jeff Wall would take any images, not just photographs, and try to reconstruct them in a way that reflected himself in them. Wall's jumping off point was a 19th-century oil painting by Eugene Delacroix, titled Death of Sardanapalus. The painting itself depicts an Assyrian king whose fortress is under attack. When defeat seems certain, Sardanapalus orders all his belongings destroyed and his concubines murdered to strip the pleasure of doing so by his enemies. In his reaction, Wall developed a modern room in the aftermath of destruction, insinuating perhaps a domestic dispute similar to the one told by Delacroix.

In my recreation, I wanted to combine certain aspects of both these pieces as a nob to Wall's process. I set up an abstract, destroyed, although it is much vaguer than the one Jeff Wall set up. Rather than just shoot the set-up forever, I wanted to add a destroyed person, a mirror of Sardanapalus's concubines. She is in fear, perhaps as an escapee of the massacre, or simply knows what is about to come. I'd prefer the photo to be viewed as an aftermath, but the set-up may be too vague to push it in a certain direction.

Compositionally, I tried to match Wall's use of the color red and harsh diagonals, which are shared in Delacroix's painting as well. This way, even if the photograph is viewed as an aftermath, these aspects still manage to add a feeling of ongoing violence and tension. If I could reshoot, I'd like to find a red building to block out the background.

I by know means think that my photograph is a worthy recreation of Jeff Wall's piece, and in my research I found an interesting reaction about his own piece: "I know that in some ways this is a very artificial way of going about things, very manneristic even, but it was a way to begin, and I had to begin."

Other Secondary Shots:

Blog Response 1&2

I don't find it particularly hard to imagine a world without photographs, as most of history already meets this criteria. I think the biggest loss in today's era would come from a journalistic, information-sharing standpoint. A photograph has holds a plethora of information, often more that a story that actually goes with it. I'd suppose people would simply have to use their imaginations more, and I'd hate to say it, but sometimes that might just not cut it in terms of an emotional connection. For example, think many of the atrocities that occur throughout the world. There are so many of these, that we become desensitized when we hear about them and can simply brush them under the rug. Sometimes it takes a photograph to truly shock some sense into us. There is a very famous and graphic photograph of a Tibetan monk who set himself on fire in protest of China's actions. I think that photograph really made people take a second look at the situation.

This prompt also reminds me of a point made by Peter Glendinning a couple of years ago: Aristotle once poked around with the science of optics and lenses, but eventually dropped the subject in pursuit of other interests. Imagine then, if he did discover the lens, and perhaps, the camera, we could have had pictures on Jesus, Caesar, Muhammad, and countless other historical figures which we rely on statues or drawings to even imagine what they looked like (which we have no proof are even accurate). This point is kind of a ramble, but it's an interesting "what-if" thought nonetheless.

To me, a photograph is a moment in time more than a physical object. This is a kind of vague definition, but there are so many questions than follow it. Why was this particular moment selected by the photographer? Does it mark some point in history? Is it something that could every be recreated again? Even artistic decisions such as composition, exposure, etc. reflects how the photographer feels in that very moment, and how they want to world to view it even years down the road. It could also reflect overall trends of society at the time of the shot. To me, this very moment in time is beautiful, and the amount of significance the photographer decides to give the moment is what makes it an art.