Blog Prompt #23

What is the concept driving your thesis project at this point in the semester? Has your concept changed since the beginning of the semester? If so, describe the changes?

At this point, my concept is still to create juxtapositions between fragility and destruction as a reflection on the transition from childhood innocence to an adult view of the world. My concept has a changed a bit in that I'm not directly sourcing children's books or a particular narrative

How has your process of experimentation and image creation throughout the semester expanded, redirected, altered, or tightened your concept?

My concept has redirected focus as a result of my experimentation with flames, smoke, etc. I think my concept is more broad in that I'm not limited myself to pre-existing story lines but I know I need to work harder to either make series that tell a story or have single images that portray a narrative.

How has your process of experimentation and image creation throughout the semester affected the visual aspects of your work?

My experimentation with destructive processes, smoke, and fire has lead me to focus more on the temporal aspect of my project and on the moments captured in transition. I plan to keep experimenting with smoke, and hopefully projections, over the next few weeks.

Describe how the visual aspects of your project align with the content and concept of your project. Are there ways in which they seem contrary to your concept? How might you tackle this misalignment?

I think that my images fit conceptually because they rely heavily on the delicate nature of the sets and destructive nature of the smoke and fire. They are moments that cannot be repeated or reproduced. I do need to work to create a story line for these ideas. 

Photographer Presentation 5

Julie Blackmon

Julie Blackmon studied at Missouri State University. She was inspired by artists such as Sally Mann and Keith Carter. Blackmon's images are bright, whimsical, and sometimes impossible. Her content generally revolves around the chaos and playfulness of family life. She uses multiple shots to collage her imagery together and produce wild, humorous scenes. In her Domestic Vacations series, she was influenced by 17th century Dutch and Flemish painters, particularly Jan Steen's chaotic scenes involving families.

 Tom Hunter

Tom Hunter was born in England in 1965. He studied photography at the London College of Printing and began living in a Hackney Street with several other artists. Hunter worked from newspaper articles that referenced the street where he lived as a "crime-ridden, derelict ghetto" and documented the people around him in his urban environment. Many of his images are based off of works of art from master painters. His images were intended to create empathy and illustrate the Hackney was more a place of sorrow than crime.

Digital Collage Experiments

Blog Prompt 22

I think the process of incorporating CGI into photography is very exciting in that anything you could possibly dream up can be constructed. With straight photography, you are limited to what you can find or construct in terms of scenes or backdrops. Using CGI allows a photographer to transcend the physical world and create surreal or, in the case of the video, somewhat chilling settings. I think the darker subject matter of the CGI/photo pieces was intriguing and the idea of collecting or constructing these perfect women was extremely unsettling. For me, this is a successful idea because seeing the photos force a reaction. With the sets I have been constructing, I think it would be fantastic to have the capability to work with this technology and not be limited to the areas around my home.

Smoke Inhalation.

Playing With Shadow

Photographer Presentation 4

Sally Mann:

• Sally Mann was born in Lexington, Virginia in 1951
• She studied at The Putney School, Bennington College, and Friends World College
• She photographed adolescent girls, her children, and later landscapes, decay, and death
• She is most well known for documenting her three children in a series called Immediate Family. These photos were controversial and sometimes called child pornography due to the nudity they contained. These photos captured childhood moments laced with insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality, and death.
• Mann considered her photos “natural through the eyes of the mother” because she had seen her children in all stages and emotions.
• Later in her career Mann began to photograph landscapes on 8x10 glass negatives. She also documented the effects of her husband’s muscular dystrophy over six years.

JH Engstrom:

• JH Engstrom was born in 1969 in Karlstad Sweden.
• He graduated in 1997 from Gothenburg University.
• In his series of nudes, he documents the human form in soft light. These portraits have been considered unsettlingly intimate and reminiscent of 70s soft porn.
• Engstrom’s Trying To Dance series is a diary of his life through the lens. These images seem to be more life snapshots or his friends and the people around him.
• This series gives a candid look into the daily life of the artist and the people he encounters. 

Mark Laita

• Mark Laita was born in Detroit in 1960. He began to shoot photos at the age of ten and assisted commercial photographers after high school. He attended Northern Illinois University, University of Illinois, and Columbia College.
• Laita’s most recognized series is “Created Equal,” a series in which he juxtaposed portraits of Americans in provocative diptychs. Some of the combinations documented include pedophile and child, Baptist churchgoer and white supremacist, and polygamist and pimp. 

Burning down the house.

Blog Prompts 20 & 21

#20 Describe some common aesthetic/formal qualities, content, and conceptual threads in “snapshot” photography.

For me, snapshots seem to be fairly spontaneous. The appear to just have happened. Although a photographer may have taken the time to set up a shot, the end result is something that looks more like a moment in life that has been captured than a set. The end result does not seem perfect or planned, but there is something beautiful about this. There is definitely an aspect of chance associated with these images. The content of some snapshot photography could seem commonplace or mundane, while others freeze a moment we might not ordinarily appreciate.

#21 Brainstorms! (In an effort to expand, improve, push your thesis projects further, pick 5 of the following to discuss.)

 

a. Ideas sometimes grow out of irritation. What is a negative thought you are having about your project? What is the opposite of this negative thought? How could you implement a change in your project so that this negative thought will subside? 

 

My current frustration with my project is that I feel the sets I've constructed all seem too similar and so I feel stuck. I feel I could change this by expanding from small sets to working with real people and forming life size versions of these constructions. My concern with this is that I have less control over what I'm working with and I can't really destroy the a living set. I think I just need to go for it and see how these new ideas transform in the process. 

 

d. Type twenty words or phrases that relate to your project. 

 

Delicate, destructive, temporal, small, fragile, unsettling, childish, relate-able, fable, ethereal, crumbling, foggy, literature, transformation, breakable, light, noir, playful, dreamlike, frustrating. 

 

f. Expand your project. If time, money, materials, etc would not affect you, how would you expand your project?

 

If I had all the time, money, and energy in the world, I would like to recreate entire rooms or sets that mixed fabricated and realistic elements. I could do anything I wanted with these sets without worrying about wrecking them, setting out the house fire alarm, or waking up everyone in my house. I would buy a projector to play with, and maybe some lights. I wouldn't have to be concerned about ruining anyone else's property or finding new materials to work with.

 

o. Think of one of your most memorable dreams. How could you add elements from this dream to your project?

 

 In one of my most memorable dreams, I am in a dark room, there is a bright spot at the other side of it. In that bright spot, there is a tool or machine or something. I'm never really sure what it is, but it seems important. As hard as I try to get to this point, I seem to only get farther from it. At some point, I end up surrounded by whatever it is and it is completely overwhelming and seems like a trap. I could use the anxious/overwhelming feeling I get from this dream and apply it to my project. I think if you can communicate or create emotion from an image, it can be considered successful. The movies/images I see that seem to have the greatest effect on me are the ones that leave you with a unsettling, pit of the stomach feeling.

 

p. How would you convert your project into a narrative? How would you remove any narrative from your project? 

 

I feel that my project is fairly narrative already, but I could show more of a sequence in my images by printing process photos of the construction to destruction of my sets. I could remove the narrative of my project by only showing one image at a time, but I also feel like the sets I've made seem fairly narrative when they stand alone. 

 

 

 

Jessica Todd Harper

Biography: Born in Albany, NY, Jessica Todd Harper began shooting photographs at the age of 15 when she couldn't get into a painting class at her local junior college. After she began shooting, she couldn't put her camera down. She studied art history at Bryn Mawr College, and got her MFA in photography at Rochester Institute or Technology.

Significance: Harper creates a voyeuristic feel and allows viewers to look in on intimate, and seemingly ordinary, family moments.

Art Historical or Photographic Movement: Jessica Todd Harper is a young photographer who doesn't seem to be directly related to any particular movement, although her images do reflect the paintings of early Northern European artists.

Critique/Review: In an article titled Triennial of Contemporary Photographers, James Rosenthal felt that Jessica's "snapshots" or family life commented on class, money, and taste. I'm not sure that I agree that this was Harper's intent so much as to capture the intimate family moments.

Composition: Jessica Todd Harper's compositions have a painterly feel, she works with soft light and captures scenes of family life. There is usually a single figure in the the scene that is making eye contact with the camera, while the remaining figures seem to go about their daily lives. The images seem to be scenes from the home as opposed to composed images. The main subject of her photograph tends to be centered. 

Concept/Aboutness/Idea: Jessica's photographs generally capture moments in family life that seem somewhat unsettling and disconnected. Much of the time, the subject of the photograph is staring directly at the camera while the rest of the figures in the scene, or scene itself seem detached and completely oblivious to the fact that they are being documented. The scenes she shoots appear to be private, intimate moments. Her compositions are everyday, but haunting.

Method: Jessica shoots in natural light, and tends to shoot her friends and family. She is influenced by Northern European painters such as Vermeer and Memling who painted scenes from daily life. She sometimes adds in subject matter in photoshop digitally.

Motivation: I feel Jessica Todd Harper's motivation was to capture family life without the facade of normalcy the families tend to portray in public. Her snapshot style images seem disconnected and at times, haunting.

Opinion: I think it was interesting how Harper worked with her subjects and created a strong sense of connectedness with a single figure while the rest of the scene remains oblivious to their documentation. I also find her use of natural light absolutely beautiful. Her images have a soft, quiet feel the them. I think it is interesting how the images seem like scenes you are a quiet bystander in as opposed to photographs themselves.