Recreation Assignment #3

I chose to recreate a dream that I have on occasion. I composed it with a small aperture and flourescent lighting coming from the right side. In order to show movement, I change the arrangement of the pieces for each shot. I focused on the king of the chess board each time with the other pieces in the background blurred out.

This recreation depicts a strange dream I have in which these large chess pieces seem to be attacking me. Nothing ever really happens to me, but I seem to understand that I am in danger and am scared. The pieces get larger and small right before my eyes and then I usually wake up. I didn't want to capture the fear in these recreation, but rather the oddity of the dream.

Eirik Johnson

Biography

Birthdate: 1974, Seattle

Education: BFA, MFA

Creation: 2007-2010

Significance

Most recently known for his work in a collection Sawdust Moutain, Eirik traveled across the pacific northwest taking photographs of landscapes. These range from forests to abandoned trains. His focus is environmental insomuch that it shows the relationship between natural resources and the communities they support.

Composition

Nearly all of his photographs were taking during the daytime and range from portraits to just landscape. He composes his pictures to capture natural lighting and what seems to be a relatively peaceful environment. As far as the subject matter, that varies greatly as well. He emphasizes natural colors and lighting in all of his photos.

Aboutness

All of his pictures seem to capture natural scenes which seem largely untouched. This even carries through with pictures that have animals and humans.

Method

Not too sure about this, but my guess would be that he uses a relatively fast shutter speed and small aperture. Most of his pictures have everything in focus and are also flush with lots of natural light.

Motivation

Hes really trying to depict the fragile relationship between the environment and the people who live in it and take from it.

Historical Entry

Biography
Birthdate: 1840
Origin: New York City, New York. Everywhere
Education: Unknown. Limited photography apprenticeship.
Date of Creation: 1871

Significance
Tim O’Sullivan was known for two major things in his life. The first was photographing the American Civil War. A lot of the work that is out there is of scenes during and after battles. He traveled a lot across the United States and also joined some geographic studies. Notably, he photographed prehistoric ruins (the first to have done so in the US) and the geographic study of the Panama Canal.

This photograph was part of another geographic study in which he joined an Army general to capture the Southwest United States in the late 1800’s. He faced starvation during this trip because a boat capsized. Fortunately, he survived and so did some of the negatives!

Techniques
Tim is known for his careful framing and composition of pictures. His attempts were to create photographs which carried a deeper meaning and conveyed a sense of respect. This was most applicable to his landscape photographs, such as the one above.

Motivations
His motivations were to create deeper meaning of environments than what might otherwise happen without careful consideration of the place itself.

Blog Response #18

“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” Arnold Newman


Photography is really just a recreation of what we see. It is not possible to truly capture the scene or the essence of the situation. In fact, I think what this quote is really addressing is the interpretation we all do when we are seeing photographs. No one person sees a picture the same way. Many times when I see a picture, I dont notice things that other people do, and vice versa. I'm not sure that I agree completely with the "private world" comment, because pictures are often very public and very expressive. It is more the interpretation that is often private.

Blog Response #17

“I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.” Duane Michals

This is so true! When I think about some of the more interesting photographs I have seen, I feel like what makes them so great is the unknown or questions that come up. I think of my favorite photograph of a wine cork in the sand on a beach. For me, it always makes me wonder what is going on behind the cork (it is macro) and why it ended up there. Even stranger, I am the one that took the picture, so I know all the circumstances of the scene. I think this is also underscored with photographs that have a lot of black or white space - it creates interest.

Blog Response #16

“I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” Duane Michals

I feel like I both agree and disagree with this statement. There is some element of mystery that can be introduced through photography, but it has also become really easy to take pictures of others. To make a photograph provocative, the photographer must take elements of the environment and subject into close consideration. On the other hand, a lot of pictures are able to unintentionally be provocative - Almost as if it happened by mistake. The last statement of the quote about seeing people in new ways is completely true. Photographs allow us to easily reconsider our natural assumptions and reframe people in new ways.

Blog Response #15

#15____In-Camera Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe how you might use a slow shutter speed and/or double exposure to capture two moments in one image that tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.

The two places I would like to bring together include the scene from on top of a ski mountain in Colorado and the view I had when I was skydiving. I think these two together would be an amazing combination of some extremes that I have found very exhilarating and fun. The narrative that accompanies this scene is the the adventure and mystery behind who we are when we are alone in nature, and who we are when we are under pressure. These are both important concepts to capture in life.

Blog Response #14

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?

For me I think the framing and lighting of the places I have in mind would be very important. The close place is one in downtown Grand Rapids in which there are many city lights and generally a fair amount of traffic. The best lighting and framing would be during the night time with a long shutter speed. I'd like to convey how busy the scene is. The other scene is a field in Spain (in a park). It lines the ocean and has very steep cliffs. The framing would be to just barely capture the edge of the cliffs and have a sunrise in the distance. The lighting would be very different because of the lower sun and ambient light.

Blog Response #13

#13____Human-Made Space: In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. “"New Topographics" signaled the emergence of a new photographic approach to landscape: romanticization gave way to cooler appraisal, focused on the everyday built environment and more attuned to conceptual concerns of the broader art field.”http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibTopo.aspx

My piece of land art would be a combination of ice and tree branches. All in all, my goal would be to create a meld between water flowing down from a structure, on to a tree and then freezing. This to me is symbolic of how structures and humans interact with nature. The ice that forms shows how we constantly change and form both to our environment as well as how the environment melds to us. The tree branches symbolize the reaching out (in good and bad ways) each of us does to the society and earth around us.

Blog Response #12

#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?

I think of a photograph of me and my friends some high school. It is the closest group of friends that I had during that time and it reminds me of great times. Fortunately, I am still really good friends with these people and the picture makes me grateful for them in my life. I think a reanactment would be interesting because all of us are in different stages of life and have different goals... Besides having different appearances, I am sure that the chemistry of our friendship would still be apparent. I also dont think I or anyone else in the group would have a different stance or approach to the picture. Although personalities have changed, the core components of who everyone is have not.

Blog Response #11

#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.

The first image that comes to mind is that of the backyard of my parents' home. There was a huge swingset that my father built and many trees. Underneath the swingset the grass was warn away into dust piles. There was a large expanse of grass that was surrounded by a forest creating a kind of semi circle. I do not have a picture of the location, but I can see it clearly now without a photograph.

I know what this place looks like today - My parents still live in the home. The back yard is completely changed now. The colors are still vivid and most of the trees surrounding the backyard are largely the same. There are "waves" of dirt and landscaping now, which give the scene a lot more texture. There is a variety of colors ranging from green to brown. Its beautiful now, as it was then.

Assigment 2 - Final Images

Contemporary Portrait Presentation

Biography
Anna Gaskell was born in 1969 in Des Moines, Iowa. At the commencement of her college career she stayed in Des Moines and attended a small school called Bennington College. Shortly thereafter, she left Iowa to pursue her dreams in art. She ended up at the Art Institute of Chicago where she graduated in 1992. Significantly, she then went on to study art at Yale and earned her MFA in 1995. She was born and raised in the early part of her life in Iowa. She now lives and works in new York City.

Significance
Anna is known for some recent works that depict some of the characters from Alice in Wonderland. Her style is known to be somewhat erotic, but also violent. Often she will take unique angles and close ups which are very dramatic. Some of her works are compared to horror movies because of this distinct style.

Composition
The way Anna frames pictures seems to be at strange angles and does include much symmetry. A lot of times, she seems to push subjects off to the side of the frame to almost create an illusion or mystery in her pictures. The angles are created with both the surroundings as well as the people in the photographs.

Concept
Many of the pictures she is known for are with women in strange, but erotic poses. One of the most notable was a girl sitting awkwardly on some steps with a dress on. It seems as though she is almost attempting to introduce some seduction, but still innocence in these photographs. They seem to have a naive feel to them. Her images make you wonder what is wrong with the character or if they need help in some way.

Method
Anna uses light angles which seem to emphasize her subjects in this mysterious way. Many times the lighting will come from below to illuminate the face from below. Most of her photographs do not give complete exposure to the subjects face, but rather creates shadows. Lastly, she has very stark contrasts throughout her photographs. The sky or forest seem to be common.

Motivations
She seems to want to communicate distorted views of her subjects so as to say something about herself. The mystery and almost discomfort can be felt when looking at her work.

Opinion
At first I really liked some of her photographs because of the strange lighting and feel that each subject seemed to have. The more I researched and found out about her style, the more creepy and uncomfortable I feel. These images definitely invoke emotions in a way that other photographs have not done before. I can't say that I would purchase her work for my house, but I think it creates enough interest for me to want to see more.

Blog Response #10

#10 “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 totally and completely agree with this quote. It is amazing to see how these two differ... because photographs truly are a way to capture an exact scene and much less and interpretation. Paintings are recordings of a memory. However, it is also important to acknowledge that art and photography are very much the same. I am able to adjust a photograph to be my interpretation of the scene - A similar concept to how paintings are created.

On the interpretation piece, it is important to say that individuals all interpret the world in different ways. This applies fully to the quote above. No matter what we are viewing, there is always going to be a different perspective held by each person. Photographs are going to communicate differently to different people. There is a huge value in understanding those differences because it shows how individuals approach the world and even problems.

Blog Response #9

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



I agree and disagree with this. I think there is a lot of orchestration that goes into photography and portraits. On the other hand, there are a lot of spontaneous things that deliver messages that are unintended. I think the point of this quote is that TAKING a photograph refers to what you do with a camera. On the other hand, MAKING a photograph integrates all the thoughts and plans which go into coordinating the picture you want.

I am attempting to go from TAKING photographs to MAKING them... It is much more difficult (and fun) than I would have predicted. There is so much more process in this than I would have planned.

Blog Response #8

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

I find this to be true. For me photography is a really interesting way for me to outlet and think about things in a different way. As I learn more about the mechanics behind photography, I am learning more and more about myself and how I approach different subjects. It has tapped interest in me beyond just operating the camera. This has definitely changed since I have started the class...I came into it with the goal of just learning how to use my camera. Now I am more interested in how to convey my true thoughts through pictures. I think these are much different.

As I think more specifically about portraits, I think the situations and interactions you can deliver through a photograph reflect who you really are. It also shows what kind of rapport you can build and how you can capture others in either a natural or a posed state. It is so much more a reflective process than I ever expected.

Recreation Assignment #2

David Douglas Stanton launched a rather unlikely career as a photographer after completing his bachelors degree at the University of Miami. He picked up photography as a hobby and haphazardly was able to catch the infamous John Dillinger in pictures during a hotel fire. As it turned out John was staying at the hotel and left the scene to save his own life, but left behind a suitcase of money. Upon realizing this, he ran back into the burning hotel on several occasions in order to get the money. All the while, David was just simply taking pictures and didn't know who he was photographing. These pictures eventually made it to the media, making him a well-known local celebrity.

Shortly after "getting on the map", John enlisted in the army and fought in a few wars. He brought his camera and captured the scenes. It was this work that made David truly famous. Most of his work came about from the wars going up to and including World War II. He then began using photographs as a way to express his opinion on the wars and garner support from his fan base.

In this photograph, the man appears to be very serious and worn. The lighting is relatively even across his face, although it seems shiny in spots. My recreation below has the even lighting and general compositional elements of the original. I attempted to have a similar expression, but am not sure that I fully captured it.