Random Side Note

I love listening to music while I'm working and I got thinking of how many songs could be inspired by my stop sign project! These are some songs I came up with.

Stop in The Name of Love

This is the coolest mash-up! Great song as well.

Camera Lucida

            These chapters by Roland Barthes struck me as another interesting view of photography. Roland describes that he does not think of photography as painters having made it, but rather as scientists that have made it. Roland liked the idea that when you’re holding a photograph, you are touching the light that literally bounces off of the person and captured on the film, rather than light and shadows that have been painted on or added just for visual effect.

This idea of the photograph caught my eye most. The fact that he says photographs are not a look at the past, but a look at what is still alive, is what seems to prove this new way of thinking. Sure photographs generally are taken to document a moment in time that soon becomes the past, but after further thinking I came to see that he meant that the history is the photograph, the story is what happened after it. He showed a picture of a boy named Ernest dating back to the early 1900s. Instead of thinking ‘wow that is an old historical photo’ you can think ‘I wonder where Ernest is now?’ Photography becomes a tool of seeing the world in different ways. I feel as though Roland’s thought process is a much deeper view of what is real, and agree that there is so much more to what you see in the picture. 

Shelby

Stop Sign!

 This is my 2nd to last photo collage. I am liking the direction I have taken this, especially with the different textures and the candy apple red of the stop sign. I am planning on extending it outwards a little bit. Overall the picture will be longer. My perspective of everything will not be normal or consistent, which I think will bring a really interesting visual quality to it. I'm excited to see how this turns out!

Bryon Darby Guest Critique

            During class today we had the pleasure of having Bryon Darby speak to us about photography. He came into the classrooms and critiqued our projects, giving us helpful feedback on what to do on our final project. He mentioned that he tended to be drawn to projects that focused on one of the elements more than the other (like time OR space) versus trying to represent both. He found it interesting that in each of the classrooms there tended to be a theme. In our class many of the students didn’t worry quite as much about perfectly aligning the pictures, but more on the randomness of connecting photos that are at different ranges. This created an interesting visual effect, putting into effect the idea that each photo is just a different perspective of the world. Bryon was a great addition to this class and helped emphasize our new appreciation for photographers and photography as an art.

Preliminary Collages

Here are some practice collages of just a few pictures. This really helped gain a new perspective on David Hockney's work and it even made me think a lot about Picasso's cubism art. It all fits together, but pieces of one whole are shown at different angles and viewpoints. 

Our dorm room over the course of a day.

Walking to class. Two different days pieced together. Perhaps a bit more interesting because the lines and colors do not match up perfectly. There are rain drops on parts of the pavement and the other part was mid day. It all leads to a stop sign, which essentially becomes the focal point.

The time and space of studying.

Allen Fieldhouse cloudy day and sunny afternoon. This was my favorite one because it has seemed to take on a cubist look. I also took pictures of it at night and if I were to do it on a larger scaler would incorporate the lights on the building and the crowds before a game.

Errol Morris on Photography

            Errol Morris takes a look at how photographs are connected to the actual world. He describes it as an investigation into the world in which the photo was taken. He asks us as viewers to think, “What makes an honest photography?”

Describing some people’s reactions he says some people think that a photo should not be posed, it should be observed from a distance. He views that all photographs are posed. Perhaps because it excludes something, even from the frame of your camera lens you are excluding something. “Essentially there is always an elephant outside the frame,” he says in explanation. Morris goes on to explain that we should think of how we see the world through that photograph.

Another issue arises, that deepens the importance of photographs. No one ever bothered, especially back when photography was a new invention, to ask who took the photograph, or why it was taken. Pictures become iconic because we see powerful things in them. They have taken on meaning by the viewers, prompted by the photographer and his/her decision to take that picture. 

Ways of Seeing Video

Ways of Seeing, Episode 1: Psychological Aspects (30 min)

            Cameras have essentially changed all appearances: it has created change and shows the world in constant movement. An eye can only be in one place at one time but, as it was described in the video, the camera has not only changed what we see but how we see it.

            It is because of this change that paint and other art forms have changed in meaning. Pictures allow you to see things anywhere, where paintings were to be seen only if you traveled to see it. The picture allows you to gain its message from many places at one time, for it is so easily duplicated. However with this new accessibility the photo does loose its originality for they tend to be discolored, distorted representations of art. One of Leonardo Davinci’s pieces has become more desired and intriguing because of its market value, not because of its content, message, or technique.

            One of the most important parts of a painting is how still and quiet a painting is. Even seeing a painting online can defeat the original stillness, for your screen is constantly moving or flickering. Seeing paintings online, or in any form of media for that matter, can distort its meaning. Grouping a picture allows the meaning to be influenced by its surroundings.

            From pictures to paintings, every person will take a different meaning from the art. Potentially social upbringing, stories, faith and more will influence how people perceive what the painting is about. They relate their own experiences. Pictures may have a role in changing paintings and their original meanings, but that is part of our society today and is something we all have to account for as artists. 

Shelby