Art Night Artist Statement

(One of my proposed, un-edited, art night images)

Earlier in the year one of my classmates remarked to me that I always seem to take pictures and seek out scenes that involve mankind, the human populace, making some sort of impact upon nature. I never truly realized until I heard this how true it really was. I have taken pictures of a ladder placed against a tree in the middle of a forest, a sign placed on a tree riddled with shotgun pellets, a large and ornate well surrounded by wilderness and an entire set of pictures devoted to how fences separate people and nature. For Art Night I decided to go against my newly discovered style and take pictures that show nature taking back what once belonged to it. I wanted to show that you can discover something new anywhere and at anytime, that there is beauty in the old as well as the new, the shiny and the gritty.

Art Night Proposal

For Art Night, I would like to take pictures of the inside/outside of dilapidated buildings. I currently plan to take pictures of three almost completely destroyed cabins that I discovered while trying to find pictures for the Photomontage assignment. What struck me about what remained of these buildings was the relative peace that surrounded them while you could easily envision the violence that had left them the way that they now are. One or two of the cabins are missing entire walls, while others are missing bathroom tiles or floorboards. Just by peering through what remained of a window you could see that it was not simply neglect and nature (although nature had done an excellent job regaining what the buildings had taken from it) that had destroyed these buildings, man, or rather more likely teenagers, had.

I am not yet entirely sure what new Photoshop technique I plan to use. This is because until I know which picture(s) will be my final(s) I will not know which technique will best fit. I do, however, plan to use either dynamic lighting effect, vintage effect, fog and mist effect, dramatic gritty effect or possibly, though unlikely, horror film effect. It is also possible that if I have the time I will attempt to put two of them together. I am currently leaning towards using the vintage effect.

I will attempt to shoot sometime this week, but if I cannot take my pictures before Friday, I will use Saturday afternoon before the Gala.

PHOTODOC FINAL

Documentary Photography Unedited

Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography Proposal

For my Documentary Photography assignment I plan to show the long grueling day of a heavy equipment operator/excavator. These pictures will show the running of large trucks, skidders, backhoes and various other equipment in the process of digging a foundation or removing trees. The focus will not so much be the people who put the times in from dawn to sunset, but rather the job itself and the enormity of some projects.

OR

For my Documentary Photography assignment I plan to show the day of a Merchandiser for a major greeting card company (such as American Greetings). These pictures will show the removal of large amounts of cards as well as the process of replacing them to the best of you ability when the instruction don't always fit the amount of space given. The fact that many people seem to be unaware of the large amount of work that it takes to do a task that can be completely undone by one small child as well as the anonymity that these merchandisers live with would be the main emphasis of the project.

I will take pictures the weekend of April 24th/25th

Walker Evans Post 2

3. Are the terms artwork and document always or ever in opposition? Can a photograph be both?Artwork and documents are only in opposition as long as they are being interpreted by one person. The moment someone else's position on a photograph or and event comes into play they become the same thing. To one person "Piss Christ" (I believe that is the name, forgive me if I am wrong ) is a piece of art, to another it is an insulting example of the immorality or heathenism of some people today. Both artwork and documents tell a story, whether it be the mental state of the artist, the way in which s/he views the world or a physical recording of an event or subject. A photograph or piece of art can be both artwork and a document, but the interpretation as to what the piece is will remain as long as there are differing opinions.

Walker Evans Post 1

2. Walker Evans was under pressure to portray the government in a positive light in his photographs. Can you recall other similar situations / times in the past when images have been created to help tell a certain truth or untruth? Were these attempts successful? Moral? Immoral?

Photographs, as well as other types of art, are often used to portray one persons rigid ideology or beliefs in an attempt to bring others to their way of thinking or simply to ridicule those that disagree with them. In the past decade in the United States their has been a virtual flood of political cartoons as well as pictures that have fulfilled these roles. Some of these pictures are taken during poor moments much to the chagrin of the pictures subjects and others are taken at the behest of the subject.
These two pictures show two examples of pictures later regretted by their subjects. In the picture of President Obama it appears that he is starting inappropriately at a girl we later find out to be underage. This picture shows both a truth and an untruth depending on a persons point of view. As we cannot tell exactly what it is that the President is looking at in this picture, it was successful only in igniting a media storm. The picture of President Bush shows a truth and an untruth. On the one hand, a mission of the war had been achieved, on the other hand, this mission was not the main goal of the war and we still remain in Iraq to this day. This picture was successful to everyone that used it as it infuriated those that sought an end to the war only to see its continuance and made President Bush look good to his supporters because of the dramatic fashion of his arrival as well as the message of the entire event portrayed in the picture. These two photographs are themselves moral, it is the way in which they were used that was immoral.

Lynn Davis attempted emulation 2

My Attempted Emulation of Lynne Davis "Great Wild Goose Pagoda"

PDN Dec. 2007

Page 38

Lynn Davis attempted emulation 1

My Attempt at a Lynn Davis Picture (PDN, Dec. 2007)

A Soldier

(Picture From Photo District News, August 2007)

Robert Frost: A Soldier

He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled, That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust, But still lies pointed as it plowed the dust.If we who sight along it round the world, See nothing worthy to have been its mark, It is because like men we look too near, Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere, Our missiles always make too short an arc. They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect The curve of earth, and striking, break their own; They make us cringe for metal-point on stone. But this we know, the obstacle that checked And tripped the body, shot the spirit on Further than target ever showed or shone. (Picture From Photo District News, October 2005)

Photo Montage

Renee Introduction

Renee Matthews PictureBook __________________ is a set of 8 photographs which show the feelings and action associated with the feared morning routine of waking up. All of the pictures are black and white, a rather ingenious insight. There is in every picture a contrast between an extreme dark value and an extreme light value with myriad grays in between. The movement of the viewers eye over the image takes them from the light to the dark (except for in the case of the faucet) This allows the person viewing the book to see the stark contrast between being asleep and being awake as well as the gray are in between often experienced when someone has just woken up.

The pictures are almost all balanced in a similar way and seem to share a repetition in placement of the subject of the photograph. This is not to say that the subject is always located in a certain place in the picture, but rather that the subject is never located in the exact center of the image. The images are balanced so that one side or another has a subject crisp and clear in the foreground and next to it lies either a blank wall, dark window or balled up blanket, all of which are just barely out of focus. We see this general pattern until the last picture. This better allows us to see the not so fine line that that each of us treads as we traverse the hallways and rooms of our homes early in the morning. The use of space through the placement and size of the subject is almost the exact same in every picture. The main point of focus always takes up around fifty percent of the image This further helps to balance the image in a manner which chows the uncertainty and fog which clouds our minds upon first waking up.

________________ makes me feel tired, but in a good way, as well as exhilarated. By this I mean it make me remember, and through that feel, like I do every morning upon first waking up. It evokes for me that feeling of wanting to crawl back under the blankets into the warmth so that I can sleep, but also the feeling that you experience once you have fully woken up and gone through your morning routine. These pictures create a mood more then they do a meaning. Admittedly, we have all experienced what they portray and therefore the pictures have a different meaning to all of us, but the way in which they were shot seem to evoke a sort of grudging acceptance of what is to come in the day ahead.

Photo Montage proposal

For my Photo Montage, I will use pictures of a stream, waterfall and stone slab bridge that i have. The finished picture will hopefully be not be too distorted and random from what one picture would normally look like. The picture on the left is one of the pictures that I took, but hopefully after piecing all of the pictures together there will be more of a curve to the stream. This David Hockney is similar to what I hope to do, and had he continued taking pictures to the right of what is shown in his image, it would be closer to my goal.

Dave Hill Part II

Dave Hill Part I

I admire this image by Dave Hill because of his portrayal of the subjects and their actions as well as his light scheme and coloring. The clear enjoyment that the subjects are feeling, in particular the aging Golden Retriever, gives a great sense of enjoyment to the viewer. The way that the colors are aranged on the image allow for a remarkably clear image as well as moving the focus towards the dog and the frisbee, the only two things in the image that do not have similiar colors to the background. I do believe, however, that although his lighting in the image does better highlight the dog and the two men, the darkness of the trees behind the man in blue is a distraction as it is not even with the relative lighting of the sky behind the man in green. The lighting in this image is also different from that of other Dave Hill images which use back lighting rather than a light source in front of the subject. The subjects of this image all recieve an equal amount of light, but because of the uneven backlighting i would have switched the two men in the background as the green shirt would have stood out better in the lowlighting found in the shadows of the trees.

Final Edited and Cropped pictures for the Picture Book

My project, or idea, for the picturebook, was to show the feelings and sensations of walking into or in the cold on a winters morning. I believe that these pictures do a fair job of showing the feel of winter, but I do regret that I was unable to get the pictures of a person breathing out, creating fog, and the picture of a large snow drift. Only two of these pictures, the one with the gloved hand and the one one with the booted foot, required me to stage anything. Just by popping out my back/side door allowed me to scare away the many squirrels quarreling over the fall seeds, and the birds around my house have become so accustomed to people that they do not fly away if you get close to them. The picture of the footprints might have been me, but there were so many while I was out taking these pictures that to say I staged these exact footprints to be where they were, with the shadows, would be wrong. The only difficult part in taking all of these pictures was the waiting for a significant snow storm, as the weekend we started this project it reached the high 40's, taking away some of my options.