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| Frame |
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| Detail |
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| Fast Shutter Speed |
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| Slow Shutter Speed |
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| Hand Held At Night |
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| Night With Tripod |
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| f36 |
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| f5.6 |
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| The Thing Itself |
Monday, September 24, 2012
Assignment Twwwwwoooooo :3
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Photographer's Eye
I really love this reading by John Szarkowski. At first be begins talking about how photography could become art, "Paintings were made - [...] - but photographs, as the man on the street put it, were taken" (pg. 1). I love this quote, because it almost sounds as if he's making photography out to be a bad thing. Szarkowski goes on to say that anyone who's anyone could become a "photographer". "Silversmiths, tinkers, druggists, blacksmiths, and printers" they all learned how to use the machines like the daguerrotype and took millions of pictures. In the 19th century new advances were making photography easy. If something caught your eye, you'd take a picture, no thought about it. But is that really art?
Szarkowski explains that painting was expensive, all the materials needed, all the work put into painting something that was meaningful and important. But not the same thought was going into all the pictures being taken, "photography was easy, cheap and ubiquitous, and it recorded anything" (pg. 2). You could take more pictures in a day than a painter could paint in a year. It almost seemed like back then photography was the poor-man's version of "art" (if it even was that).
There are 5 issues that Szarkowski addresses: The first one being the subject of the photograph. He goes on to saw that the subject and the picture were not the same thing. I agree, when you're taking pictures of something it's not always going to turn out to look exactly like it does in real life as you're standing in front of it. The second was detail. That the photographer isn't really telling a story, but more like leaving a trail of clues with his photographs. The third was frame, the photographer's subject was never fully contained in the picture, "the edges of the film demarcated what he thought most important" (pg. 4). The fourth issue was that of time. He goes on to say that photographs are moments in time, I fully agree with this. I've always thought of photography as capturing moments in time. I love the way he explains long exposures as "partial failures", because I love long exposures (when does correctly). The fifth and final issue is that of vantage point. Pictures can be taken at certain vantage points to give off different emotions and make the viewer feel a specific way. It's all about the angles and taking pictures from different views than just normal eye level.
Szarkowski explains that painting was expensive, all the materials needed, all the work put into painting something that was meaningful and important. But not the same thought was going into all the pictures being taken, "photography was easy, cheap and ubiquitous, and it recorded anything" (pg. 2). You could take more pictures in a day than a painter could paint in a year. It almost seemed like back then photography was the poor-man's version of "art" (if it even was that).
There are 5 issues that Szarkowski addresses: The first one being the subject of the photograph. He goes on to saw that the subject and the picture were not the same thing. I agree, when you're taking pictures of something it's not always going to turn out to look exactly like it does in real life as you're standing in front of it. The second was detail. That the photographer isn't really telling a story, but more like leaving a trail of clues with his photographs. The third was frame, the photographer's subject was never fully contained in the picture, "the edges of the film demarcated what he thought most important" (pg. 4). The fourth issue was that of time. He goes on to say that photographs are moments in time, I fully agree with this. I've always thought of photography as capturing moments in time. I love the way he explains long exposures as "partial failures", because I love long exposures (when does correctly). The fifth and final issue is that of vantage point. Pictures can be taken at certain vantage points to give off different emotions and make the viewer feel a specific way. It's all about the angles and taking pictures from different views than just normal eye level.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Materializing New Space
I really really liked the fact that we had the opportunity to listen to Kelly Urquhart and Jaime Kennedy tell us about their artwork before we got to see the exhibit. It was very interesting and really surprising hearing what their artwork is trying to convey, because it was different from how I viewed it. But that's probably how it always is.
I felt like the relationship between the birds with wing suits and those without was almost like a dictatorship, and kind of scary. But at the same time it was really whimsical, the way they combined real life photographs with drawings and digital manipulation. It's like a fairy tale, with a dark ending. My favorite pieces were the different versions of nests. It kind of opens your eyes to animal intelligence because those nests weren't very far off from what birds could/ and have really made from found materials. The instruction sheets with drawings of birds were, in my eyes, the most depressing of the pieces. I just felt a sort of hopelessness. Almost like the birds were being forced into these suits.
Kelly and Jaime said they approached their art as a way to answer or ask questions they have about the world, but my interpretation was that of an advanced and more aware animal race. And how they solve problems within their ecosystem/environment. But I could also see it as humans making these suits and forcing birds to wear them in order to basically become bird slaves to the humans. Obviously both of those theories are different than the artists' intentions but I think that was the best part of the lecture, was seeing how differently people think and what inspires them to create beautiful artwork.
I felt like the relationship between the birds with wing suits and those without was almost like a dictatorship, and kind of scary. But at the same time it was really whimsical, the way they combined real life photographs with drawings and digital manipulation. It's like a fairy tale, with a dark ending. My favorite pieces were the different versions of nests. It kind of opens your eyes to animal intelligence because those nests weren't very far off from what birds could/ and have really made from found materials. The instruction sheets with drawings of birds were, in my eyes, the most depressing of the pieces. I just felt a sort of hopelessness. Almost like the birds were being forced into these suits.
Kelly and Jaime said they approached their art as a way to answer or ask questions they have about the world, but my interpretation was that of an advanced and more aware animal race. And how they solve problems within their ecosystem/environment. But I could also see it as humans making these suits and forcing birds to wear them in order to basically become bird slaves to the humans. Obviously both of those theories are different than the artists' intentions but I think that was the best part of the lecture, was seeing how differently people think and what inspires them to create beautiful artwork.
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