Portfolio Project Portfolio: Deteriorate

                Time Erodes Us All

                For my portfolio project I want to center my images around the idea of deterioration. This idea sort of stemmed from looking at Sally Mann’s work Body Farm. When I first saw the images I thought they were grotesque and hard to look at. However, at the same exact moment I had a hard time tearing my eyes away from the photos. I was just so fascinated at how the bodies deteriorated, just like the old fruit that falls from the tree onto the forest floor. Humans, fruit, plants, in the end we are all going to rot, deteriorate and decompose. Thus I decided to photograph that inevitable element deterioration. I intended to keep this project rather broad for two reasons. One of which was because I wanted to show how deterioration eventually affects everything, food, houses, corpses, ect... The other reason I decided to keep it broad is to allow room to discover along the way. Some future photographs I hope to make are of animal corpses (most likely from road kill). I also want to gather food and take pictures of the gradual process of it decomposing. In addition, I plan to visit old abandoned houses that are rotting away and photograph their deterioration. I hope the images reveal a sense of beauty, or even just a fascination into deterioration. I want to explore something that is often thought of gross. I tend to like pictures that showcase a sense texture and hope that I can capture the falling apart texture of deterioration. As Meg Rodoff says “Time erodes us all.”

Response to "A Picture You Already Know"

This article takes three different artists (Amy Adler, Alex Slade, and Penelope Umbrico) and takes an interesting look at repetition as it relates to photographs. Before this article I had never given much thought into the repetition in regards to creating series or work. I've consider repetition as a compositional aspect of photography in regards to composition. Our past project in class had me thinking about repetition in style, specifically in regards to what my personal comfort zones were in order to create new rules that opposed those comforts (indoor photography, color photography, ect...). However I had never thought of how we are brought up in a way in which the repetition of photographs is almost an expected thing, we are taught to make series. I was particularly found of the statement in the reading that said "It's something that you don't encounter as much in other mediums; you're not expected to make series in painting or sculpture in the same way," I think that is a pretty interesting point. After reading this article I'm not sure if I am certain why one photograph can not stand alone but needs to have other things in relation, I think it would be a very interesting discussion topic and I actually look forward to talking about it in class.

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To Drunk to Fuck Discussion Question

1) Why is it called too drunk to fuck?

2) What feelings do you get when you look at Williams artwork? Why do you think he so successfully makes you feel you feel that way?

3) Between Williams work and "The Perfect Human" which artist shows repression more, makes your feel anxious?

4) The essay says "Interpretation is slippery, if not outright problematic," how do you begin to interpret Golden's and William's work?

5)What is William trying to say about photography and how we critique it?

6) Is Williams trying to say that the process of photography is more of an art form than the actual product?

7) Why do you think the author chose Golden's work? Do you think Golden is reflective of most photography today, showing desire?

8) The essay says, "Photography has shifted from being a discourse on trying to understand the world to a discourse on trying to understand ourselves. This has always been the case, only now it is more transparent - or less" do you agree with this statement, and if so why? How do you think William's work is a way of understanding ourselves?

9) Which artist's work do you think is more relevant to modern photography.

10) After reading this essay has your perspective on interpreting images changed? Will you analyze your own interpretations?

Link to Christopher William's work?
http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/christopher-williams/survey/

5 things that I did not know about Photoshop

1. After saving a document the history palette clears all the contents.

2. Layer Masks allows you to hide certain parts of the layer that can be revealed by using the paintbrush and the white paint color to expose portions of the layer. 

3. Art History Brush paints over an image using the source data from a specified history state or snapshot.

4. How to enlarge an image properly by using percent enlargement.

5. The photoshop divides images up into tiled sections, so that it only has to memorize small changes to the image. 

More Scanographs

Project #1: The Scanograph

Class Scanograph

collaborate picture

face your pockets

solo portrait

A Photograph that is not a Photograph

Response: "Is Photography Art, or, is Photography All it Can Be"

Bedford argues that photography will not be allowed equal passage into the contemporary art world until it has developed a self-aware critical discourse. Photography must address both the technical conditions and the conceptual implications that go into the production of a photograph in regards to art criticism. 

As I was reading this article I found myself agreeing with Bedford's ideas. I sat next to my roommate who knows little about photography and brought up the topic about what makes one photograph be art and not another. I started talking about the artists that I admire and I realize that I was constantly bringing up both the technical aspect and the concept or intention behind the photograph. If one does not understand how difficult and tedious it is to sandwhiched negatives together, or the amount of research, building and set up an image takes one does not have quite the same appreciation. In addition to bringing up the topics that many artists address in their work, the intention and concept behind the image itself also greatly affected her opinion of what photography is art and what is a mere photo on facebook. In my opinion without the background understanding of the techincal and conceptual aspects of photography someone outside or even inside the art work can not appreciate the medium the same way as say painting is viewed. 

Old Work/New Ideas

Old Work

This image was taken during one of my trips up north during my year in Argentina. The image is of a winding road on top of the mountainside that I had been ascending that morning. I had always enjoyed taking pictures when I was younger but it wasn't until my time in Argentina that I really became addicted to taking photographs. I was specially interested in capturing the breath taking beauty of the vast and empty Argentina countryside. It was my time traveling that really sparked my interest in both Art and Geology. I thought this image exemplified me as an artist not only in its composition but in its content. My strongest and most favorite work is normally that of black and white, and more often then not it is of nature. This image without saying shows the dramatic and timeless essence that black and white photography gives.  I also thought this image exemplified me as an artist because in my eyes the image captured a feeling of a unknown future. I am still very much developing as an artist and am not sure where I want to go, where the road ahead may take me. This image captures that unclearness. 

New Work

This image is of a Ammonite, a type of Cephalopod found in the fossil record. I chose this image because it combines the two different fields that interest me most, photography and geology. I hope to double major in both of these fields. In my opinion Geology is one of the most visual sciences and often I get excited on the idea of combining the two (hopefully for senior I.S.). In addition to this image being a fossil a macro lens of some sort was used to take this image. I would really like to experiment more with macro photography. Last semester I tried to use an up close filter for some of my images. I love the texture that a macro lens can show, and how a zoom like that can completely redefine the image or object that is being taken. I hope to maybe experiment with more macro images. The artist of this particular photo, Tina Negus focuses a lot of her work on macro nature photography, many of which are in color. I specifically love how she used the lighting to accent the shadows, it create superb lines through out the image. 

Response: "Is Photography Over?"

"Is Photography Over?" published by SFMOMA

Dull, technical, even a few interesting, the responses of the participants within the article all approached the question differently, but in the end they eventually came to a similar conclusion. It is not that photography will no longer exist, people will continue to take photos. Technology today has made photography a vital part of our lifestyle. As Jennifer Blessing refers to it in the text, it is a medium that was "founded in technology innovation, it is subject to the product life cycle, which is to say that every new device or process reaches a zenith of popularity only to be superseded by the next innovation." The way in which we look and define photography is changing, is morphing and evolving, requiring artists to rethink photography, but the photography as an art form and recording device will continue on.