Contemporary Photographer

The photographer I decided to critique is Edward Burtynsky and his work Oil: Transportation.  In every picture that is included in this project, there is some kind of transportation, mostly consisting of cars and trucks. There is a lot of motion in these photographs. The first six are photographs of highways and are captured from a high vantage point. They are very detailed and show the twists and turns on the highways and inner belts. The all the photographs are in color, but the ones consisting of the highways are dominantly gray and white because the highway takes up most of the picture.  The highways look like long thin lines that run next to on another and on top of each other. One photograph that sticks out to me is titled Highway #2. It is taken from a very high vantage point looking down onto the highway. This photograph is so striking to me because the bright white highway sticks out from on top of the dark ground under it. It’s so much for my eyes to take in, because there is so much activity. Between the cars on the highway, the design of the road, and the buildings in the background I want to know what everything is exactly. Just by looking at the photograph itself, I don’t think you be able to exact distinguish where the photo was taken. However under every picture there is a title, location, and year that explain the photograph where it was captured. All of the pictures of the highways were taken in large and busy cities such as Houston, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and Shanghai.

All the images represent the transportation we use in our everyday lives. It expresses how busy we are and how much oil and resources we use in order to meet our daily needs. I think the fact that our culture is so materialistic and wasteful influenced the photographer to take these pictures. We waste resources more than we use them, and don’t think twice about it. The work is responding to our awful habits and not taking better care of our planet and restoring our resources. The work can address anyone who drives a car or uses transportation. It also targets wasteful people. This work brings attention to a topic that is discussed a lot, but not always taken seriously. These photographs give me a bird’s eye view of the harmful effects that our lifestyles inflict on the world. When we discuss pollution we are used to seeing garbage, oil spills, and smog. This shines light on the same subject but in a different view. We get a large-scale view of everyday activity that is harmful towards the environment. We may not recognize all the harmful gases and chemicals that are being released in the picture, but if you look at it long enough you can think about all the noise pollution and resources that were used up.

I read Edward Burtynsky’s artistic statement on his website and it was very similar towards mine. He took these pictures and used the images as metaphors to the problems we currently face in our world. He claims we are drawn by desire- a good lifestyle, however we are unintentionally hurting our environment and risking the health of the animals and plants. In a hundred years our planet may look very different, and these pictures “function as reflecting pools of our times”.

I am in awe of this project. I think it is very successful and Burtynsky’s ideas and beliefs are communicated clearly in his work. You can tell he knows how to take a pleasant looking picture even if the meaning behind it is negative. The frame, vantage point, and colors are amazing and give a stunning view. I loved exploring his website and looking at his other bodies of work.

                                            http://www.edwardburtynsky.com 

Details

What inspired me to do this project is the fast pace lifestyle we are all accustomed to. One day I was laying bed staring at my blanket and noticed a bunch of details that I have never seen before. It made me ask myself what else I must have missed before. The purpose of this project was to capture the little detail of everyday objects that we wouldn't think twice about looking at. Even though these objects are nothing extraordinary or beautiful, my goal is just to bring attention to the structure and technicalities.

I was also influenced by the saying "Stop and smell the roses". I think everyone is somewhat familiar with this phrase. There are different ways to interpret it, but the overall gist of it means to stop and take the time to appreciate life. How many times have you just stopped, and marveled at the world around us? Through all the bad in life, we can all find something good in the end. I want people take a second from their busy lives, just stand there, and look at everything that surrounds them. 

Interpretation Assignment

Made By a Man is a exhibition created by J. Casey Doyle. His exhibit includes 7 large pieces of artwork. All made out of different bright colors and thin ribbon that you would use to wrap a present. There are two blue pieces, two pink pieces, one green, white, and purple piece. They are all hanging up against walls, while one of the pink pieces is draped over a wall and one of the blue pieces is hanging from the ceiling. Most of the pieces look like blankets from far away, and the blue piece that hangs from the ceiling has delicate, large squares knitted into it, making it look like a quilt. 

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend his lecture about his work, so I feel like I missed out on a lot of information that would make this interpretation more successful. Just by looking at his artwork, I was not really able to conclude any biological information. One piece of artwork that stuck out to me was called Beauty. To me, this piece of work is trying to contradict the stereotypes that are mixed in with gender roles. This artwork represent a quilt, made by a man. I think society normally views women as the creator of objects like quilts and other crafts. We normally never hear about a man sitting down and knitting anything. I feel like this exhibit can be addressed to anyone who might be nervous to follow their dreams because it may look frowned upon or go against what is "normal". 

I found this exhibit to be quite confusing. It was very hard for me because I did not get a chance to attend J. Casey Doyle's lecture so I feel like I missed out on a lot of important information that would have helped me understand his art better. To me, the exhibit just looked like a bunch of blankets, and it was hard to find "meaning" behind everything. However, I can very much appreciate all the hard work he put into his exhibit. I cannot even imagine how frustrated and tired he must have been making all these interesting pieces. I admire his perseverance and patience, as I know I would never be able to do something as marvelous as this. 

Final Project ( forgot to post this earlier)

The concept of my final project is to capture the details/textures of everyday objects that we have a tendency of ignoring. I want to capture the "beauty" in places that we wouldn't think of looking at. This whole concept began to interest me when I saw American Beauty of few months ago. The whole theme of the movie is "to look closer". Ricky Fitts, on of the characters in the movie, video tapes everyday objects. While everyone thinks he's a basket case for finding things like birds and plastic bags beautiful, he doesn't understand why more people do not take the time to stop and appreciate the world that surrounds us.

I plan to explore this concept by taking up close pictures of objects that we don't really notice. I want to capture the detail and texture that we don't think twice about. I want about half the pictures to be everyday objects and the other half to be things outside, like plants or animals. I don't expect everyone to find every picture beautiful because we all have different opinions and views. But I want people to stop for a minute and think "wow, I never really noticed all the small things around me". I plan on printing this on regular photo paper and in color.

Work in Progress!

The idea of my project is to capture the detail and texture of everyday objects that we hardly ever notice. So far I have only take pictures of objects indoors but I'm planning on going outdoors and taking up close pictures of nature and anything we might miss with just a naked eye. I'm planning on printing them on regular photo paper and then displaying them in the frames that Mrs. Shannon showed us during class. If anyone has any suggestions of what I should photograph or what I should print my photos on please let me know!

The Crisis of the Real

1) According the Andy Grundberg's essay "The Crisis of the Real", postmodernism is a demonstration of abstract concerns of intellectuals. Or in Grundberg's exact words "... in short, postmodernism, in its art and its theory, is a reflection of the conditions of our time" (165). When postmodernism first hit the artist world in the early 20th century, it greatly affected architecture. "Architects had a very specific and clearly defined target in mind: 'less is more'" (165). To most architect postmodernism meant using stylish flourishes and no rules to create "free" and "no worry"art. In my opinion, postmodernism is taking a problem, event, or trend in current society and turning it into art in order for people to look at the situation through a different view. It could be making fun of something, rebelling against it, or simply bringing awareness to it. 

2) One way postmodernism challenged traditional photography practices was mixing photography with other forms of art. In the 70s, many artists started mixing photography and video, then combined it with media. In my own words, postmodernism photography was in a way about capturing the "raw truth". Many of the aspects of traditional photography were completely disregarded when it comes to postmodernism photography. Perfect lighting, shutter and aperture speed, poses, and appearance was all forgotten. The main focus of postmodernism photography was to capture the thing itself, right when it was in its element. This doesn't mean postmodernism photographers were not creative. They were constantly coming up with ideas about how to project what they captured on film. Some artists even took photographs of other peoples' pictures. Artists went out of their comfort zone and started exploring the new and different ways to photograph. The beautiful, yet at times frustrating thing about postmodernism photographs is that the meaning of many of them is what you come up with when you view them. When you look at a traditional photograph you are able to almost immediately tell what the photograph is trying to portray. Unlike traditional photography, postmodern photography can be confusing and multiple meaning-or none at all. 

Shirley

My project is inspired by the ghost that haunts mine and my roommates apartment. Her name is Shirley and she is our age. Within the first weeks of living there, we noticed really strange things happening. We told our RAs about the disturbances and they told us that a girl actually died there a few years ago. I have never believed in the supernatural, but ever since I moved into the apartment I am beginning to think that the dead might be able to communicate with us. It's very ironic that I chose to do to a creepy project because I HATE scary things.

I am trying to communicate a very creepy and threatening message through my pictures. I want the viewer to feel disturbed and scared. I want to make people wonder what else could be living with us that we don't even see. With the pictures that have other people in them, I decided to make the scene large because I wanted it to look like they were doing normal activities with a ghost in the background. So at first glance, maybe the viewer doesn't notice the girl sitting on the ground or standing next to the woman. 

My ideas did not really change while shooting this project. At first I wanted to come off as a peaceful kind of "soft" ghost, but once I got really into it I wanted to be more creepy and "violent". I didn't use the flash for this project at all because I wanted everything to look natural and I had it on a longer shutter speed. I posted these image in an order to make it look like I was moving through the house, starting off my standing in the window. Unfortunately, I took a lot of good photos that I could have used but I think that these ones were the best. It was really hard to narrow it down so I hope that these eight can tell the story successfully.