Documentary Photographs

The place I choose to document for this project was my family's restaurant in downtown Cleveland. The formal name of the restaurant is Sokolowski's University Inn. It was established by my great grandparents and started off as a bar. As the years went on my grandmother and grandfather took over the business and turned it into a European style restaurant, but also has American food to accommodate to everyone's taste buds. I am very proud to say that this establishment is part of my family and our history. The restaurant is known for giving off a family type of vibe, and our cooking is compared to "something your grandmother would make". My goal for this project was to give off a friendly, kind of "home" feeling of the place.

Trying my best to capture photographs that give off this vibe, I took around 100 photos. I felt like these met my expectations the best and hopefully the viewer can also see why I choose these photos. I decided to take most of my photographs without using a flash to create a more relaxing, natural looking picture. I did not want them to be really bright because I felt like it would take away from the calm and homey vibe that I was trying to communicate.

In a way it was hard to communicate photography's formal elements in order to communicate the ideas I had. For the photo of the man's feet, I know I wanted to incorporate frame. I only took a picture of the man's feet so the viewer could focus on what I was really trying to communicate. I feel like if the picture included the whole man's body, they would not pick up on what I was trying to say.

Old News Interpretation

One picture I really enjoyed was the Best (Men's) Legs Contest photograph. The work was photographed on August 5, 1985 using a digital camera. The photo was printed on silver gelatin paper. The picture is taken in black and white and you can detect a lot of shapes in the picture. The women who are the judges are in a line formation while the shot of the man's legs form a triangle. The photograph was displayed horizontally and from what I can remember it was basically the size of piece of computer paper- 8x11. The photograph does not display any biological information about the article or the location where it was taken. 

The meaning of the work is to show reverse sexism. The photographer mentions that in the explanation of his photographs. Even though I think this photograph is to be taken on a lighter scale, it does raise awareness to an important issue that is always taking place in our society-sexism. The photo shows a mans legs walking down a cat walk while a row of female judges are laughing and smiling at him. Very rarely to we see this, since women are usually the ones being objectified and judge more on their appearance. I feel like some people may take this photograph the wrong way, in that it is very unorthodox and it was dumb to have a contest like this, but I also find it pretty sad that there is competitions on women's body parts and appearances. Also, I hope the men in the contest had a good time, while learning a valuable lesson on what it is like to be a woman in society. I'm sure there had to be at least one man who felt uncomfortable walking in front of all those people, and even worse maybe he felt self-conscious about his body. I am not saying that every man is completely comfortable with who they are and how they look, everyone has something about themselves they do not like, but much of the male society is oblivious to the pressures and expectations that are inflicted on women today. 

Three questions I have for the photographer would be 1) What image of his does he think is the most powerful, or means the most to him 2) When did he start taking photographs 3) Has he been working on any collections lately and he plans to eventually display

Assignment 2: The Photographer's Eye

 FRAME

 VANTAGE POINT

 DETAIL

 FAST SHUTTER SPEED

 SLOW SHUTTER SPEED + TRIPOD

 HAND HELD NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

 NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY + TRIPOD

 f/3.1 1/6

DEPTH OF FIELD  f/8.0 1.0

 FLASH

THE THING ITSELF

After reading the article from last week, I interpreted that "The Thing Itself" means that no matter how deceiving or confusing a photo may seem, it is not what it appears to be. This part of the assignment was very difficult for me, especially since I was not sure if I had a correct idea of what it meant. After taking this photograph I went and asked my roommates what they thought this was a picture of and luckily they said a blanket. However, it is a napkin. I think this is one example of how something may seem different from what it really is. 

The Photographer's Eye Response

This article, written by John Szarkowski, is a summary of how photography transformed art and how we remember things through time. It doesn't matter who the photographer is and what the purpose of taking the photograph was. Pictures could be creations from knowledge and skill, while some could be created from an accident, misunderstanding, or experiment. But no matter what the photograph was taken of and who saw it- everyone sees the same thing-but no necessarily in the same way. A few reasons photography became a popular form of art was: inexpensive, easy, and it recorded anything- unlike other forms or art such as painting and drawing. 

Later in the article, the author breaks up into sections the five most important parts of photography. The first one is The Thing Itself. He goes on to explain that this means that the photographer must face reality. The world by itself is art, and you can capture it in it's best forms if you pay attention it's movements and are creative with them. The second part is The Detail. One explanation that the author mentions was in the early days of photography. The goal of the photographer was to achieve some sort of narrative- kind of like an explanation of the photos through a sequence of different photos. A good example he states is the documentaries of the American Civil War. The purpose of the series of photographs was to make it seem real, not to make the story clear. A great photograph is one that has a narrative and symbolic view. The Frame was the third part that Szarkowski explains. Not only does a frame make a picture more decorative, but it initially displays the most important part of a piece of art. Achieving a perfect frame was nearly impossibly, and since enlarging a photograph was not practical, a photographer had to decide which fragment of the photograph he had to use. The time and effort it took to make a perfect photograph made people appreciate photographers' work that much more. Time is the essential part of photography. Every picture, no matter what time it was taken or what it was taken of- describes a part of time.What was really unique about photography was that slow lenses and slow films a photograph could actually display a time segment in several seconds. If the object moved, the photograph would suddenly show a blurred subject. Into a deeper aspect of time, a picture could capture the beauty and feeling of the time. The last important part of photography was the Vantage Point, or place where something can be viewed. Since the beginning of photography, artists have been exploring new techniques for shooting such as a bird's eye view and distorting the subject. This article overall explains the influence of photography on art and artists. 

I found this article to be very boring. If I were to write an article about this subject I would have used more modern day examples. I also found the vocabulary he used to be confusing. But, to give him the benefit of the doubt, it was a very informative article. In detail he described the important parts of photography and used good examples. 

Assignment One Photography

I took this photograph outside of the Ovalwood building in the creek. I went under a small tree where the light was shining through. I love this image because of the rich green colors and the shadows. I also think it was kind of creative to sit under the tree and look up at the sky to take the photo in order to get a different perspective.

Materializing New Space Response

I found the exhibit to be rather depressing. The lack of colors made it very malaise. If the artists never explained the meaning behind the art, I would have never had a clue what they were trying to communicate. I made sure to examine every piece carefully- but I was just puzzled. However, I did think it was very clever how they took actual images and combined them with computer generated images. I cannot image all the time and effort they put into their project in order to get a satisfying result. I can see that being an artist is never easy and that one must perservere in order to be successful.

One piece that stood out to me was The New York Stock Exchange Project. I thought it was clever that they actually brought and sold stocks, averaging and recording them to fit into a hand-constructed sculpture. I'm not exactly sure what about this piece stuck out to me. I do not know a lot about art, but I have never seen a piece that was inspired by the stock market. I guess it was also a bonus that they not only made money off the art, but also the stock market. As far as interpretations, I think mine do differ from the artists-considering I did not fine that much meaning in it.

Some questions I would ask the artists are what exactly made you want to do a piece like this? It seems like they knew it was going to take a long time and a lot of effort for just a few pieces. Another question I would ask is why did they choose pain birds. I think the choice of bird definitely affected the excitement of the picture.

Interpreting Marin Parr's Photograph

Marin Parr's photograph is a picture of a mouth smiling with the bottom of their nose at the top of the frame. It is a human mouth. The person in the photo is caucasian, however you cannot tell what gender it is because it is up close. The lips are red and skinny. There are particles on the person's teeth and in their gums. There is a very tiny gap between the person's two front teeth. The lipstick is applied almost perfectly, with no smears. The background is dark.

The person might have been laughing while the picture was being shot. It is probably a woman if they are wearing lipstick. They just ate because they have stuff in their teeth. She was maybe at a restaurant because she would not be wearing lipstick if she was just eating at home. She is at least in her mid-twenties because her facial features look more mature.

My guess is that this is a photograph of an older woman who went out to eat. She is wearing lipstick which women wear when they are out in public or at an event. She has small wrinkles around her mouth which suggest she is older. The stains on her teeth also could signal that she is older. She has particles in her teeth which means she probably just ate. Lastly, she is smiling which could mean that she is out with friends having a good time.