Final

Looking back on this past semester and the first eight digital images that I presented, I would like to think that my photographic “eye” has improved for the better.  Bonnie Briant said it best in her article 100 Words: Bonnie Briant on a Deviated Reality, “the images are a record of what has past, the way the light felt, an afternoon, a room, or a face I might not see for a while, because in the end it does not matter what actually happened, only what I remembered.”  The digital images that I chose to present then and what I am presenting to the class today hasn’t strayed very far from that sheer idea - a record of what has past, something how I remembered it.  One thing that I challenged myself to do this semester was to break the barriers of just taking a photo of “memory” but rather how I see something at that given time or how I “see the world.”   I thought a lot this semester about the things I saw and how I “saw” them, how I was a part of a bigger picture... the picture in this case would be life; how I fit into “life” and how I could portray it through my photos. 

 

Week 11 Crit

Panorama

Week 12: Reading Quiz - Lux and Gutschow

-Reading Quiz-

How are Loretta Lux and Beate Gutschow using digital techniques to construct reality in their work? Answer for each artist.

Loretta Lux:

Loretta Lux uses digital techniques to construct reality to her work by using programs, like Photoshop, to construct images of  "children who seem trapped between the 19th and 21st centuries, who don't exist except in the magical realm of art" (Woodward).   She carefully scans her images and uses different backgrounds (her own and sometimes other artists' paintings), edits out "irrelevant details" such as "fireplaces, cats, toys -- until the children are settled in a neutral, dreamlike space" (Woodward). 

Beate Gutschow:
Beate Gutschow uses digital techniques to construct reality to her work by "constructing" ideal landscape photos.  She does this by scanning the pictures she takes with her 35-mm camera of different types of scenery and layers them together, piece by piece, tree by tree.  Gutschow believes by doing this she is "referencing this tradition to highlight an idealized version of nature" (Gefter).  Even though she is layering different objects together, Gutschow wants her landscape photos that she creates to be as real and natural looking as possible so it could look like a "ideal" landscape and not something that was constructed using her computer.  

Week 13: Reading Quiz - McGinley and Graf

-Reading Quiz-

1. What is Ryan McGinley inspired by? Why is he drawn to his subject matter?  Besides David Bowie, "Pretty much all my work is about my brothers and sisters."  McGinley was basically raised by his teenaged brothers and sister; they are people that he has come to idolize.  As a result, McGinley is drawn by emotions; "

They’re about the way that people hold themselves and the way that people feel, and I think that there’s a certain poetry to them. "

2. How would you describe the look of Bryan Graf’s images? How does he draw inspiration from the landscape? Graf is drawn to "marginalized patches of swamp and woods"  He likes to take black and white images while experimenting with different materials and processes while ignoring the "conventional rules" of photography representation.  Graf likes to revisit landscape areas on a number of different occasions as a way to capture different textures that he finds in that particular place and to "perfect a non–judgmental, non–representational style that is typically associated with this variety of landscape photography." 

Week 13: Ansel Adams Presentation

Ansel Adams: An Autobiography with Mary Street Alinder.  Little, Brown and Company. 1985

Expanding Memory: An Interview With Pedro Meyer: Reading Quiz

-Reading Quiz-

1. How does memory figure in Pedro Meyer’s process?

Pedro Meyer discuses during his interview that he has a poor memory, which explains his interest in photography.  "Instead of remembering everything in detail, I have always made images , and in the process registered the present for future reference." His pictures, even if they have imperfections, help him remember.  He uses his photographs as a way to "remember."
    

2. How does he view his work in relation to straight photography?
"All the images are about documenting experiences - not fabricating them."  He believes that the camera can see more than "we do".  During his interview, Meyer talks about a time when he took Desert Shower.  He wasn't able to capture the plane, because it was flying by, however now with the advances in digital technology, he was able to restore the picture to what his memory serves him.