Negative Exchange

The goals of the assignment were best exemplified by the artworks by Occhipinti (original) and Gutowski (new). I believe they are the most different without the addition of new elements to the image; the original is cropped and the contrast was increased. The new artwork has a border around it that implies it has not been cropped. It is smaller than the original and has less contrast.

Sally Mann

I feel that the most powerful line in the Sally Mann documentary was one of the opening lines, when Sally says that the things that are close to you are what you photograph the best. You need to photograph what you love. I adore Sally Mann's work- it is so real and simple yet so complex and classically portrayed. I think her landscapes and Antietam series are strong, they inspired my first photo assignment here. I also think that her family series was beautiful in indescribable ways, I love how Sally just photographs what is around her. How she can turn whatever we perceive as ordinary and turn it into something beautiful. I am a firm believer in the importance of family and being close to family. As americans, I feel that we have strayed from the family and moved more into the work place. It is very reassuring to know that people still do value family in the way that i feel they should. Her series "What Remains" fascinates me. I, just like everyone else, think about death and what happens to us after we die. Sally raises this question and answers it with the literal answer... what happens to your body after you die? It decomposes and becomes the earth again. It was interesting seeing that NYC cancelled her show, but I also must keep in mind that it was too controvercial on the anniversary of 9/11. Finally, what I love about Sally's work is how raw and changeable it is. She just rolls with whatever problems she encounters, or flaws she faces. For example, if dust or dirt get into her negative, she will just print it and encorporate it into her final image like it was supposed to be there. I think she is very down to earth and a realistic person. I believe you should photograph what you love as well... I just adore Sally Mann, her work and her ideas behind it.

Negative Exchange

I also think that Dan and Anne's prints were the most effective for this assignment. The main purpose for this assignment was to get us, as students and artists, to think outside of the 'box' of our negative. To try and move away from what our original intention of the image was, and to morph that into a final product which may or may not be in a different direction than orignially intended. Dan changed Anne's large color image into a hand-sized black and white sepia toned image. There are two completely different feels for each image. Anne also took dan's distinct image mounted on cardboard with a title and turned it into a portrait. The meanings are completely different: I see underwater life in dan's image and it makes me wonder about our enviornment and the biology defining our life. When I look at Anne's interpretation with the girl in it... I see a teenage girl under water with a distant gaze in her eyes. The image was made vertical instead of horizontal which makes it look like a portrait. Ultimately, I see this picture as a girl lost in thought, wondering about herself and the future, trapped in a snowglobe uncertain about many aspects of her life. Its really amazing interpreting these two images so differently when they come from the same one. I believe this was the point Colby was trying to get at.

Negative Exchange

I also think that Dan (original) and Anne's pair best exemplified the goals of this project. The two images convey very different feelings, but were both created from the same image. I think that the pair also showed how many different ways there are to alter an image and how important each of those alterations can be. For example, Anne went as far as to add an image to the original. The orientation of the image, tonality, and even mounting play a big role in the overall image. Dan's cardboard mounting conveys a very different feeling [from Anne's and adds to the mood of his piece. I think that they did a nice job exemplifying the importance of detail and of the choices we make in our work.

Negative Exchange Project Thoughts

I think that the most successful pair for the negative exchange project was Anne’s interpretation print of Dan’s image (the circular image with the lines). I think that Anne’s interpretation of Dan’s print was the most successful because in Anne’s print she added a new element to the image which was emotion. By changing the orientation of the way that Dan printed the picture the lines and figures in the image in up framing the face and also the lines act as leading points towards the face. I also think that this pair is successful for this project because through close observation you can notice the similarities, but the developing choices that Anne made gave her print a whole new meaning, that was different than the original.

Negative Exchange Project

In my opinion, Grace and Caitlin's negative exchange project is the most successful in terms of cropping, tonal range, and size.  In Caitlin's original print of the crop field, the tonal range is very light until you get to the middle where it gets darker.  In Grace's print, she decided to focus on just that dark area in Caitlin's original in order to express intimacy or secrecy.  Grace expresses that intimacy through the difference in tonal range between hers and Caitlin's print.  There is a combination of black and gray tones in several areas.  The black tones are mainly at the bottom and the gray tones are in the grass.  The difference in size is another reason why it is successful.  Caitlin's original print shows the entire field whereas Grace's interpretation shows just one section of the field.  Both of these differences suggest that both artists were looking at the subject in a different way.  One was looking at it as a whole whereas the other was looking at it through intimacy and secrecy.  

negative exchange negative

For the negative exchange project I think that Grace's printing of Caitie's negative (the corn field) was the most successful. It was successful because it demonstrated how strongly choices made post film development can change the final image and its reading. The pair of prints emphasize how cropping, contrast, exposure time, and inclusion of negative frame can change the meaning of the work. Not only did Grace print Caitie's negative with different visual qualities than Caitie, but the outcome evoked entirely different emotions and responses from the viewer.

Negative Exchange Project

I, too, thought that Dan (reworked) and Anne's (original) were the most successful pair. Anne's choice in form and content is very identifiable, as well as her use of vividly colored prints. Dan's version of her image is also very identifiable (as his): the overlaying of images and the cropping into a round-edged or elliptical shape is echoed very much in his original works. He managed to change the context and form by narrowing the content to one subject and depicting it in such a way that we read it quite differently from the original without sacrificing his own photographic voice.

Negative Exhcange

I think Dan's work on Anne Rowan's picture was the most effective for this project. He kept the image identifiable, but gave it a different context which changed the way the viewer interprets the image and the emotions it connotes. Dan very effectively made the image his own.

Negative Exchange Project

I think the most successful pair in the photo negative exchange was Dan and Anne. I think both sets of images Anne and Dan produced were not only creative and interesting, but had clearly formed ideas which were evident in their implementation. From what little I know about Anne and Dan's photographic interests and styles, I can tell that both were able clearly make the other's negative their own, which is why I think they were so successful. To me, it seems like Anne prefers photographs with people in them and Dan prefers to take non-representational, "abstract," pictures. It seems like each brought that element to their re imagining of the other's. Dan took Anne's large color print of two girls floating on inner-tubes in the water and turned it into a small, cropped, black and white print of just the girl. He then mounted on another piece of art work, which added an entirely new element to his final print. Anne then took Dan's non-representational image (I'm still not sure what it was!) and added another negative of a female face to it, adding a human element to it. The final product was very emotive and thoughtful. Dan's original print looked like abstract art to me. I was especially impressed by his addition of a title (a photo gram) and his decision to mount the entire work of art on cardboard. His final product was very cohesive. I really think Dan and Anne's artwork was successful because they each made the other's negative their own. Each of the two pairs of negatives expressed completely different emotions and were extremely different both in their techniques and final representations.

"What Remain" --> Sally Mann Documentary

After watching the documentary “What Remains” about the work by Sally Mann, I was really inspired adopt her ideology and photograph what I deem is most important to me. I was so intrigued how she was able to make art out of almost anything, especially how she was able to make art from the ordinary and everyday experiences that many go through. I think it was very interesting how she used photography as her journal, as she states the pictures act as a legacy. One of her techniques that I felt I could apply to my work is the idea that a mistake can turn out to be something good. I had never viewed mistakes in this way and it made me think about my own work in a different light. Rather than throwing something that I think I have messed up, I might be able to create something even more spectacular than my original idea.
After watching the documentary what stood out the most to me was Sally Mann’s way of viewing the world was through photography. Not only did she use her children and husband to create art but she also used this photography to let the world see what she saw. It was so interesting especially looking at her pictures of her children how she was able to use their personalities to make her photography speak and tell some type of story or narrative. Overall I was very impressed and as stated before inspired by her art because of the way she used photography.

What Remains

Having seen a lot of Sally Mann's work and researched her on my own a bit, seeing and hearing her talk about her work really pulls it all together. I really respect that what she does with her art "makes sense" when you look at her life and who she is. It's incredible that she takes pictures of "things that are close to her," and that the things that are close to her are intense and captivating.
I value Mann's idea of photographing the things close to her because the way in which she handles her craft and artistic vision don't stop at documentation, but I think really capture something beyond the half a second it takes to click a shutter button. While her idea of what to photograph resonates with me, I think it's a little bit incongruous how much modeling and specific poses she subjects her subjects to.
Her relationship with her subjects and her thoughts surrounding that relationship really intrigued me. When I take my camera out with me and see someone or something I want to shoot, I'm always asking "is this ok?" Are there reasons it's not ok? How much can "for the sake of art" justify, and when does it cross the border into exploitation? Mann asked if it was fair to ask her husband to pose. She knows he'll say yes, but does that make it ok.
Watching the documentary I was struck by mann's lifestyle. I know that she has done very well for herself, but it seems as though she has lived a fairly priveleged life, and I wonder how she feels about it and what difference it makes.

Sally Mann - What Remains

After watching the documentary "What Remains" about Sally Mann I felt inspired by her work and her ideas and I gained a lot of respect for her. Previously, I was only some what familiar with her "Immediate Family" series and found the work and the controversy surrounding it interesting. I was drawn to Sally Mann right from the beginning of the film when she said you have to photograph what you love to make good art. This is something that I've always believed and I was happy to see that she shared my philosophy! I've always thought that when I look back at all the photographs I have taken throughout my lifetime I want them to still mean something. I want to create work that will still make me feel something, remind me of something or someone or just document who I was at a certain point in time.
I loved being able to see Mann's entire thought process behind her work as well as seeing it through to fruition. Her "What Remains" collection of work and exhibit wasn't necessarily my favorite types of photographs to look at. In fact, I actually gagged while watching her photograph corpses at the body farm in Tennessee and I still feel nauseous when I think about it. That being said, I think her concepts and theories behind her work were really interesting and well thought out. I think she brings up several valid points when exploring death through her work. I think most people have a different ideas of what a body stops being something they once loved and becomes just a corpse. I think the idea of death and what physically happens to us when we die is just not something many people want to spend time thinking deeply about. No one wants to think about the fact that one day they're loved ones will die some day and that at that point their bodies cease to be a part of that person. I think most people can't separate others from the person they are inside and who they appear to be on the outside. That's why people go through such elaborate spectacles and ceremonies after someone they live dies; they still imagine the body of that person as the person himself.
Another thing I loved about Sally Mann is that her photographs all had a "dark" quality about them. Watch old footage of her photographing her kids for her "Immediate Family" collection and seeing the final product was really strange because in the footage you could tell there was nothing creepy or inappropriate about the images but the final photograph made you think otherwise. I really love this about Mann's artwork; above all, her photographs convey strong emotions. I don't think I would ever be capable or even interested in conveying the exact mood her photographs convey in my own work, but I do aspire to create emotional work that makes people feel, just like her.
Sally Mann, in my mind, is an exceptional and talented photographer whom I have the utmost respect for. I like all of the work she does but I really like her ideas behind work and the ideas of her work itself. I share her belief that there is art all around us, no more so than in the familiar faces and places we see every day.

A Lack of Ego: Hannah Finlator's Interpretations of 15th Century Women Painters

“Thinking has come to life again; the cultural treasures of the past, believed to be dead, are being made to speak, in the course of which it turns out that they propose things altogether different from the familiar, worn-out trivialities they had been presumed to say.”

This quote by Hannah Arendt almost completely governs my perception of Hannah Finlator’s paintings. Finlator closely and meticulously studies the work of 15th century women painters. She sketches the works, and with varying degrees of interpretation and alteration incorporates these sketches into under paintings and finally into finished works. Finlator uses art historical sources as references in an attempt to answer questions such as: How can I show the past as exerting influence on the future? I find this question interesting in relation to Finlator’s work. I consider what Finlator does, to a large extent, to be appropriation. It may not be direct copying of others’ images but in my mind it is close enough. So, Finlator is asking, in simple terms: how can I show the past’s influence on the future? How can I emphasize the ever-present effect of what has happened before on the now? And in some ways, Finlator’s answer is quite literal, maybe even obvious. Her work duplicates the past, just as “history repeats itself” and we often imitate what has come before whether it be in family structure, architecture, farming, or business. However, Finlator adds a twist to the work that complicates this seemingly straight forward answer. Finlator changes the works, adds additional characters, changes symbols, and adds texts to the paintings. These changes are what, for me, give the work interest and make them more dynamic. One of these changes is the inclusion of self. During the lecture Professor Friebele asked Finlator to discuss her inclusion of herself in the paintings. I, too, had noticed that there was a recurrent character that seemed to be depicting the artist. The figure, most often show in contemplation, was a mysterious presence in the mundane scenes of rural life in the 16th century.

Another aspect of her work that Finlator discussed was the diptych format that she sometimes uses. This topic resonated with me because I am currently investigating and struggling with different actualizations of my work that include singular images, diptychs, and series. Finlator commented that her works can stand alone but create something altogether different when placed in a diptych set up. The idea that works don’t have to be one or the other is a simple one but nonetheless one that I have not yet considered very thoroughly.

An additional conversation Finlator delved into concerned her choice of 15th century women to study. Among other reasons one of Finlator’s deciding factors was that the paintings these women created were not for monetary gain, they were not meant to be bought or sold, they were not commissioned; the women created the work for another reason entirely, simply to create the work. I feel that this idea is often lost in the modern art world. It is okay to make a work of art for the sole reason and purpose of making a work of art.

Sally Mann: What Remains

What struck me the most about Sally Mann's work was how she sees the world through her camera.  She likes to capture things in the moment, like photographing her children.  The different kind of things her children did really struck her and she would immediately capture their movement with her camera.   She believes that taking pictures is part of a heritage.  My favorite comment she made about photography was "the things that are close to you are the things you photograph."  When she said that, I thought about my childhood and how my parents, especially my late father, took pictures of my brother and I since birth and kept them in albums.  I have always considered an album as a keepsake of memories.  I see that in Sally Mann's photos of her children.  Sally Mann's discussion about doing self portraits was interesting to me because she is doing something totally different from her normal routine in taking photographs.  Throughout the documentary, I noticed how she loves to move around a lot, especially around a subject she is about to photograph.  When doing a self portrait of herself, she has to sit still for so long, which is the opposite of movement.  I thought about how I enjoy movement myself and I know it would be hard to still for a self portrait.  In all, Sally Mann approaches photography by seeing the world through a camera and taking photos of things that are close to her.  

Sally Mann

I liked how she managed to use, as she put it, everyday/ordinary subjects such as her family or the land around her in her art. She didn't just use them. The portraits were intense and the landscapes more than "romantic". It seemed like sometimes the family had no choice when it came to being models, but when images of the kids are so striking it would be a shame not to have captured and shared them.
I wish there had been more about the processes she used. It was amazing how she worked out of the back of her van. I liked her acceptance of the flaws that appeared in her prints and how she considered the mistakes as improvements. They made her work more unique and added a different aspect to it.
I got the impression that she thought the world revolved around her. It bored me a little. A self portrait series seemed an obvious progression. I felt it coming.

Here there (everywhere?)

Patrick Kelley is a genius.
I went to one of his lectures last year or the year before, and I remember that as I left with jaw hanging open all I could think was, "he's a genius." I was really impressed with the concepts that fueled his art and his use of tons of different elements that make us (humans) think and feel and respond.
I didn't leave this lecture with the exact same thought, but still maybe an unhinged jaw. (That's not to say I don't still think he's genius.) This set of work really captured my attention and drew me in with both content and presentation. The images are visually stunning and, at least for me, pulled at some heartstrings that are usually pulled only through personal experience with nature. With nature photography I'm often a little disappointed because I don't necessarily think that a photographer or painter deserves credit for capturing a beautiful scene, it's not beautiful because of the way they took the picture and it's not beautiful because they took the picture (I don't always feel this way/I do give a lot of credit to nature photographers and partake in it myself). However, Kelley brought a new element to the scene and made it more than just a landscape. I really really liked it.
From his talk and viewing the work I started wondering how he qualifies success and failure in his work. So much goes into his pieces and it seems like he expects his audience to put in a little bit too, so I wonder if he is satisfied as long as it is well received, whether or not people "get it." With my own work when I'm trying to "say something" specific I sometimes get lost in trying to be to specific/obvious or too cryptic, and I haven't yet identified my boundaries of success and failure. But I also think that's ok.
Kelley's work as made feel a little bit more open minded about using technology. Sometimes when everything gets taken out of the darkroom it looks and feels less like photography, but this proved to me it's all about how and what you do. He captured in the trees what there was to capture and then emphasized it.

Here There--> The Patrick Kelley Talk

The presentation of Professor Kelley’s work to me was very unique because he had so many different aspects of art all in one space. When first entering the gallery my eyes immediately fall on the large photographs that at first I thought was Professor Kelley’s artistic way of representing an eye. One thing that I found was exciting was mystery that each picture held. From far away the picture looses some of the detail but as I stepped closer and closer it was fun discovering what each photograph had to offer, because each one had a whole different perspective story to tell based on the relationship of the objects within the photograph. What was so fascinating was that not only did the exhibit have these crafted landscapes but it also had an interactive aspect, through the use of the flip books. For me the use of the flip books added the text to his art that he had discussed earlier in his presentation. As I walked around the room the flip books, represented the words to a picture book and the actual photographs were the pictures that gave a visual for the landscape information that was being displayed.
Not only was this presentation visually pleasing but the information that was being relayed to the audience by Professor Kelley was very insightful and actually gained a new level of artistic knowledge in my personal photography library that expanded my ideas about just how creative and investigational one can be with photography. I learned so much about how photographs can be manipulated and experimented with to create something that is not only pleasing and playful to the eye, but also mystifying and for me heightens my curiosity about the process and the product.

Renessa

Here There and the self

On Monday, September 8, 2008 Boyden Gallery hosted the opening of Patrick Kelley’s exhibition of his recent work. The show, titled Here There, consisted mainly of extended panoramic images and words.
Kelley began his lecture by sharing his artistic history which led up to the current work. Mostly, he discussed the history of text and words in his work. I found this quite interesting because over the summer I became almost obsessed with the context, concentration on, visual differences, and subtleties of text and have been trying to figure out a way to work this fascination into my work. Kelley’s use of indexical words, especially in the work with “multiple heres” interested me because indexical words are seemingly unloaded of feeling and emotion and could serve as an adequate vehicle for examining the characteristics of text described above.

I also was interested by Kelley’s ideas about the audience’s completion of narratives that Kelley set up. My work often has a narrative quality because of the inclusion of people (often the same people repeatedly) in my work. Kelley’s use of words to complete his narratives may be an avenue I’d like to explore.
Kelley has created flip books throughout his career. Last year I tried my hand at making flip books and while it was extremely difficult I enjoyed the process and delighted in the final product for many of the same reasons Kelley did: the intimacy of such a small object, the interactivity and physicality of having a little book in your hand, and the turn over of control to the audience. I’m thinking that maybe I should consider my draw to these qualities when thinking about the output for my photography. While printing larger is something I see value in, maybe I should also try printing much smaller and continuing to make photobooks.

An additional aspect of Kelley’s talk that resonated with me was his discussion of how some of his works aim to “externalize an internal image in the mind.” I am not sure, but I think that this may be deeply related to my ideas about actually versus perceived memory.

Another topic that Kelley discussed was how the “failure” of his original idea produced the works in the show. I think that the tension created between him having complete control over his tool, Maya, and producing a “failure” is an interesting one that resonates in my work as well. Over the summer I created some works that were out of focus, blurred, or dark, qualities of works that I would normally consider failures because I did not have complete control over my tool. The works, however, shocked me. I liked them; other people liked them. I think that maybe I need to define failure more clearly for myself and separate other qualities from it that get lumped to this idea of “failure” simply because they have typically negative connotations.

-Anne

Here There - Pat Kelley's Art Show

My first impression of Pat's work was that it was intriguing and refreshing. I really liked how he took photographs of a typical subject (landscapes) and made them interesting and unique by making them panoramas that were warped into circular shapes. I like any art work that makes the viewer look twice, and Pat's images made me do that. I found myself getting up close and personal to the images trying to figure out how he created them. What I found particularly interesting was the fact that not only were the images 360 views, but also 180. I've never seen anything like that before. I thought the flip books were an interesting concept, but initially I wasn't sure how they corresponded with the art on the walls.
Pat's talk about his work cleared up all the questions I had about the art itself and also made me appreciate what he had created even more. After seeing his past work, I felt like I could really understand his present work much better. His fascination with text and images really stuck with me because that idea has been brought up in several of my classes this semester and before now I had never even thought about it. I also really appreciated his flip books after he explained them. I loved the idea of an object that is created with time consuming and elaborate technical processes ultimately being enjoyed in such a low - tech hands on way.
I took Pat's Intro to Visual Thinking last semester, so it was really interesting to finally see some of his work. He mentioned during his talk that he was "geekily obsessed" with Google Earth, which makes sense, since our final project for that class dealt with it! After seeing that his panoramas were all circular and that some of them were even spheres I immediately thought about Google Earth and if it was his inspiration for the final form of his photographs. He said it completely was, which really goes to show that anything and everything can inspire art. In turn, Pat's work has also inspired me. After the show was over I really got to thinking about panoramas and about creating final works of art that are comprised of not one photograph but many. I'm so used to thinking of my professors in a class room setting only that I often forget that they all have seperate profsesional careers outside of the classroom, so its really refreshing and inspiring to see what they create.

HERE THERE: A Lecture by Patrick Kelley

There were a lot of things that I impressed while walking around the gallery and listening to the lecture.  While looking through the flipbooks, there was intimacy between the book and myself.  The intimacy was the changing of images and texts from one page to the next.  It was like the images and texts were telling a story.  This feeling of intimacy relates back to what Professor Kelley said about what he thinks about text and images: he thinks that both text and images work together as narratives, or tell a story.  Another thing that impressed me was animated text.  While watching the animated text, it brought me back to the studying of gravity in my science classes.  Watching the letters drop, I knew right then that gravity was playing a role in this animation.  Gravity was pulling the letters back to the ground.  In conclusion, I learned that images and text have a relationship to the space surrounding them.  It also relates to back my interests in taking photographs of landscapes.  When I take landscape photographs, I think about space: what, how, and why we use space.  I also think about how space changes as we move through and around it, meaning do we feel different as we move or the same?  I was thinking about these things as I was walking around the gallery and looking at the pictures.  While looking at the pictures, I felt trapped in them because it was an enclosed space.  When I look at these photographs, I ask myself what is beyond the circle.  It is like a mystery to me.  

One of my Favorite Photographers

Carrie Mae Weems

Radiohead - House of cards Quick test 01

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWarQM_-ClY&feature=related