#16. Respond: “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” Berenice Abbott

I think this is true. What all comes together to make a photograph what it is, the lighting, the subject, the wind, the feeling, will only happen just as it is for that one photo. It will never be exactly so again. So time passes and we go on to shoot more photos. I think that this happens for not only for photography but also for a lot of things...fashion, technology, trends of any kind. The instant you get it, its over and there is something new.

#15____In-Camera Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe how you might use a slow shutter speed and/or double exposure to capture two moments in one image that tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.

Hmmmm...I guess an important place to me in my past was my bedroom, it was the only place I had complete control over and I could make my nest and just be. Today the most important place is my home, although I share it with another person, it is my place of refuge and usually the only place I want to be. So I guess my bedroom has expanded in to a cape cod. If I were to try and show them collaged together I would try to make it look as if my childhood bedroom was morphing into a house. I think I would try do this by finding an old picture of my bedroom (since I can't go back and take a photo of it) and take a picture of my house, then layer them in photo shop. Merging parts of each to make a surreal photo. That would be interesting.

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?

This is a hard call because once you put the photos out there, they are opened up to everyone's different perspective. By this I mean, what is familiar to me will not be whats familiar to someone else and what is exotic to me will be familiar to someone else. I guess it's all relative. But if I wanted to take a photo of an exotic place and portray that it was exotic to me, I think I would need to include it in a series of photos of where I started to where I went. And to take a photo of somewhere that was "untouched" by humans I think I would want to do it from something that would not touch it. Like a helicopter. Or a plane. hmmm....Or a submarine.

#13___Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.

If I were to make "land art" to photograph I think I would make something I thought was funny...I would want whoever saw it to smile when they saw it for as long as it lasted. Here are a few ideas:

• construct a metal snowman (or snow family) on a tropical beach
• construct a real size whale to be out in a mountain landscape
• put a drinking fountain in the middle of a desert
• make black and white cut outs of people and place them in groups at busy places in cities

#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?

The photograph I think I remembered most is of my sister and I sitting in my Gramma's cupboard when i was probably 3ish and she was 1ish. The cupboard makes a dark brown frame around us and you can see a large can of tomato juice behind my sisters head. She is wearing diapers and a teal striped tee. I am wearing identical striped tee in red, with matching red shorts, holding a doll that had been Mom's that's hair "grows" when you pull the pony tail on top of her head. Our expressions are different, my sister looks perplexed and I have a smile from ear to ear. I am not sure who took the picture, I think it was my Gramma, but I am glad that she captured it. I remember sitting in that cupboard playing, it was something we always used to do.

I don't know how I would recreate this, my sister and I are way to big now to sit in a cupboard together....maybe we could sit next to the cupboard? or on top of it?

#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.

The place I am remembering is the house I grew up in. It was an old farmhouse. I am standing in the front yard facing it. It is summer. It is a wide landscape. The paint is chipping everywhere, the glass in the all the windows is wavy, the porch doesn't entirely have a floor and our old Chocolate lab, Belle, is sleeping in the dirt under the porch. It is quiet, you can see the field to left of the house, there is long grass blowing in the breeze. You can see all of our cars on the drive way, mine, my sisters, my Mom's, my Brothers and my Dads, purple, red, green blue and black. There is the tin pole barn to the right of the house and a swing set my Dad built sitting on the left side of the barn. No one has swung on it for years. You can see the old red barn, partially fallen in behind the tin pole barn, that also has been abandoned. There is nothing spectacular, the yard is taken care of, my Mom has her flower garden, its all very ordinary.

Assignment #2

For the above images my goal was to show the play in light as well as the character of Jared (the subject). I did this by having a very long shutter speed and moving the camera around, trying to paint with the light that was coming from the lamp and the TV. In the critique there was some controversy about what the focus in these image was...because there is so much going on. I at first said that the focus was on Jared but then after some consideration I don't think it is solely on him. I think the focus is him in the space, not one or the other, and the light that is interacting with both of them. In both of these images it is hard to tell how much the light is actually playing around them until you take a closer look, then you can really see the interesting things it is doing. I like that, I like that it makes the viewer have to lean in and take a closer look.

This image was taken the same night as the above images. I am still using a very slow shutter speed and trying to make the light of the lamp be a hazy, blur but the focus in the image is definitely Jared and his expression. He had switched sofas and was sitting closer to me and was kind of tired of me having the camera in his face. There was another one with him laughing but after hearing comments in the works in progress critique I chose this one because his expression is so much more interesting. I like how the light kind of blurs out half his face and it is really bright and then behind him is so dark and almost foreboding. It works for me. This one also came out really nice in print.

 

These images are a result of the prompt "take a portrait of a stranger." I was trying to be a sneaking photographer, sitting at the tables outside of the international center, trying to take pictures of the people around me. I must not of been that good at it because she noticed right away and came over to say hello. She was the sweetest person and we sat and talked for awhile, she was smiling and laughing the whole time. The reason why I chose these particular to images is this: In the one on the bottom I think I really captured her personality, she was so friendly and relaxed and seemed to just enjoy life. She was telling me about where she was from and where she had been and was really interested in me and the photography class I was taking. I think that this photograph gets across her "happy." I chose the one above it because it was the one of the only images in which she wasn't smiling. Her pose is so much different in this one, not as relaxed, not as open. There were some comments in the critique that this wasn't a very strong image and that I shouldn't have chose it. I disagree. To me this one is very interesting, it is kind of showing another side to her. It's a little more awkward, what could she be saying that would make her change her posture so much? I like the lines her arms make against the framing of the tree that is kind of holding her down. I like that you can see it must have been a bit breezy because of the way her hair is placed. I really like them both and I think that it shows what portraiture is all about...the person, their personality and the many sides a person has to their personality.