Basic Photography Class

I've learned a lot of about photography and myself in this class, and am kind of sad that this class is almost over. A part of me wishes I had taken digital photography classes sooner and had choose to have my concentration be photography rather than painting. While I still love painting, I think I've really found myself in photography. Each project is interesting, challenging, fun and thrilling. I have yet to find myself bored in any of the stages it takes to create a good photograph.

For the last project, we were directed to use text in the image. I decided to do a series regarding people in my life, including myself, and how our favorite books have influenced our voices. For me, it was easy to pick a favorite book cause it's been the same since high school: Catcher in the Rye. The particular quote that I felt to define me was "Certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone." I also decided to throw in some hints about where the qyote is from. For instance, in this picture in the background to the right is the book which is found on a cover of Catcher in the Rye.

The second in the series is my friend, Michael. He choose a quote from Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. I'm still tweeking the colors in his, so this is just a in process photo. A clue to his book can be found in the bottom left corner, which is a sketch that is found in the actual book.

Eirik Johnson

For my digital photography class, we are required to go to an fine digital photography exhibit and write a paper based on the work. For this, I decided to go to Vassar's Lehman Loeb Art Center's exhibit of Eirik Johnson's work. I had actually never heard of him and was quite thrilled once I did. He has a great series titled Sawdust Mountain which is absolutely marvelous. It's definitely such an amazing experience to go to a museum and see all the photographs in person since the quality is so much better.

You can view all these photographs (and more!) on his website: http://www.eirikjohnson.com/index.html

Here's some of the photographs that I felt were his strongest:

Candy Art and Reminscing of a Previous Project

Last class, a group presented a project where the medium was candy. I thought it was quite interesting because of how different of a medium it was. I've never thought to create a piece of art using candy. I did think it was a refreshing way to make art, and reminded me of a project I did in my last college.

At my last college, I had an art teacher who wanted us to create something using edible objects. The main focus was that whatever we created was going to be "marketed and sold" to the masses. For my project I had played off of the edible fruit arrangements. I thought, well if they can make flowers out of fruit, why not vegetables? And to push the edible art aspect, I decided instead of using already made bowls that I would create my own. But how? I started thinking of how pretty glass bowls and stained glass and how interesting it would be to combine those? But how? Instantly, I thought of citrus fruits. So I dehydrated oranges, grapefruits and lemons. This was a very long process because I needed the citrus fruits to be entirely dried up before the next step. I then adhered the dried fruit to a plastic bowl and glass plates. I was quite pleased with how it turned out! And to finish it up I added vegetable "flowers"/kabobs. I made sure to carve into the radishes to make something symbolizing a rose.

 

My college teacher loved the idea, and was quite pleased with my project. But getting back to this lesson, I thought it was quite fun to learn different ways to manipulate the candy. And the demo that the group did was interesting. I would have never thought of using skittles to make paint. And it was a fun project to do. We got a chance to sketch our ideas, practice on a sample and make a final piece. While I really loved the project, I did understand the critique that they got. It was harder to come up with fine detailed work (at a highschool-college) level with the candy in my opinion. My work ended up looking simplistic. However, that might just be because we didnt have the time a regular class would have had. An interesting twist to the project that the art we made had to depict either a song title or lyric from a song that was from the Beatles. I really enjoyed this collaboration between art and music. I ended up with "I'm looking through you" and I used the lyric line "Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight." to create my piece.

(im not sure why they are sideways because they arent saved that way but oh well, technology flaw!)

Book Art

Today in class, a group's lesson was creating art using books. We were to transform the given books into art using additive and subtractive elements in order to create a scene. I felt this was quite an interesting assignment and one that you don't really see in classrooms.

In highschool, I had a teacher who wanted us to use a book to create art, but not in this way at all. She wanted us to use the book to create pages of unique 2D art. For example, you would cut and paste pictures flat into the book and then use paints and what not to edit it.


I felt this way, of actually making a 3D image from the book was much more interesting and I think it will be quite successful amongst high school students. I really enjoyed the process of creating a sculpture from them. I did struggle with one aspect of the book I choose. Because the book was older and bigger, the pages were very light and flimsy. It was harder to get images to stand up and remain standing up. But other than that, I think it was quite fun. I also enjoyed the suggestion that a future class would be using water colors to alter the books more and I think students would really enjoy this.

Lesson Reflection

Last Friday, a group presented a lesson involving clay and a small amount of photography. The general idea of the lesson was that we make 2 impressions in the clay from a natural object which we selected in class, and then man-make two which either resembled or had a similar impression. After, we then would take those clay objects and throw them down on a piece of paper like an artist did (I forget that artist's name). Then the idea of photographing the class collage was brought up.

While I thought the layout of the lesson was refreshing from the "power point-then lesson" type of lesson, I wasn't exactly sure about the lesson entirely. I think the age group for this class might be a bit younger than high school ages. I know for me, in high school I wanted to actually use clay to create things with legitimate uses. I always looked forward to that time of year when we could make bowls, cups, vases, etc. Basically, what I'm saying is if I was a high school student and a teacher expected me to throw clay in that way, I'd be like "ummm...no?" And wouldn't be interested in what I felt was "wasting" a material.  I'm  not saying all students are this way, but I know I was. I can see younger ages enjoying this project or even the occasional high school student who finds themselves throwing clay up at the ceiling during clay classes. But overall, I felt like it wasn't a high school age appropriate lesson.

Other than those issues, I thought integrating photography into the lesson was interesting. Many people wouldn't combine clay and photography and I thought that was refreshing. However, I felt because it was simply grey clay on white paper that the end result of the student's photographs would be that they all looked the same, even if their compositions weren't entirely the same. If various colors had been used, the students would then have to select colors instead of blobs of clay on the paper which all kinda look the same.

I did like how the entire class seemed to enjoy the lesson, which is important for students. It's nice to see that one project can get a whole group excited, and I thought that was very well done.

Teacher's Samples for Self Portrait Narrative Photography

 

Angle: Eye Level
Genre: Drama and/or Romance

Prop: Ring

Angle: Low Angle (Worm's Eye View)
Genre: Mystery

Prop: Magnify Glass

Reflection on lesson for theory & practice 11/13

For the presentation, my partner and taught a narrative photography lesson. We looked at artists who use strong narratives in their work (Cindy Sherman & Greg Crewdson) and had students make simple props. The most important part of this lesson I feel was the teaching of the angles. We taught students various angles (birds eye, low, dutch, eye level, 3/4 bust, profile, etc) to the class in order for them to be able to make successful photographs. We also had the students choose a genre and then gave the option to make a simple prop for that project.

For this particular project, I can already tell what I did wrong without reviewing the video. So I figured I'd do a critique of myself on here:

 1. I was too quiet
             While I usually am shy amongst my peers, I have had to work harder to become more outspoken around them. However, when it comes to a true classroom setting I find myself way more comfortable and am able to be more outspoken. And I feel another issue of me being quiet and not really speaking much for the lesson was because I had let personal and school related issues affect me from earlier that day. And while I completely understand that as a real teacher you can't let these matters effect you or your class, I also understand that I, as well as everyone else, is human and we make mistakes.

2. Our lesson ended too early
              We ended our lesson too early and could have had a longer work time, a longer clean up time, and/or a longer reflection time. However, I also recognize that during timed presentations, nerves of not finishing on time can cause certain parts to be rushed and others to be drawn out. If I was to do this lesson in a true classroom setting, I feel that the lesson would not have ended early because for the age group (highschool) they would be taking more time in the making of props and deciding their overall vision. I also feel that students would be taking more than one picture, and then comparing and deciding which one is the best of them. I recongnize that for this class, we did not really ask students to take multiple shots as we were concerned for time. However, if done over I would have had students sketch more and then take multiple shots.





3. Students finished early
          Well, this is unexpected and will happen in every lesson. Even when I was in high school I would finish my art projects way before the other students. Sometimes it just happens that way. And I feel that in a true art classroom setting, other projects could be offered to students who tend to finish early. Because, I feel having students do multiple tasks of the same this is too repetitive and boring. I know as a student, when a teacher would say "make another one" I'd grow bored and not want to even start. So this would be potential issue, but given other small projects the students could easily work on those or go back to previous projects to finish.

4. Props weren't as successful as they could have been
             When making my teacher's sample, I had just created a simple cut out to hint that it was a magnfying glass. In my opinion, this isn't a problem really. I understand more materials could have been offered and some would be more helpful than others (tape over glue). But when searching the closet I did not find any tape, so I problem solved and grabbed glue and staplers. In an ideal situation, students would be given a longer time to create a prop or find a prop. I like the idea of props not being required because sometimes a self portrait can portray a narrative (genre) just based upon facial expression. A question of how you would be graded if you choose to not use a prop vs using a prop was brought up, and I think it's an easy solution. It's obvious to see who thought about their photographs and who simply didn't make a prop because its easy. You can judge the photographs by their use of angles and if they successful portrayed a genre.

MC Escher Documentary

Current Fieldwork Obseravations

To update from my last fieldwork blog:

I have finalized my lesson plan and created a teacher's sample.

For this lesson, students will look at the works of MC Escher and the Principles of Design. By using these two things, students will then create a work of their own which falls under Gestalt Art. For my teacher's sample (above), I chose a interesting silhouette (a goldfish) and combined it using the principles to create this composition. While MC Escher was famous for having 2 objects merge together, upon doing the sample I found it quite difficult to come up with an idea and shapes that merge together without using MC Escher's examples (bird into fish).  I thought it was interesting that using a silhouette of a goldfish I was able to come up with an interesting abstract pattern between them.

Photography

For my basic digital photography class we were assigned to come up with 3-5 narrative panoramas. I really enjoyed taking these, and found some interesting locations for them. Below them is my artist statement for them.  While taking this photographs, I was considering what it might be like to teach a photography class. While it is an interesting class, it also has a lot of technical information which must be taught in order for the students to understand their cameras and photographs. For example, some things that would be important for any student with an interest in photography would be: Angles, Resolution, File Formats (Jpegs, tiffs, RAW), contrast, lighting, etc. It would also be very beneficial for any photographer to understand photoshop, in case they wish to alter their photographs. These particular panoramas were put together using photoshop and then edited in multiple ways.

Often times people walk around through various locations without really paying attention to the finer details surrounding them. For this project, I really wanted to emphasize this  concept.

Loomis Cemetery

            Growing up in a small town, it was easy to spot interesting locations that have been totally forgotten by the general public. For instance, after a small hike through the woods across from a church you can find an old cemetery dated back from 1861. I have always wondered how many people, dead and alive, have come through this way to this cemetery. The tombstones are all in shambles, knocked over by weather and/or rebellious bored teenagers.  The idea of someone visiting the cemetery as a story really intrigued me. However, rather than just have the tale of someone visiting a loved one or just visiting in general, I thought it would be interesting to play with the concept of the afterlife. By making the girl somewhat see through, I want the viewers to question: Is she alive? Is she just a memory? Is she a ghost?

Huguenot Street Cemetery

            Upon exploring the historic street I came across this old cemetery. I thought it would be interesting to play with the angles, to get a sense that the viewer is the person in this cemetery. It brings a whole new type of narrative to this photograph. If it was you, what were you doing there? Why were you going? And if you are not the person in the photograph, who is she? What is she doing?

Unknown Cemetery

            I came across this location while driving, and decided to explore it. I was walking around the small cemetery when I stumbled upon these gloves left behind. Questions instantly came to mind for me. Whose gloves are these? What were they doing? Is it a groundskeeper? Was it someone visiting a loved one? Was it left over from some Halloween pranks?  It leaves a lot un-answered and up to the viewers to come up with their own narrative.

Ghostly Encounters

            As I was growing up I was always interested in ghost stories and visiting haunted locations. As I got older, I began to do more and more research on my home town since many people, including myself, have claimed to see unearthly things around, especially on my street.  It did come to a surprise that directly behind my house (and other houses on my street) was an old tuberculosis clinic.  After reading this, my sister and I would explore the woods behind our house finding old parts of foundations. Remembering all of this, I thought it would be an interesting narrative to have a ghostly person entering my childhood home since this fascination with ghosts was a major part of my youth.  I wanted the viewers to question whether the person was a wanted or unwanted visitor, and also if the person was in fact a ghost or once again just a memory.