Chapter 7 Reading Response

Chapter 7, Photography in the Age of Electronic Imaging gives fascinating insight into the worlds of analog and digital photography. Since I have had the pleasure of working with both mediums, I am familiar with the different qualities of each type of photography. 

The one aspect this chapter made me think about was the concept of our digital world, there are hardly any physical prints anymore, we view our photos through cell phones, laptops, and monitors. The whole physicality of photography has been lost as technology increases. This has happened in other mediums as well, such as books, newspapers, etc, are now all read online or with portable e-readers.

The benefit I can see in this technological age, is the versatility of the photograph and how it is available to almost everyone. Now anyone can take pictures, just with a phone.  In this regard, sharing photographs is more wide spread now more than ever.  I feel people can be more openly artistic with this medium and then be able to share it with friends as well. 

I'm just curious what the future will hold for photography, and how the digital world will advance?

GOOGLE READER #9 RESPONSE

Came across the Lenscratch blog about Mark Sherratt, I love his Train series of portraits. These images evoke such an authentic type of portraiture photography. The strong, centered images gives a glimpse into the commute of many different classes of people. I like how the author of the blog laid it out in the post, giving you insight on the overall intention of the photographer with some text between the images.

  

The framing and attention to color and detail in these images are very particular and paid attention to.  The shutter blinds of the bus windows allow for a certain barrier between the viewer and person on the bus, forcing the viewer to look closer into the image to get more information, particularly in the faces of the people.

 Check out Mark Sherratt's work, it's really interesting!

His section titled "Places" on his website has some great images, some of them I feel relate to some of the work I've been doing lately with my critiques.

WORK IN PROGRESS #4

 

Through day-to-day interactions with the constructed environment, I’ve been seeking to expand my thoughts on the natural environment. I frequently question the viability of our constantly shrinking native ecosystems and how that influences our society.

Human development and the desire for further expansion has spread across the landscape in sloppy development patterns. Suburban and city dwellers lack the natural world in their everyday lives, surrounded by concrete and sprawl; we try to recreate nature in our own lives. 

As the native flora and fauna die out, the interconnectedness of these diverse ecosystems will continue suffer.  While we surround ourselves with shopping malls, business centers, and fast food chains, we still yearn for the natural world. 

Chapter 6 Reading Response

I enjoyed the different explanations of theories of photography throughout this chapter. I've never explored these formal ideas and this chapter prompted some new thoughts in my mind. I found it interesting how fine art related to photography in the 60's and 70's through pop art.


Landscape as a genre in photography and fine art has always been interesting to me, especially with my major and studying the transcendentalists.  At first these landscape photos depicted a sublime, surreal and perfect environment, usually with some kind of higher being connotation in the image.  As photography and fine art progresses it's obvious that not only are beautiful images of nature are created, but images of the degradation are represented more frequently in our constantly developing world.

 The chapter described the postmodern theory of photograph and how it's centered on staged or constructed photographs. This concept made me question: Can staged photography be considered photo journalistic or authentic?


I also wonder if photography became so popular in the fine art world because of it's reference to the medium of fine art.

GOOGLE READER RESPONSE #8

This week I found the work of Anna Schuleit to be very interesting.  Her series "Bloom" includes many images of flora that was planted in a Mental Health Center in Massachusetts.  This whole concept of bring the outdoors to interior spaces is very interesting to me.  The implications of placing these plants in a Mental Health Center has some very inspiring connotations as well.  Her website is very interesting, I'd suggest checking it out!

Another series that caught my eye this week was Robin Schwartz's photos of her daughter and animals.  This images are very different and shows a strange relationship between this growing young girl and animals. I love that these photos have a certain vernacular quality but are still computationally very intriguing.

 

 If you look through the collection of these photos on her website, you can see how the images progress to be more formal in the qualities of light and composition as her daughter, Amelia, gets older.  These images were in the NY Times this Sunday too!

WORK IN PROGRESS #3

These images are quite different from my other sets of images.  I’m trying to evoke a fleeting landscape.  I feel that this urbanized environment is why we must replicate nature in our front yards.  Through exploring our concrete and developed world, I hope to depict the lack of the native natural world in our everyday lives.

 

I wanted this first image to be a bright and sunny image.  I feel that the warmer, lighter tones convey something different within this image.  I wanted the plant to appear like it was basking in the sun, surrounded by concrete.  I purposely created a warmer color cast to achieve this purpose.   After printing the image I am seeing a lighter spot in the middle foreground of the image that I would like to work on furthermore, it appears a bit distracting.

The second image was intended to contrast the warm colors of the first image.  I wanted to see how I and the viewer might react to a darker and cooler image.  With the cooler color cast, a sense of isolation is starting to surface within the image.  The bluer tones create a less natural hue to the image, highlighting the concrete texture and vastness.  I would like to emphasize the yellow color in the flowers a bit more within this photo.  It also might be interesting if the edges were blurred a bit more.

CHAPTER 5 READING RESPONSE

Chapter 5 has a lot to do with the consumer culture and how it relates to photography.  The author speaks  about how society is surrounded by all these photographs that are embedded in our brains as authentic and real, but they are actually creating a false consciousness in society. These photographs are selling products and services.  As we have become so accustomed to this consumerism, we have also become passive consumers, allowing the false consciousness and hyper-reality to be engrained in our culture. 

Even photojournalism, the ultimate authentic photography medium is surrounded by this idea of the spectacle, trying to get people's attention through manipulation.  PR companies were hired to cover war coverage to hide the reality from the mass media. For newspapers and magazines, more intense photos get better news stories and therefore higher ratings for that media outlet. The first photographer that came to mind while reading this was Allan Arbus, a lot of his pictures were used in Glamour and Vogue. 

The author also brings up an interesting idea that commercial photography constantly borrows from ideas within our culture and by doing this, it has perpetuated stereotypes.  I also enjoy when the author mentions that commercial photography never challenges the status quo.  At first, I don't know if I completely agree with this, I feel our culture is shifting a bit more to understand that we are manipulated by media and some outlets do challenge some ideas.  I think since media is so strong, that it would be very interesting to see media challenge societal norms more often.

After reading the chapter, I found myself asking these questions:

Does the influx of commercial photography affect our ideas and perceptions about fine art photography? Do we expect more/less from fine art photography because of how flooded our culture is with advertisement?

How do you feel photographs could be used in advertising without creating a false consciousness?

Do you think that people are becoming more aware of how the media changes their perceptions?