Rotten Eggs!! and Critique

"The Rotten Eggs"
Critique for this project was a real unique process shaped to imitate a Oscar nominee ceremony type of deal.  Students were asked to walk around the room and nominate certain sculptures for 5 different categories: best pose, wittiest transformation, most lively, best actor, best actress.  I actually received a good amount of positive feedback and my piece was nominated for several categories so I consider "The Rotten Eggs" a success. 

Photo Mash-Ups and Stencil

Mash-up #1

Mash-up #2

Mash-up #3

Mash-up #4

Kathy and I decided that Mash-up #1 would be best to use for the stencil.  In creating my stencil, I unintentionally created a contrast between the simplification of the foot and the complexity of the artichoke bottom which worked quite nicely for this project.

Self-Portrait Pictures (Foot)

Lecture on Contemporary Photography

Photographers goal: to capture a moment
Photographers main focus: exuberance of nature

Edward Weston - photographer from the 1930's who was interested in physical form of subject matter more than the content

Ansel Adams - black and white photographer who worked w/ glass plate negative

Henry Cartier Bresson - street photographer who specialized in action shots and utilized blur caused by movement to his advantage

"Ouiega" - news photographer in NY, had a reputation for being first on the scene because he had a police scanner, specialized in pictures of murder victims and untouched crime scenes

Dorothy Elange - documented the poor as well as the Japanese hostages in US war camps during WWII, took the photo "Migrant Mother": in this photo exists a "ghost thumb" where she attempted to erase someone's thumb that was accidentally caught in the picture which shows evidence of her being aware of composition

Walker Evans - took pictures of buildings, farm implements, and people; in 1981 Cherry Lavigne photographed a picture of Walker Evan's picture and displayed it in a show which was just as controversial as Duchamp's "Fountain", pushed the limit and asked the question "what qualifies something as art?"

Richard Prince - was made famous for taking pictures of Malboro ads, this helped appropriation gain even more credibility in the art world, but was the first make large scale prints of photographs

Thomas Debonz - made paper sculptures and took pictures of them, also made war scenes out of figurines and took pictures of them

Jeff Wald - attempted to make art that would overpower a painting through the use lighting and photo manipulation, he played with the veracity photographs possess

PHOTOGRAPHY: what is true versus what is illusion

Personal Narrative in photography investigates personal life
Nan Golden - herion and sex addict who documented events and people in her life whether they were good or bad

Robert Matherford - was involved in the New York S&M scene, specialized in making beautifully crafted photos of socially unacceptable things

Richard Billingham - made commentary on social standpoints though portraiture, was made famous for taking photographs of his family and home life

Sontag Pictures

This is not actually a photograph of myself but a photograph that I was tagged in, on facebook.com, as the older woman on the right side of the composition. 

That woman is my friend's grandmother, and I suppose he thought it would be funny to tag me as her and one of our other friends, Luis, as the other woman.  The original purpose of the photo I'm sure was to capture two old friends in a moment of joy or maybe reunion, but the "tagging" of me and Luis gives the photo a duality in purpose, the other purpose being a way for the photographer to make a joke about his friends and to allow our other friends to enjoy that joke via the internet.  As mentioned before the photographer and the subject are related by blood and are close to each other.  As viewed on facebook, the relationship between the photographer and subject changes.  The fact that I did not get upset about my friend doing this, that I actually thought it was funny says a lot about our sense of humor and how comfortable we are with each other. 

This photo was taken to document my attendance at an event.  The photo was taken by a friend I have known for 8 years, yet rarely do I see him.  He is a semi-professional photographer who documents skating competitions and sessions through photography.  The photo is to be viewed by family, friends, and myself.

This photo is an action shot of me skating in Corpus Christi, TX, taken by another photographer who has based the majority of his work around documenting skating.  The purpose of this photo is to show action and danger, to be edgy.  Skating for a photographer can be pretty stressful, especially if the photographer is demanding and wants to capture the image in the moment when the body is in a most exaggerated position.  We spent about 45 minutes getting things timed right, which meant I had to do this trick over and over again.  I was definitely getting annoyed and he was getting frustrated as well but we got the picture.  Pictures such as this are usually intended for an audience that are involved in the sport, people who can identify and label exactly what I am doing but I like to think that the audience for this photo includes anybody who is curious about what "aggressive roller blading" is.