think! respond! finally.

A good picture engages and provokes a response from the viewer. I think that some formal composition, such as use of framing and lighting, is necessary in order for a picture to be good in and of itself. I think it’s important that a good picture communicate an idea with its audience. These ideas don’t necessitate profundity, but they should force the viewer to react, and provoke a response to what they are looking at. I also think a good picture needs to do more than solely provide an aesthetic experience that catches one’s eye.

I think that there are some pictures I would like to see in black and white and others that I would prefer in color. I feel that making black and white pictures is more intrinsic to working with film, while in this class, digital has allowed for a great deal of potential printing with color. I am drawn to both kinds of mediums, although I think ultimately I prefer film. I like the purity of actually using light to make a photograph, and I don’t think that digital images capture the lighting as well as film does, but this may only apply to specific pictures. I like both, and ultimately my conclusions on these questions are unclear at best. I think that color can be used for a purpose, but there are times where black and white is more apt to illustrate the idea that the picture is communicating.

I caught myself initially trying to make a more profound statement in my project than was necessary or desirable. I thought that the feedback I got from discussing our ideas and projects in class over the past couple weeks was meaningful and helped what my project eventually evolved to become. I found it challenging to get a bias perspective on the theme of the project partly from Bowdoin being a relatively homogenous community, but I think that it conveyed with some success ideas of the close surrounding community that we are a part of. My intent was to portray the ideas of individuals, to reflect on what I thought to be logical and meaningful questions that people should ask themselves in relation to the country we live in.

I had a lot of fun with the panoramas and thought that the night shots were especially successful. The juxtaposition of the panoramas of the gas station and the empty Wal-Mart parking lot to the ones during the day of Maine Street with the cars and cemetery worked well. I thought mounting on the foam core worked well to provide for some relief off the wall. Velcro is awful and pretty expensive. Stapling on walls also sucks. If I could do it over again I would’ve grouped the answers to the questions in each row between the panoramas but I still don’t know if I like grouping the panoramas and the individual pictures separately. I was intrigued by the idea of portraying this multiplicity of opinion and ideas surrounding this issue of patriotism, and thought that if I installed something that had a lot going on, it would communicate that idea. I think that not revealing the questions was the right decision, though I should’ve grouped the pictures respectively.

Ultimately, I was relatively happy with the end result. I feel like it was a really satisfying and rewarding culmination of the work that I’ve done throughout the semester. I’ve really enjoyed how this class is structured in such a way that we’re able to do what we want to do and make decisions with legitimate rationale.

chuck is sick

When Close uses the photos to make paintings in the grid template, it produces such an incredible aesthetic experience. The collage like paintings are fascinating, specifically how he uses a grid pattern to fill rectangles separately with different colors, patterns and shapes. This meticulous process produces an amazing result of a beautifully distorted image. It really pushes his medium of using both photography and painting in a unique and innovative directions. Close's variations on color and shape emphasizes the nuanced intricacies of his work, where subject matter seems to become secondary. I think this offers a wonderful perspective on images, in which distortion is achieved through this tremendous method of composing what is more than a picture.



I'm intrigued about his use of materials and methods of making these photorealist works. His paintings are incredible, and I think part of what provides this value is the fact that they look like photographs. His work is so tremendous and I like how a lot of his work revolves around the idea of a relatively, close-up portrait. What makes it interesting is how he uses a variety of mediums and methods to achieve an amazing amount of variation in his work. It's about how he composes the final work, rather than what he is ultimately depicting. His use of black and white is captivating in how he is able to show the lighting and details of the face with the different variations of brushstrokes he uses, such as below in "Georgia Fingerprint." The reason there are tools on computers to chuck-ify images is because Close is the man and a true innovater.

3+3

salgado

http://www.pdngallery.com/legends/legends10/

Is Salgado exploiting his subjects? Does he make pictures that exploit his audiences by making these “explicitly didactic” images? I think the answer to both of these questions is yes, in a sense, although I don’t think at all that is a negative statement on the work. I disagree with Kimmelman and am not convinced that he quite appreciates everything that Salgado has to offer. Kimmelman offers a relatively harsh criticism of Salgado as compared to Walker Evans, and dismisses it because of the differences he offers. Salgado is certainly not Evans, and I don’t think that he tries to be at all. I love Evan’s pictures of the Burroughs family and their home, but Salgado has a different process and philosophy behind his photography. This is what really interests me about this body of work. His intention is indeed very edifying, but I guess I am drawn to this notion of making a clear statement. I think Salgado’s pictures are absolutely tremendous. They are incredibly beautiful images that feel like they pierce your eyes and heart while giving you a gratifying aesthetic experience.

By not leaving ambiguity up to the viewer, I think Salgado’s work possesses a lot of power. He forces the viewer to interact with tragedy, hardship, and suffering through these humanizing portraits of people that have been dehumanized and oppressed. The pictures are poignant and dramatic, and bring to life the injustice and anguish of individuals whose lives have been shaped by the oppression that they endure without choice. His photographs are dramatic because they need to be.

Here’s a quote from an interview with Salgado:
“At this time, I want to speak out for immigrants, for those who live in such circumstances, and to speak out to those who can receive them. I want to show the immigrants' dignity in their willingness to integrate into another country, to show their courage and their entrepreneurial spirit and, not least, to demonstrate how they enrich us all with their individual differences. Above all, by using migration as an example, I want to show that a true human family can only be built on foundations of solidarity and sharing.”

He is speaking out for people who have no one to speak out for them. He uses photography as a means to communicate awareness about the world, but also understanding of other peoples and cultures. I find it callous to think that people think Salgado’s work to be sanctimonious or to revealed “signs of vanity.” Kimmelman captures it up well when he writes that “It’s a tricky business to get people to look at other people they may have spent a great deal of time trying, consciously or otherwise, not to notice.” Salgado’s photographs are wonderful and painful at the same time because they force you to acknowledge, in some part, the suffering of another human being.