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Project 3 Final Submission

The title of this series is “Dogs Doing Things People are Doing During Quarantine.” To convey this, I have chosen 5 different activities that I am doing to make my time at home less boring, then setting my dogs in my position. By having the images have a mixture of the dogs looking and not looking, I feel that this adds to the dynamic nature of the series, showing that dogs are not always paying attention, and neither am I while doing these activities. I used a strong lighting set to ensure that there would be enough lighting in the areas I took photos, as well as making sure I used window-lit areas to give as much of a natural feel as possible. 

One thing I would like to mention is that uploading my images onto this website severely decreases the quality, making them appear slightly blurred, which none of the images are if you look at the files I uploaded onto BOX.

Reading:

Playing Board Games:

Sewing:

Trying on Random Clothes:

Playing Piano:

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Project 2 Final Submission

My narrative is titled “In Quarantine” and it is telling the emotional journey that most people are facing in this time, specifically focusing on a disconnectedness from nature. The feeling of being trapped inside and not being able to get out and experience nature up close and personal is a struggle that this pandemic has made me aware of. Feeling trapped inside, we search for some way to connect to nature, even if it means looking at the few houseplants you keep, and this can give us hope that that outdoor connection will someday be rekindled.

This first image shows how we are being separated from the outdoors, the rain on the window providing a reminder of that barrier

This image is showing how we are loosing that connection, as we become unsure what it is we are looking at

This image shows how we are feeling trapped

This image shows how the indoor nature we have is reaching out to us, how even it is trapped alongside us

This final image shows hope that soon we will be able to become reconnected

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Project 3 Research

Artist: Seth Casteel

http://www.sethcasteel.com/#!/home

Examples of Work:

All images come from his Portfolio, found at this link: http://www.sethcasteel.com/#!/4/featured/Underwater_Dogs/22

About the Artist:

Seth Casteel is an award-winning photographer and the New York Times Best Selling Author of Underwater Dogs, Underwater Puppies, Underwater Babies, Pounce and five children's books. In February of 2012, Seth's series of photos showcasing dogs diving into swimming pools became an Internet sensation overnight, reaching over 100 million people in less than 24 hours. This sudden attention resulted in a book deal with Little, Brown and Company. Now with over half a million copies in print around the world, Underwater Dogs is one of the best selling photography books of all-time. Seth has gone on to publish a total of nine books.

http://www.sethcasteel.com/#!/about_Seth

When asked about the origins of his underwater dogs series, he explained “I was photographing a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Buster back in 2010 in his backyard in California. The photo shoot was meant to be "On-land", but Buster decided he would rather be in the pool. As I watched him dive in over and over again chasing his favorite mini tennis ball, I thought, "What does he look like under there!!". I left, bought a little point-and-shoot underwater camera, zipped back and jumped in. The resulting photos were the beginning of the series of Underwater Dogs.”

I believe that his photographs are related to my project in the sense that I too wish to take photographs of my dogs, only mine will be a little more staged than his. I will, however, simply be setting up my scenes, and letting my dogs interact with them as they wish, with a little bit of positioning to keep the dogs in the range of the image. I hope to achieve a staged but naturally unnatural feel to my images.

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NEW Project 2 Research

Artist: Steve Giovinco

Artist main website: https://www.stevegiovinco.com/

Examples of Work:

I have included this link rather than picking images from his series as the series is cohesive and I didn't want to take images out of sequence.

https://www.stevegiovinco.com/scenes-from-life-ch-3-dad-he-lays-dying-and-i-memory-intimacy-loss/#ms-20965

The artist’s statement should appear as the first image when you click on the link

My analysis:

The narrative is about the artist’s father’s final days of life, switching back between images that lay around what appears to be a bedroom of some sort and images of the artist’s father himself. This is a very interesting way of telling the story as he is not only showing the father’s last stages of life, but also letting the viewer see the last things he saw and the setting he was in while dying. I think that because of the intense contextualization this photographer allows, his work is very successful at conveying a narrative.

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Final Exercise: A Staged Production

I chose to recreate Laura Letinsky’s photo because I liked the minimalist feel that it had. As I had limited space on my white desk, I had to change the angle as well as the spacing in the image, but I still feel that it gives off a similar feel. For lighting, I had the natural light from the window paired with a desk light that I brought in to add a slightly more drastic shadow effect onto the objects. The desk lamp and the window light were coming from the same direction (the left of the image) because of lack of space but also because you couldn’t see the shadow effect when I held the lamp on the other side. I wanted to edit my image as little as possible and as a result of this, the lighting colour in mine does not really match up to the same lighting that Letinsky achieved in her image. This also slightly changes the mood of the image, whereas hers gives me a feeling of sparseness and spontaneity, mine gives me a sense of more cluttered spacing and deliberate placement, particularly because of how I was unable to place my objects as far apart and how the dark shadow in the bottom right-hand corner seems a little ominous to me, where her shadow in the bottom left more frames her image.

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Event Participation Credit Artist Research 2--David Orr

About the Artist: 

David Orr is a visual artist based in California. His work has been shown extensively in the United States and internationally in shows juried by representatives from the de Young Museum, the International Center for Photography, the Lucie Awards, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, The New York Times, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. His work is in public collections among such artists as Ansel Adams, John Baldessari, Jim Dine, David Hockney, The Brothers Quay, Edward Weston, and Joel-Peter Witkin.

His work has appeared in Art Daily, Buzzfeed, Communication Arts, Graphis, Hyperallergic, The Photo Review, Print, The Art Director’s Club, The Society of Publication Designers, Psychological Perspectives, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, VICE, and VICTOR: The Hasselblad Magazine. Independent film projects have aired on Channel 4 Britain and PBS. He speaks about his work regularly and has presented at CalState/LA, The Joseph Campbell Foundation, Death Salon, The Director’s Guild of America, Dublintellectual, The Mütter Museum, The New School, Parsons School of Design, The Philosophical Research Society (where he established the arts program, served as curator, and founded the Hansell Gallery), Reed College, and UCLA, among other venues. He is a member of The Long Now Foundation.

Born in Manhattan and raised on the East Coast, David currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

(From: http://www.david-orr.com/ )

Examples of Work:

http://www.david-orr.com/perfect_vessels/

Milan Joanovits, m, 30 (Catholic, robber + murderer; executed in Belgrade) 

Maria Falkensteiner, ƒ, 22 (Maidservant; died of Meningitis)

http://www.david-orr.com/libri/

LIBRI: Being and Nothingness

LIBRI: Beowulf

My Analysis:

David Orr is a photographer who focuses his works on the concept of perfection and symmetry. As illustrated by the works of his I have included above, one can easily see that these images have been digitally influenced yet still have a somewhat natural look to them. I initially discovered his works with Human Skulls, and when on his website, I happened across his works with books, something I have been trying to figure out how to execute in my own photographs. I think it is fascinating how he is able to make the edited images appear so natural, and how he is able to make death look so beautiful.

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Event Participation Credit Artist Research #1--Carli Davidson

About the Artist:

Having spent over seven years of her life working animal care and training at zoos and wildlife centers, Carli is adept at communicating with wildlife. This allows her to capture impressive images of animals in any kind of scenario you or your client can think of. 

She took her first darkroom class in a lowly closet in her high school, and she and her best friend spent their freshman year printing overdramatic photos of each other in graveyards.

In 2011 her series Shake became a worldwide success, garnering her millions of website hits and putting her firmly on the map as a top animal photographer. She currently lives in Portland OR with her husband Tim and her pets Norbert and Yushi as well as a rotating cast of foster dogs.

(From: http://www.carlidavidson.com/contact )

Artist’s Mission Statement: 

I take photos of my subjects with the intent to capture their personalities and their humor. I also regularly donate my services to local animal organizations, I believe all pets deserve a loving home. (From: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Carli.Davidson.Photography/about/?ref=page_internal )

Examples of Work:

http://www.carlidavidson.com/94ia2c313mmblm0j0tmtufalrjj4hl

http://www.carlidavidson.com/paintings/rrombaq76xhvv1gm06jlpzno53b1sr

http://www.carlidavidson.com/shake-cats/sjpjwhgy9fsi9htlg3s35te6b6h3ql

http://www.carlidavidson.com/photographs/idx6hsrpit32qsoqoct9dur8wo7puu

My Analysis:

I discovered Carli Davidson’s photographic work a while ago and I thought now would be the perfect time to share more about it. She is most popularly known for her series “Shake” which displays not only dogs but also cats and puppies shaking water off their fur. This is a style that not many people had thought to pursue before, which made her so successful from the publication of her series. From her works, you can tell that she is trying to display her own love for animals, as she is an animal photographer, but something else she does is to advocate for the adoption of shelter animals, giving a lot of her profits to her local animal organizations. I think that her works so beautifully capture the unique features of so many different species and breeds of dogs and cats, and she inspired me to begin to try to take pictures of my dogs in motion. 

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Final Reading Assignment

Reading Lori Pauli’s Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre, “Setting the Scene” really opened my eyes to a lot of new terminologies that I had not considered pairing with photography before. Whereas I would call myself the photographer and anything in my images, including people, the “subject,” this reading opened me up to the categories “Artist,” “Actor,” and “Storyteller,” words I would usually have classified under other artistic mediums like Theatre. Upon my discovery of these words in a new medium, I have realized the similarities between storytelling through writing (as an author, playwright, or screenwriter) and storytelling through photography. For some reason, whenever I would go to tackle a photography project in the past, I would always think of it simply as a “nice image.'' More recently, because of class, I have been forced to think outside of this, needing to add meaning to the work, or the collection of works. This was a little hard for me, and still is, but with this reading adding this new layer of potential for photographic works, I think I will be able to more easily visualize my own projects by thinking of them as a story rather than “giving meaning to an image.” Thinking a little further into this, the idea that the Storyteller (photographer) can also be an Actor in the image is quite interesting to me, and in this case, I would love to make an attempt to incorporate myself into several images in the future in some way.

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Exercise 8-Materials

cardboard

foam board

8x11 photo paper

paper mache/modpodge

hot glue gun

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Exercise 7

Description of Original Photo:

Ansel Adams’ Photo Rose and driftwood 1932 is an image depicting, as the title says, a rose on driftwood. His photography was more focused on technique rather than meaning, so there isn’t much to say about meaning for the image as there isn’t any. However, visually, the image is stunning, as the way that he is able to capture the textures of the flower and the driftwood is amazing. In a sense, it looks like the driftwood has a similar texture to that on the rose petals because of the rounded natural grain of the wood. I think that this is a brilliant pairing because of the way the wood is able to provide a contrast to the light petals of the rose while also adding its own texture to the image. 

About the Photographer:

Ansel Adams was an environmentalist as well as a photographer which is evident through his work. He was also highly praised for his photographic technique, which he perfected over his many years of work. Taken directly from the Ansel Adams Gallery Website, “Adams’s technical mastery was the stuff of legend. More than any creative photographer, before or since, he reveled in the theory and practice of the medium. Weston and Strand frequently consulted him for technical advice. He served as principal photographic consultant to Polaroid and Hasselblad and, informally, to many other photographic concerns. Adams developed the famous and highly complex “zone system” of controlling and relating exposure and development, enabling photographers to creatively visualize an image and produce a photograph that matched and expressed that visualization. He produced ten volumes of technical manuals on photography, which are the most influential books ever written on the subject.” His “zone system” technique is what we would know today as burning and dodging, as most of his work for fine tuning his photos happened in the dark room. As he became so intune with his photography equipment and technique, he was able to do light readings without equipment and take photos on the go within seconds. He also liked to capture images that captured such a wide frame of space. Knowing, by instinct, the shutter and aperture of the images he was going to take, he only would need to take one or two photos of a scene, in case something went wrong in the dark room, something that is completely different to the way we use out digital cameras today, taking hundreds of photos in order to adjust to get the right shot. Another important thing to him was to get across a strong message of conservation by showing off the environment through his photographs, as well as trying to convey emotions through these images. http://anseladams.com/ansel-adams-bio/

My Idea:

My idea for changing his image Rose and Driftwood, 1932 is to juxtapose the very alive looking black and white rose with the petals of a dying rose, which will be in colour. The meaning is to show how photographs can preserve the beauty of an object while in real life they will eventually die off.

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Research Project 2

Artist 1: Artie Vierkant

Image Objects

http://artievierkant.com/imageobjects2015.php

Artist Statement:

Image Objects are works that exist at the interstice between the physical object and the mediated image. The series is titled for the idea of this divide itself, in a time when our understanding of objects comes equally from our physical interaction with them as well as the contexts and frequency with which we encounter images of those objects, and when representational autonomy can be interrupted with highly commonplace tools for copying, altering, and reclaiming images. As I have written elsewhere, an environment in which ‘everything is anything else’.

Each time Image Objects are officially documented the installation views are altered before their release, whether printed in a publication or distributed online. This process is intended to allow the objects to continue to shift and evolve aesthetically, just as the compositions of the pieces themselves are an ongoing and fluid process. This poses an intervention into the space of the installation view itself—-the venue of representation—-to turn what we are used to thinking of as a ‘mediated’ experience of the work into a direct experience. The installation views become works in their own right, as well as an extension of the embodiment of the fabricated objects on view, without the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ methods of viewing the work.

My Commentary: 

Looking at another website with information on this artist, I notice that they say he often uses a blend of his own photographs and other digital media to make his sculptures. I think this particular installation is interesting because of the colours and geometric angles that take up the space. The way the pieces are arranged really make the eye move around the space, something that is very important in sculpture. From the images above, I take a sense that these pieces are to represent the different angles in which you can view the world, as all the colours are so bright but change from every different angle you take on the main sculpture. I would say that these pieces are successful in intriguing me, but now as successful in getting a clear message across, which I feel like the artist is trying to do. 

Artist 2: Kate Steciw

Exhibition: Constructions

https://www.widewalls.ch/kate-steciw-exhibition-brand-new-gallery/

Artist Statement: 

Kate Steciw is a New York-based artist whose work practices are challenging the medium of photography. Favoring imagery purchased online and further manipulating them, her work examines the understanding of the physical object and its digital representation and distribution. With a long-term experience in photo retouching where she first started to play with other people’s photos and take joy in it, she has decided to evolve this play into fine art. The stock images she uses are removed from their commercial context once they become a part of her collage, becoming art objects instead. In this way, she finds new meaning in photographs originally intended for a much mundane purpose. Exploring how images are made, function, and articulate in the digital world, her work pushes boundaries of contemporary photography to the extent that it could be even interpreted as being outside the medium. Often inspired by popular media and mass media, her work can be associated with the post-internet movement.

My commentary:

This particular artist’s blend of photography and sculpture is more apparent as you can quite clearly tell the photographic elements in the piece. I like that these pieces are constructed in a way that they are meant to be hing, because in my opinion it brings more movement than a mounted or simply flat-sitting piece. This hanging allows for the piece to move freely. Form these works in particular I don’t really take much because I am so distracted by the intense lines and movement that I am unable to think much about the meaning. In this sense, I would say that these constructions are quite successful for this very reason, because I enjoy artwork that doesn’t require me to think about the meaning, rather I can just enjoy looking at it.

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Reading Response 2

There does not appear to be a direct argument in this text, as the author states that the purpose of the essay is to describe the change in public perspective on the interwoven relationship between photograph and sculpture. I guess that one way to look at this would be to say whether or not people did change their opinion on the new art form but from the turnout of the event in 1970 versus that in 2011, it is clear that as time went on, people found a better appreciation for the blend. There is no doubt that the progression of people beginning to appreciate this new art form came with much trial and error, but it is fascinating that it took so long for people to fully appreciate the artistic thought and effort that went into such pieces. Thinking about this from the standpoint of someone who is about to go into a project where both sculpture and photography will play a large role, I am intrigued by all of the different ways the artists went about creating their unique works. Shirley Tse in her 1999 work Diaspora? Touristy? simply incorporated sculpture into her photograph, while Anthony Pearson’s 2007 untitled arrangement incorporated a mixture of sculpture and photograph (which is more similar to what we will be doing for Project 2). Overall I am very intrigued by the combinations that one can create through using both sculpture and photography, and I think that I will definitely continue to explore this field in the future.

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Final Submission Project 1-Interventions

Intervention 1: Manmade Nature

The concept behind this intervention was to create a “beautiful environment” through artificial means. The title of the work is an oxymoron to represent the concept, as manmade things can not be natural. Through this intervention, I am trying to show that though this image may look beautiful and pleasing to the eye, it is covering up the true beauty of the natural environment in a harmful way (the artificial leaves are made of plastic balloons filled with water and plastic is one of the main pollutants to the environment.) Just as the plastic pollutes the environment, the color pollutes the natural beauty of the winter scene.

Intervention 2: “Natural” Light

This intervention is to convey the idea that light pollution is taking over the true beauty of the stars in the night sky. We are constantly unable to see the stars in the night sky because of the light pollution from streetlights and buildings, and this is something that most people don’t think about because of how we as a society have grown used to the presence of this seemingly “natural” source of light. Because of this, the appreciation for the true beauty of the night sky is being drowned out. By putting the star lights into the hazy bottle, I hoped to convey this message, as well as the inclusion of the bright street lights in the background to drown out the effect of the star lights. 

Intervention 3: 

This intervention is to show how we are using trees to make books when books are just being neglected by society because of the turn to technology. Books were a valuable resource before the rise in technological uses, but now they are going to such waste because of e-materials. 

Extra Intervention: Trash Bird

This extra intervention was to show how pollution is affecting the birds in the environment. I tried to convey this message by making trash into the shape of a bird, then setting it into a natural environment, as if the garbage was taking the place of the birds. There were a few problems along the way, however, leading to the image not turning out as well as I had liked.

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Exercise 3--Photoshop

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Exercise 2-- Interventions Practice

Intervention 1:

This is the first image for my intervention and this is the political image. This photo was taken in the Anime Interest Floor Library collection, and I feel that by placing the laptop on the stack of books it symbolizes how technology is taking over paper media. To further the message, I even pulled up an e-book on the computer screen to emphasize my point.

Intervention 2:

This is the second image I took for the interventions assignment and this is the Natural Environment intervention. By placing the bottles and cans on the tree branches, I am commentating about the pollution that is so prevalent in our natural environment. This could be seen similarly to ho leaves would be on a tree as well, still along the theme of pollution.

Intervention 3:

This is the third and final image I took for the intervention assignment and this is the Commercial intervention. Taken in Hillside Market, the placement of the overturned basket with one item and coins scattered around, I am trying to convey the idea that the prices are completely insane in this particular place, making it hard for some students to purchase food.

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ADV Photo Exercise 1

Below are the three (four) photos I liked best from the ones I took during Exercise 1.

Bubbles:

f/ 10.0, Shutter Speed 1/160, ISO 200

Portrait:

f/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/6, ISO 400

Tree:

f/ 10.0, Shutter Speed 0.3, ISO 800

Faucet:

f/ 5.0, Shutter Speed 0.8, ISO 800

I was a little saddened by the fact that I couldn’t get this last image to be clear. The tripod I have is very unstable and when I let my finger off the shutter to take the photo, the camera shakes a little. This shake seems to be present throughout all of my images as none of them really appear to be that clear.

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ADV Photo- Research Project 1 “Interventions”

Artist 1: SpY

Examples:

“CCTV”

link http://spy-urbanart.com/work/cctv/#id9

“Saarbrüken - Germany, 2019

Circle shaped formation made with security dummy cameras.

Urban art biennale Völklingen”

What message do I take from the work?

Looking at the piece “CCTV,” I think that there is a great amount of commentary on the amount of surveillance that goes on in the world. Given that this piece was done in Germany, out of all other countries in Europe, this has a little more weight than if it would have been somewhere else, like England for example. Germany, as well as its neighbouring country Austria, has extreme privacy laws that make the amount of CCTV cameras in operation very limited around the country. In recent years, they have slightly increased their camera expansion, but this is still a big commentary on CCTV as a whole. On the one hand, CCTV is beneficial to the people being surveilled, but on the other hand, it does decrease the amount of privacy that people have in their day to day lives. By putting the cameras in such close range and in a circular pattern in particular, I feel that SpY is trying to get across the idea that the CCTV in most countries is unnecessary od overdone. The circular pattern of the cameras enhances the idea that you are being watched, that you are constantly surrounded by and trapped in by the cameras. In this sense, I believe that this work is very successful in getting across it’s ideas as it has conveyed a very strong meaning to me. 

“Swastika”

link http://spy-urbanart.com/work/swastika/

“Mumbai - India, 2017

Swastika hindi symbol painted in red on the pillars of the water tank in the fishing port SassoonDock.

Swastika is one of the oldest symbols in human being history and it has been used over the years by many cultures across all five continents. The word “swastika” comes from Sanskrit, which root “swati” means wellbeing, good luck, success and prosperity. It is an extremely ancient form of greeting, good augury and wish for happiness and success. It also can mean: good, successfully, goodbye, healthy, health! so be it!

St+art india, Mumbai - India 2017″

What message do I take from the work

From SpY’s installation “Swastika,” I have the feeling that there is a strong commentary about the meaning of the symbol in different environments. Of course, the meaning that most people would associate with the Swastika is the Nazis, because of the German’s use of the symbol in and around the second world war. However, the reason that the NSDAP chose to use this symbol was for its original meaning, which was that of prosperity and good luck. This original meaning was derived from Hinduism. Because this piece is on display in India, the local populus that is viewing the art is likely only going to see it as this symbol of good luck, whereas if this had been on display in Europe, it would likely have been met with bad connotations and a negative reaction. 

Artist's Statement (SpY):

“SpY is an urban artist whose first endeavors date back to the mid-eighties. Shortly after, already a national reference as a graffiti artist, he started to explore other forms of artistic communication in the street. His work involves the appropiation urban elements through transformation or replication, commentary on urban reality, and the interference in its communicative codes.

The bulk of his production stems from the observation of the city and an appreciation of its components, not as inert elements but as a palette of materials overflowing with possibilities. His ludic spirit, careful attention to the context of each piece, and a not invasive, constructive attitude, unmistakably characterize his interventions.

SpY's pieces want to be a parenthesis in the automated inertia of the urban dweller. They are pinches of intention, hidden in a corner for whoever wants to let himself be surprised. Filled with equal parts of irony and positive humor, they appear to raise a smile, incite reflection, and to favor an enlightened conscience.”

Artist 2: Sath

Example:

“Con-Tenedor”

link https://www.boredpanda.com/street-art-urban-interventions-sandro-thomas/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

What message do I take from the work?

Well looking at the Artist’s statement below then going back to my limited knowledge from High School Spanish class, I see the pun in the title of the Artwork quite clearly, which helps me to decipher the meaning of the piece. “Contenedor” means container, but his splitting of the word into Con-Tenedor (Con meaning with, and Tenedor meaning fork) enables the viewer to make more sense as to why the title is what it is. It’s a garbage can (or garbage container) with the painted fork seeming to reach into it, which seems to be a commentary on poverty and how the homeless population sometimes has to resort to eating garbage to survive. In this sense, I believe that this image is very successful and I love the combination of the physical garbage can with the painting on the wall behind it. 

Artist's Statement

“My moniker is Sath. I am a Bangkok-based Spanish-born painter and graphic designer. I have been painting on the streets for over a decade now, always trying to capture reality while twisting it my own way, usually sharing the satirical yet humorous results openly with bystanders; actions of everyday life, through slightly surreal figurative elements.

Most of my works are inspired by the location where the intervention is carried out, sometimes an object, a texture or a hole in a wall. In other cases, the artwork title (usually a pun) leads me to represent the idea and search for the right place to express it.

My communication tools are mainly spray cans, although sometimes I also use brushes or rollers especially when using acrylic paint at the studio.”