talbottobey

[talbottobey]

The exhibition I chose to indulge in include photographers Sam Abell, Alice Austen, Mack Cohen, Stephen Gill, Lonnie Graham, Justine Kurland, Lori Nix, Bill Owens, Sheron Rupp, Collier Schorr, and Mike Slack. The exhibition is called “The Photographer in the Garden” and it is located in Staten Island, New York. There is about 15 photographs within the exhibition, all displayed in a beautiful home setting. The dimensions of the photographs vary, but seem to average at around 4ftx4ft. The installation provides a feeling of comfort, as you walk through rooms that resemble the warmth of a home. “The Photographer in the Garden” is an exhibition that portrays the excitement and inspiration brought to artist’s within gardens. Since the beginning of photography, photographers have naturally been drawn towards the beauty that a garden can hold.

The first photograph that caught my eye more so than others shows a man standing in a beautifully colored garden full of healthy plants, leaning on what seems to be a rake. The way he leans on the rake gives me a sense that he is resting after taking care of his cherished plants. It is taken on a wide angle lens and includes a view of almost every square inch of the garden. The second picture is a simple, yet familiar picture of a trimmed hedge in black and white.The reason this pleased me is because I feel as though I’ve seen this hedge before. The way the image was taken doesn't show much other than the beautiful shaped hedge and the grass it sits upon. Even though it is taken in black and white, I can see the color.

These photographers that worked on these pieces seem to have a great fascination with the contents of a garden and the beauty that only nature can portray. I personally have critique, as I find myself photographing nature often. Nothing beats the untouched beauty of nature.

Noah Dark

[talbottobey]

This photo from the internet comes with a short piece of writing that states, “Some slaves were diagnosed with a "mental illness" in which the slave possessed an "irrational desire for freedom."” This was a slave owners way of obtaining more control, convincing the slaves it made no sense that they wanted to be free.

In Willis' Picturing Us, an image of a "Young Black Girl Holding a White Baby" shows in the eyes of the subjects that there is more to the picture than meets the eye. A quote from the reading correlates the image with the one from the internet I chose above. "There is a self-consciousness depicted in the photograph. As the woman holds tightly to the baby's hand, her eyes speak of a sense of loss--loss of self and identity." The photograph I found speaks the same message to me. There is a sense of loss of identity and self, as she stares emotionless into the camera, seemingly attempting to force a smile. The cruel slave owners at the time felt entitled to tell slaves their desire to be set free is unreasonable, so slowly the slaves lose hope and purpose.

Noah Dark

[talbottobey]

Corrine Day shot these images in attempt to portray the young, alternative people taking over the streets of SOHO. She uses her model friends as the subjects, while showing different instances of them posing, dancing, and doing other things pertaining to the stereotypes of their lifestyle. The creativity of Day in this exhibition allows the viewer to dive into the culture of the 90s.

This image intrigues me more than any other I've seen this year. The ability to capture the overall artsy vibe of the subject, without providing any form of color or specific detail is amazing to me. As the subject lights a cigarette almost as if they've done it a million times, I can't help but notice the nonchalant attitude they are portraying. The contrast between the hat, hair, and face leave me wanting to see the face of this person. Although, the image would not be as intriguing to me if it was composed any other way.

Noah Dark

[talbottobey]

Lunch Break. (3200)

Prince Street is me and my friend's favorite place for a slice of pizza.

James. (3200)

One of my best friends from home visited, so I took him to some of the stores I frequently visit.

Late Night Chat. (3200)

Dani and Joe talking about who knows what.

William. (3200)

My roommate. We are very similar. I spend most of my time with him.

By the Pier. (400)

At pier 40 people watching. Something I do to pass time.

At the Mall. (400)

Spontaneous trip uptown with my roommate Tristan. Something we do together often.

Concrete Sky. (400)

Sometimes I look up and just stare. The buildings against the sky amaze me.

Bad Posture. (100)

Tristan looking at his phone, but in a very concerning way.

Noah Dark

[talbottobey]

Life in New York is much different than life back at home. Tall buildings, ginormous crowds of people, and endless concrete sidewalks are new to me since I moved here 2 and a half years ago. I appreciate the characteristics of New York, but there's nothing I miss more than the easy access to all aspects of nature. The ocean, vast mountain ranges, beautiful trees, and large grass fields. The availability to these things I cherish is very limited in New York City. To compensate, I enjoy exploring new areas that keep me momentarily distracted. One of these areas being the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I wandered around the garden for hours, documenting all of its beauty. It may not be what I'm used to back home, but the joy I felt here is enough for me.

Noah Dark

[talbottobey]

Spending a lot of time trying to figure out a theme that could bind all my photographs together left me feeling unfulfilled. While looking through the various moments I captured, I felt as though there was no theme. This brought me back to the reason I got interested in photography in the first place. Moments that give me a feeling in which other moments lack. Moments that I want to document for future appreciation. What one sees as a picture with no purpose, I see memories that I wish could last permanently. Memories that portray specific emotions, feelings, and thoughts of mine.

Each group of pictures correlates to a color, and those colors correlate to the feeling the images give me. Black and white pictures have the power to show feelings and emotions without the beauty of color. For me personally, each color works to animate the images at hand in order to recreate the moment, both visually and emotionally. Light blue, one of my favorite colors, is paired with images I took at pier 40. Pier 40 is somewhere I go to relax and ease my mind, as the ocean water is the closest thing I can get to my favorite part about being back home in Malibu, the ocean. Orange resembles a time of warmth and laughter that only my closest friends can provide me with. Yellow represents the bright environment the images take place in, full of light and life. The red is paired with two eerie images of what seemed to be an abandoned, trashed parking lot with a mysteriously empty structure. Nature is something else I miss seeing in an abundance, yet the city still holds some of its beauty. The Brooklyn Botanical Garden filled that hole in my concrete New York lifestyle, so green felt the most fitting. Gray is for the subway, which I correlate with metal, mundane faces sitting across from me, and a plain color wave that covers the walls and floors of the train. I chose dark blue to resemble someone deep in thought, as I came across this man staring into the distance with little to no movement for countless minutes. No-one around him, just himself and his thoughts, which made me wonder what he was thinking about. Lastly, purple portrays a lazy night conversation with friends. Purple represents both the night sky and the tone of conversation. The viewer may or may not agree with my choices, but everyone is special in a way that different moments bring different feelings that only the individual can understand or relate to.

Noah Dark

[talbottobey]

New York Afternoon

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VLrAVc0nhAePdLYMWBdzOgy-_yo2Z8wI?usp=sharing

In this project, I was heavily inspired by Henri Bresson’s works, especially by which named America in Passing depicting that Bresson, being an outsider, came to the US using an objective attitude to observe New York City as well as the country. He preferred to express via black-white portraits, while I prefer landscapes. I wish to record the view of New York City in my eyes via a positive and optimistic attitude. When I was in New York as an international student, everything was too fast for me: people’s steps, the speed of their talks, and the workload they need to complete in a short period of time. While I was trying to keep pace with the rhythm of life here, I didn’t want ‘everything in a speeded-up mode’ in which I would miss the tiny and pleasant details. Hence, I wanted to record the moments of peace here in the fast lifestyle, giving myself a chance to breathe. Since personally, I believe that only a slow-paced lifestyle will enable me to see more views of the city, I prefer to live in a world where everything is in slow-motion. Hence in the permutations of the photos, I chose to pair ‘city’ and ‘nature’ together, which I consider as the contrast between ‘dynamic’ and ‘static’ states. I’m seeking peace and positiveness in my works. Being an international student, I want to ‘take notes of what I have learned and seen in this city. Everything here might be usual routines for New Yorkers, but they are fresh to me.

In this project, I was trying to find different combinations of colors. To reach the ideal colors I was looking for, I tried different iOS, different apertures, different shutters. At the same time, I tried different cameras inclusive of digital cameras, film cameras, and iPhones. Different media enabled me to have different types of colors. Through different experiments, I found that the color in the afternoon was the closest to my ideal. The photos I selected were basically when the sun was about to set. This is truly an experimental move that I found very intriguing.

Ava

[talbottobey]

What we encountered in childhood became the archetype that keeps reappearing in adult life. These archetypes are imperfect, mixed with raw and unresolved fears，desires and happiness. They are revelatory. I am trying to capture the camfoulged archetypes in my life now. Photography allows me to indirectly approach them.

I have this feeling that the vision, the memory that drives me to press the shutter button is always the same one. The one vision that feels similar to the moment when the little mermaid dissolves into foam as the sun rises, when the tangible world looks weightless. But I could only use analogy to describe what has been hanging in my mind. Some of these images help reveal the “truth” that I want to find, and I call them “what is it”. They represent what has touched and keeps touching me the most. Through the medium of photography, the memories and the visions reconfigure themselves into images that are familiar and foreign to me at the same time.

I try to give these themeless photographs themes, and they are: Disorder in order, The Mushroom Park, There Will Be Nonsense, Order in Disorder, And Here I Landed. They follow a timeline, when some reconstructions happen after some overthrow of beliefs and rituals. In The Mushroom Park and There Will Be Nonsense I try to recreate some childhood scenes, like a similar playground or similar sunlights. Disorder in Order and Order in Disorder are me trying to rebuild orders to guide my life, and trying to find something constant and worth trusting.

Floy

[talbottobey]

The contents of someone’s bag tells a lot about the individual, what their passions are, where they are at, and what baggage they may be holding onto. Everyday I see the women in my life leave their home with a tote, purse, or bag. Once in a while I will peek into my own bag, clearing out what I’ve been carrying the past couple of weeks that I no longer need. Oftentimes I am perplexed by what I pick up along the way, a random hot sauce packet, a silver spoon, wrappers, tampons. The contents of one’s bag are personal, vulnerable, and weird. It is an insight into someone’s world. I wondered to myself, what does my bag say about where I am at right now? If I put my belongings in a glass box, returning to it 6 months later, would I know exactly where I was at in that point of time? The belongings in someone’s bag can be a pipeline to the baggage in one’s life. As I gathered people I knew with purses, who were willing to let me explore their most private collection of belongings, I could see them tensing up. Over and over again I would hear about how uncomfortable it felt to have someone sifting through their purse. It felt as if someone was peaking into their own secrets and shadows. The act of going through one’s purse became parallel with the act of asking about someone’s baggage, a topic many of us turn a blind eye to. I was largely intrigued by the vulnerabilities that Sophie Calle showed in her photographs of hotel rooms. It was my goal to show the parallels between the vulnerabilities of people’s belongings in their purses, and the baggage everyone carries around with them, whether it is positive or not.

-Trillium

[talbottobey]

You belong here is an exploration of things that belong and those that do not. By capturing mundane, everyday experiences as well as strange outliers of our expectations, I hoped to highlight the strange aspects of what we consider to be normal and the ways in which nothing—including ourselves—is ever truly where it belongs. The collection is an attempt to make the viewer uncomfortable in the way I am at all times using benign photographs. One of the goals of this project was to capture very sporadic and sudden situations. The largest issue for this project was the use and experimentation with different types of film which lead to several exposures being unusable.

- Michael Poltronieri Tang

[talbottobey]

For my final project, I took heavy inspiration from Roy DeCarava, where the world appears subdued by shades of grey through his lens. I wandered through the city, trying to emulate and capture the ‘softness’ from passersby’s movements and expressions.

I also tried to incorporate Ray Metzker’s composites into the project, hoping that the diptychs and collages would evoke emotion and allow their stories to be told more compellingly.

- Edwin Lau

[talbottobey]

The Dichotomy of 2 Dreams - Nika Volfson

The grass is always greener on the other side.

When I first moved to Arizona before high school, I spent my high school years despising the state. I really longed to return to the East Coast and to the friends, experiences, and culture that I was familiar with.

When I was accepted to transfer to NYU, I thought it was my golden ticket out and that I’d never return other than for mandatory holidays that require some family time. As I really began to get used to NYC, I realized that I actually missed Arizona tremendously. I missed the friends and relationships I had as well as so many things I took for granted such as being surrounded by nature and always having a vast amount of space wherever I went. I also realized that NYC is a lot harder to adjust to compared to what I expected and it’s not always as romantic of a city as it comes off to those who haven’t lived there yet.

For this project, I chose to take some of my favorite memories that I collected over Thanksgiving break in Arizona and reflect upon those with aspects of New York City that I’ve grown to love as well. Most of the images were taken around sunset but I wanted to move the viewer into realizing I was now talking about New York City by transforming all the images taken into black and white pieces.

The project itself made me realize that there will probably never be the perfect place or the ideal city for me to live in. There are things that Arizona has that New York City could never give but also experiences within New York City that Arizona could never bring as well… and that creates the dichotomy of two dreams.

[talbottobey]

Here & There - Tyler Orbin

Link to final project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19kEIIq5Jg_ZuWG_W_ctOsHrTMMQJE421/view?usp=sharing

[talbottobey]

When I looked into what I wanted to do for this project, I thought of creating a topic that all people could relate to. My anxiety has always been an uphill battle for me and one of the ways I am able to cope with it is through seeking comfort in certain activities. Whether it is hot showers or skateboarding, everyone has a niche that helps them release built up tension. This project allowed me to follow around people I care for and document the intimate ways in which they find comfort. I found these activities to be personal and eye opening for me. I was able to see how all people are connected in a very fundamental way. Everyone needs a source of support and a way for themselves to breath more lightly.

Nina Lipkind

[talbottobey]

The one from the ocean will always have an ocean in their heart

Slidshow Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11Sohpax1xw8pse30Dl1YViZ1f11ZaCYSbaMpjAtC4tc/edit?usp=sharing

I am from a small island in Korea. I explored this sense of home throughout the semester through photographs, and I thought it was best to revert back to the theme for the final project. Originally, I planned on photographing dogs and owners in New York to connect to myself and my own dog. However, with that came challenges of having access to places such as dog parks. Therefore, I took a different route and therefore added to the theme of finding home and comfort not only in dogs but also in the landscape. While doing so, I also wanted to explore the idea of feeling alienated in New York. I lived in New York since 2017, and although I have gotten used to calling New York home, it is not exactly home. I also find comfort and joy when I'm with my dog, and the fact that I'm not with her makes me constantly worried about her. The fact that I am separated from something that I care about so deeply, I realized, may be the reason why I feel so alone in this city full of life. With graduation coming up and debating between going back o Korea and staying here in New York, the one question in my mind was "am I really a part of New York?"

However, there is a beach in New York. Although very different from the ones I saw growing up, it is a beach. There are dogs (so many dogs) and I find myself little happier whenever I see one enjoying their time with their owners. It simply reminds me of home, and to find traces of home in strangers in a strange city, is something fascinating to me.

By going through photos I took from home in the past and photos I have taken for this course, I have complied images that both describe the feeling of home and alienation. The cameras I used vary from a DSLR to a point-and-shoot film camera, and films vary from color to black and white. Some photos are very recent, and some photos are from a year ago. I tried to make a diptych for most of the photographs to compare and contrast the feeling of connection and estrangement. The title is from a cartoon series I read a while back. The main character is from Busan, a harbor city in Korea, and at the end of her life, she comes back to the beach and thinks of the connection she has with the ocean. That line resonated with me, and I felt as though it would be a title that encapsulated the theme.

Chloe Yang

[talbottobey]

New York Days

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1igFyK-lEKlePsLfYWLjDJKaiZCMUexXT/view?usp=sharing - Video Link

My goal with “New York Days” was to capture a feeling that should resonate with any person who has spent any amount of time in the city. Having spent my entire life in New York, I often take the environment for granted, so I was hoping to get a chance to put my finger on what makes it so special. I choose to focus on small idiosyncrasies, locations, and details which, to me, exemplify the city, and my goal is to transport the viewer into the mindset they have when wandering around the city, as I have spent so much time doing over the past several months. While working on this project, I carried a digital camera the size of my palm around with me everywhere I went, hoping to capture beautiful moments of mundanity. Through the combination of my images and selected music and sound effects, I hope to convey the feelings I often have when walking through and exploring the city. Landscapes that are crowded yet personal, sounds that are disruptive yet calming, and images that are unappealing yet elegant.

The camera I used is one that I have often experimented with for video, and I have always been fascinated by the low tech visual quality of the images. The camera is wholly digital and flawed, but I believe it is the perfect tool with which to capture New York. I would actively search for glitches in my images. Distorted lines, blown out lights, and dead pixels seemed to emphasize the city’s distinct grime and flavor. It was difficult to find the right way to pair these images together, and so I began to craft them into a narrative of seeming monotony. I wanted this video to bring these images to life and carry out a scene of a New York Day that anyone who has lived here has experienced. 

- Jason Zuriff

[talbottobey]

The Waste Around Us

Watch Video Here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OFZSnVHrMBrRo9YyduatrY7hYeuA6AOJ/view?usp=sharing 

“The Waste Around Us” explores the impacts of the overwhelming and all-consuming trash and food waste in New York city that we are forced to live amongst everyday. However, even though we coexist with the trash around us, we are rarely asked to grapple with its implications. It is easy to become desensitized to the smells and sites of waste and trash in New York and eventually it becomes all too easy to disregard what your eyes are seeing. The lack of interest from politicians to improve trash, food waste, and food insecurity in the city makes ignoring the problem even easier. This project asks the viewer to question, are we doing enough to stop the amount of waste occurring everyday in New York and to question the ethics of thousands of pounds of usable, edible food being left on the street when 1.5 million New Yorkers are hungry?

In this project I spent time on the streets photographing the trash and waste around us and interviewed people throughout this process to get their opinions on waste in New York. I shot two rolls of film outside of a trash dump site in Stuyvesant town and spent many hours shooting in the NYU dining hall. The photos are in both color and black and white with a focus on the actual trash on the street as well as how people interact with the trash. I shot over six rolls of film, but did not realize until I got all of them developed that my camera was broken and not advancing properly. Many rolls, including all photos from the dining hall, came back completely blank and unusable. Other rolls had a double exposure and even sometimes a triple exposure effect on the majority of the photos. While this was a monumental set back given I discovered this only a week before completing this project, I found that this effect in many ways added a new meaning and understanding to trash in the city.

The color photos, in particular, take a more narrative approach rather than a documentary one. However, the way photos of trash are overlaid multiple times adds to the feeling that there is an infinite amount of trash creating a sense of helplessness. The photo of trash overlaid on top of a large building creates a feeling that the trash is just as tall and overpowering as the city's tallest skyscrapers. It asks who owns this city, who takes up the most space? What gets the attention of our eyes? Is the cityscape of New York buildings or is it trash? The color photos also struck me because they created a kind of abstract composition bursting with lights and colors. After interviewing one person on the street who said that sometimes the trash was almost beautiful because of all the colors, I gained a new perspective on the photos in front of me. In some ways she was right. All of the intricate colors, the way trash is piled up and balanced on small carts, and even the countless soda cans in plastic bags creates a sort of repulsive yet beautiful sight.

Bibliography for statistics at the end of video:

“Food Waste in America | Feeding America.” Feedingamerica.org, 2020, www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/our-approach/reduce-food-waste. 

Stewart, Nikita and Heisler, Todd. “1.5 Million New Yorkers Can’t Afford Food. Pantries Are Their Lifeline”. The New York TImes, Oct. 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/20/nyregion/nyc-food-banks.html.

“USDA ERS - Key Statistics & Graphics.” Usda.gov, 2017, www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx. 

J‌ulia Barlow