Artist's Statement

When you think of the big cities, you normally think of crowed streets, flowing traffic and just lots of people in general. The city is usually that last place where someone would paint a picture of feeling isolated. But sometimes, this is the place where people can feel the loneliest of all. Being in a crowd can make one feel blended into the background and overlooked, almost unseen like a ghost. I played with this feeling of loneliness in the big city and worked with it, but in a more literal sense. In this series called “The Big City”, I took a model out into the city and shot him all by himself in the background. Then manipulated the images to make them appear almost ghost like. Taking the feeling that so many people feel and turning it into an image to possibly relate to.

Possibility of text?

When asked to consider text with my body of work, I was a little hesitent to jump on that idea, I am not sure if the over all look will go with the mysterious ghost like fugures. I think it may take away from analizing the photo and looking further in. But I will try it out and see how it works.

Artist's Book Websites

The book I found to be most interesting and just caught my eye was one published by a Tsunami Relief Effort Group intitled "Images to Brighten Out World". Their description: We invite you to enjoy this timeless collection of images with a sprinkling of poignant quotes and snippets from these trying times. This anthology allows the artists to contribute to those that so desperately need help. This is a way for Lulu.com to extend a long-term contribution to the children of this devastating event. And this is a way for you to support the relief efforts of Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, The Salvation Army, and the Humane Society International.

The images on the cover were just ones of beauty that is one this earth that make you sit back and apperciate what we have here. It also is neat that all the money they make selling this book goes to a relief fund. Making art and helping out others. This suggest that digital photography can widen our perspective and knowledge about the world so we are able to better help those in need.

Position Paper 2

Pixel Surgeons spotlights on manipulations of the body of modern modes of fashion photography and advertising through digitalization in fashion photography. Dawber states that the boundaries are being pushed to breaking-point and what emerges is more reflective of the artist’s soul. He feels fashion photography now is a reflection of the photographer and his/her emotions and creativity. However, Sekula’s article focuses on the criminal body by file and composite photography, a detailed record and database of body images. So, Sekula writes of images before digital photography was created, thinking of how it could be used in a more practical sense for cataloging and quicker reference tool. Dawber discusses the possibilities created by digital photography; through manipulations, the artist has a new medium to express their creativity.

The world of digital photography has allowed the capture of Aiken’s concept of the landscape to be easily accessible. Environments and photographs can be infinitely altered with the programming tools of photo manipulation software. Our interpretation of a landscape can be influenced simply by the way an artist chooses to portray the image, being images and/or text. Aiken see’s landscapes in many different ways and portrays this within his book. A landscape in photography is how the photographer sees it’s; it no longer has to be the reality. It is now open to artistic creativity and perspective.

Work-In-Progress

Position Paper

After going back and forth on ideas, I believe I now have a solid direction for my project. In this series of photographs, I will be taking a male model down town in Toledo and having him pose, stand and whatever else throughout the city. Then after I collect my shots, we move into digital manipulation. I will be going into either Photoshop or Illustrator to be changing only his figure into a vector image, while leaving the background of the city realistic. I may even reverse the process to have both sides of the picture looked at in different ways. I will call this series, "His World". It’s not the real world, but how he lives and coincides with his environment. I will possibly turn this series into a coffee table book for that way they will all be together for a better understanding of the whole series. I want to have many images because one thing about digital photography for me is the ability to create multiple images with little to no hassle. There is no concern on wasting film because space is almost infinite. You also don’t have to take the time to print out each individual picture. Don’t get me wrong, the process of traditional photography will never be replaced, it is just more convenient for large mass media. This is one point that Fox Talbot comments on. It’s the fact that you can produce copies of an area or objects quicker than you can with drawing. He took photographs of down town Paris, all in detail and with little time. So with inspiration from James Bond’s Casino Royale and the beauty of the city, I have my direction for this project.

New Approach

After the class discussion and seeing new ideas I began to rethink my approach for this first project. After seeing the animation from the TV show Mad Men, it made me think of the opening credit scene of Casino Royale and it inspired me.

(A little shot of the opening credits)
I know the beginning idea was to super impose objects like the Sony video, however after seeing these new works of art, I want to add more to it.
While shooting downtown, I was just messing around and took a shot of my boyfriend with the city behind. Then after I played around with making just him look like those guys and keeping the city realistic. I think I am going to keep my original idea, but add on the element of a characteristic person with in the background.

Here is the beginning stages and a starting off point for more of what I want to do with these photographs.

Ideas for my Project

I was inspired by the Sony video advertisement with the colored bouncy balls that filled the natural city environment with the playful atmosphere of a field of unnatural bouncy balls engulfing the frame. I am taking this idea and turning it into stills rather than video. I will take images of places and add in unnatural elements that are normally not found in the scene. I want to have fun with these pictures and create a colorful environment. The scenes will be uninhabited by people or animals, just barren landscapes and inside buildings like this image below.

I will experiment with these and see how they turn out...

Colour Like No Other

This is a link to a video that I was introduced to in my Time_Based class. I just love watching this video and the fact that its not digitally created is amazing to think that it actually happened. I love the contrast and the formality of it all so check it out.

http://www.bravia-advert.com/balls/braviaextcommhigh.html

Pencil of Nature

This photograph represents the concept described in Plate X, in which he states that a painter or a artists cannot faithfully copy a scene in nature because in the time it takes to create that scene, the moment would pass and they would have to improvise to recreate it when using traditional means. In this photo, I took an image of the moon in the early night sky. With out a camera, I would have to remember this image that best I could, still it would not work as best as it can with a camera.


The topic of discussion in Plate III is one stating that no matter how complicated an arrangement can be, a camera can capture it in an instant, while traditional means would consume so much time in order to get the detail that a camera can get. In this photo, there are a series of lines and details that would be very tedious to recreate.


One other point that the authors makes in Plate XIV is that with a camera, you can easly get a portrait of multipule people with out charging more or taking more time to create. This photograph of the orchestra would take alot of time to create but again with a camera, it would only be an instant.