Sontag "On Photography" Reflection

When reading Susan Sontag's article "On Photography" I kept going back and thinking about the video I watched earlier with David Hockney. At the beginning of the video he talks about photography as an art that is much simpler than working on a painting but then again it's not. It's thinking of that split second that you want to capture and how you are going to develop this image and then mount it and all the back story that no one really thinks about, unless you are a photographer.

Sontag also brings up the same point a little but also goes a little deeper. Talking about how photographs are an easy, handheld thing and can be reproduced multiple times. Adding them into a book can make them last even longer than they could as an image alone.  It's all things that you kind of think about but don't really think that much about unless it somehow comes up or, like I said before, you're a photographer. 

Think Hockney

Today in class we watched a video on David Hockney and the way his visions become a reality in a final product. All I could think the entire time was, I love the way he thinks and I love the way he works.

He went through the motions of deciding on what to photograph, and thought about it for a long period of time. Slowly making his way to finally photographing the event, and filming the event to show a difference in photo and video. He then, because of the time he was doing this, had to take the film to a one-hour photo service to develop his film. Sadly they messed up two rolls, but hey it happens. I know it happened to me a couple times when I was first getting into photography, a roll of film gets messed up and you move on. He did great at moving on. He worked with what he had. Even a note left by the man who developed the film and messed up the two rolls he incorporated into the final project. 

Overall, like I said in the beginning, I absolutely love the way he thinks about his subjects. I want to think more like Hockney. I like that he used to think, exhibitions of photos weren't a big deal. Then did an experiment with a grid of Polaroids and got inspired. A new way of thinking of photography. Creating a scene with not just one photo but multiple photos with each other. Photos that don't just show a person in one perspective or one emotion but multiple emotions. 

Today, I am very much feeling inspired by David Hockney.

Here is the link to the video that we watched in class today. Enjoy!

Collage Progression

Here are the two collages that I chose to do more with over break. At the end of class today, with the help of my peers, I chose to continue on to the final project with my photos of Gus, my cat. It will be executed differently than I did here. I will have a larger board and have little sections of collage clusters, possibly in a grid like form and have photos of him moving around my apartment as transition photos.

My Cat Gus

Chi O Fountain

Spencer Art Museum Visit

Today in my BDS 102 class we visited the Spencer Museum of Art on campus. We weren't looking at the galleries set up but rather photos in a room that our professor had the staff get out for us to look at the in some way connected with our current project; photo collage.

Right as I walked in I was intrigued by a piece called "12 Drive-Ins." Or at least I'm pretty sure that's what it was called, I'm starting to wish that I would have taken notes on the pieces that I liked haha. Anyways, these images drew me in because I loved how structured and grid like, yet simple it all was. It was all a kind of collage in a very geometric kind of way and I love it.

There was also some stop motion photos that I really liked as well, I think they play well with out project too. A lot of things I am doing, taking photos of my cat at least, deals with catching him in motion some times.

I also liked the collage/montage photos of the city one artist did. Not so much the "City Shell," although it was intriguing, but the other one really worked well with the project and had fun angles that drew in the viewer.

I also loved that Mark Klett was in the photos that we looked at. I've been seeing a lot of his work lately in other classes as well and I love how his idea of recreating photography can work with just about anything. I also just love the images and landscapes that he captured with that project.

Overall I think the visit was kind of worth the time and effort. It sparked some ideas, but it's more things that I think I'll do with later projects or things just on my own than for this project. I did like seeing other photographers though, that was very fun and interesting. You learn something new everyday, and today I learned that Mark Klett will be speaking on campus the day after my birthday for Hallmark and I'm pretty excited. GO PHOTOGRAPHY!!!

Project 3 - Photo Collage

I am SUPER PSYCHED about this project! FINALLY something for my major that I can kick ass at! Well hopfully haha! I have so many crazy ideas going for this project, I might be a little too ambitious. But hey, it's go big or go home!

For this project we are to show time in some way using photos and making them into a collage with numerous photos. I instantly got a ton of ideas and once I started getting really ambitious there came even more.

Some of my ideas are the Chi O fountain and Jayhawk Boulevard, downtown Lawrence, Clinton Lake, hookah, and SKC game (going to one over spring break).

And then I started thinking outside the box. I was inspired by the Hallmark Lecturer we had last Thursday by Matt Shlian. He is a paper engineer so he folds paper. I saw one of his first pieces and was instantly inspired. What if I cut slits in a printed photo and folded them to create a 3D effect? From there I started thinking about doing buildings and having 3D effects on the edges on a few areas. A friend in my class then suggested what if I took pictures of someone folding a piece of paper and making something our of paper and the image is then slit and folded to mimic that work. IT WOULD BE SO COOL!

Then I started thinking about shooting a hallway with doors and maybe a couple of the doors are 3D and they have a little pocket that then holds a picture of the inside of that room.

My mind is going bonkers over this project and I love it.

For homework we were to take photos of a couple of our ideas and put together a mock up of a collage with a few photos. Here is what I came up with. You'll notice I have two ideas that aren't listed above as initial ideas that I had. I don't have a vehicle or an easy way to get to downtown or Clinton Lake so I improvised and came up with two other ideas. One is looking out my window in my living room and capturing day and night with the different things that show up in the window. The other is just my cat Gus and his shenanigans and the different things he does throughout the day.

Masters of Illusion Reflection

While watching the Masters of Illusion video I was very intrigued. I've always loved perspective, it's one of my favorite elements to use in photography, but I never really knew about everyone who started up the idea of perspective and the way we see things in art.

I was familiar with Da Vinci and Rafael the most, but most of the others, especially before their time, I had never heard of. But I am so glad with the brilliance that they had in that time and what they have created through new minds in their far future, and what can still be done in our future thanks to their minds. 

Shadowing is a funny thing. You see a shadow and see what's happening but don't truly understand it. When you actually try to achieve this effect through sketching, it's something completely new. I know that this was a fun part of Drawing for Design, a class I took last semester with Margie. I had always loved pictures and paintings that incorporate perspective and shadow and wanted to know how I could achieve that. I wasn't great at it in class, and still am not so great, but if I were to keep trying and look back to the great minds of the past, I could perfect the illusion. 

All in all the video really got me to thinking about everything in art and how everything has unique perspective elements and shadowing. It all just depends on how we see it.

Final Product of Project 2

Where were we...

Once I had figured out what my design would be for my box it was time to find some scrap wood and practice my cuts, buy my wood for the final product and glue it and then finish the project. For the first week and half or so I was broke and unable to buy my wood, leaving me only a week to finish all of it, with the cutting, the gluing, the sanding and adding the coat of finish to it. So until then I made a practice box out of scrap wood.

My practice box went extremely well. Before cutting I asked Cotter and Margie their thoughts and how I should go about cutting my box since it was almost two boxes. Once I started cutting it all came pretty easy to me. Next thing I knew it was all done.

Once I bought my wood for the final product and got it glued up and ready to cut I was a little anxious and nervous, but shook it off and started cutting. I thought I was doing great, and then I realized I did the cuts out of order, leaving me with too small of pieces to fit together and hold my box together the correct way.

In the end I decided my practice box looked good and would be my final product. And I have to say, I am pretty proud of it, even if it is a little shabby and imperfect. It's perfect to me, especially considering I have NEVER used a band saw in my life. I am proud of myself no matter what anyone else thinks about my box. 

The (somewhat) Finished Product

I realized, when it was a little too late, that I only posted once about my vessel project for project two. So here is me playing catch up and informing you about what all went down with my vessel.

After the day of cutting with Cotter it was time to sketch. I quickly had ideas for one item that I was really interested in creating a box for, my flash drives and my external hard drive. I had other ideas for items to go into boxes too like my cards and ID's, pens and pencils and my Ipad mini. But none of them really struck me as fun or gave me as many ideas as my flash drives and external hard drive did. 

After the sketches came prototypes. I went to work on my prototypes quick and was pretty impressed with myself, even though they really weren't that great, but they got the point across. But once I brought them into class everyone kind of had the same thing to say about mine. They are just boxes, nothing big and fancy to them. No organic shapes. All designs that don't have to be done on a band saw, when that's what we should be designing for. Even though they were kind of fun, with sliding sides for openings and one that looked like a robot, they were just an ordinary box. So it was back to the drawing board.

I decided to make a word map and play off the flash drive idea. I looked at my sketches and just thought of things that you associate with flash drives. Computers, technology, usb ports, etc. And then I saw it. I looked at the shape and design of one of my flash drives. It was right in front of me the entire time. A simple rounded box with a curved line in the middle. That would be my box design.

To try and not make this incredibly long, since I still need to add some photos, I'll post the rest of the project on a new post. :)