First I would like to say that you have done a very good job with this first batch of photos. There was a lot of information to work through to understand how the class works, and how to make artful photographs, but you all seem to have grasped it.
What I have done is gone through all of your Critique 1 posts and picked out what I think are the best photos, sometimes more than one per person. Then I organized them by content to see if there are any trends. This establishes a continuity within a sequence of photographs. It is not unlike organizing photos for an exhibition. Then I sat down and write up a commentary on how these photographs work and am posting that here so we can all learn from the analysis.
Then I read through all of your Self Evaluations to see what pix you have selected as POW’s and read your evaluation to understand your individual creative processes. You did a great job of commenting on each other’s work. I am only one person here and just one voice. It is really important that you get feedback from your peers because that is where you really get to measure the success of your communication. Your statements are intelligently written. They are evidence of serious study and show an understanding of the principles at hand. I am proud of you.
[Can I ask you here to set the line spacing to 1.5 lines. If all the documents are consistent it makes it that much easier for me to read through them all.]
For the next Critique, you may continue to work in B&W if you wish. If you have something you like that is working for you, please continue to develop that theme. Do not forget or discard any of the things you learned for one Topic when working on the next. Photographic learning is cumulative, where all lessons build on the previous. As long as half your Crit 2 portfolio is Color/ Passion, you may continue investigating any other theme if you think you have something good started. Use whatever tools fit the content best.
[Remember, this upcoming Crit #2 is 2 photos more than the last = 12 + 2 self-ports = 14 photos in all.]
Many people expressed that this was their first experience at shooting seriously. Many also said that they will improve with time, and they are working hard at it now. I think this has been a great beginning, better than many other Photo I First Crits.
Quite a few of you have discovered that one way to use the camera is to capture those little bits of the world that are usually overlooked, the small details that can be quite interesting. There are numerous little quips in your statements that are valuable for all to hear. A lot of these point to a heightened sense of emotion. I am glad that you are willing to share this. These include (in no particular order):
eliciting conflicting emotions… the feeling of being trapped… anonymity, confinement and seclusion… pleasingly aesthetic in their despondency … invasion… urban decay… my yearning to express myself but also my fear of exposing myself… a person alone in a crowded world… makes me stop, think, and photograph what’s going on around me… sharing that sense of intrigue I felt when I discovered all of these things for the first time as a kid… try stepping back from the subject and exploring the space that it’s in… naturally occurring circumstances… I like to capture existing beauty, as it is a reminder that there are still good things in this world…. a shadow or reflection that could enhance the contrast and textures… an escape from reality…
The topic of ‘Making Photographs with Mystery in Black-And-White’ seems to have taken you in a couple of specific directions. Let me go through these photographs with you and examine how they ‘work’ visually.
One main point is that many of you tried to make mysterious photographs by looking closely at particular objects. the weakness was if these were singular objects. What you need to do now is to expand that vision to include multiple objects in an environment. To use some photographic language, this would be content in a context. As someone said above, step back now and include some of the environment for those objects.
The other concern is how the photos direct the viewer’s attention. If there is only one major focal point in a photograph then your viewer’s eye will go to that point and then there’s nowhere else to go, and you lose their interest. Having multiple points of interest in the frame causes the viewer to move around in the world that you have created in that frame and the photograph becomes much more interesting. It enables the viewer to make comparisons between visual elements.
Another step forward is to imbue that environment with ‘feel’. If the subject has a sense of time then you begin talking about events rather than just objects. The introduction of ambience provides the opportunity to have your photographs talk about emotionality. And this moves us from the first discipline, the Physical, to another, the Emotional.
I have a document titled Movement through Multiplicity that I have added to the Smartphone site that talks more about this.
Let’s look at some of these photographs in an organized way:
The first set of photographs are shots of natural subjects. Mother Nature by herself is already a great artist. In the Photo Clichés paper I ask you to not shoot pictures of sculpture, and usually not architecture either, because people, namely artists and architects, have already made the art and if you do not change the subject enough you are basically stealing their image. [This is similar to sampling in the music business.] So when you’re shooting Mother Nature you have to remember that she is an artist and you have to alter the subject matter to such a point that you create your own image from her ‘raw material’. One good way to do this is to get close and study the details. The best show of Ansel Adam’s work was a show that was just details. Those photos were far more interesting than his photos of large vistas of the American Southwest.
You have done that in numerous examples, including some that use pattern, some that use light, some more abstract, some more real, but the most extraordinary photos of this set are the two shots by Ashley where the first opens into a large expanse, and in the second, the top of the frame shows the water’s surface while the bottom allows us to see down into the water. This is somewhat reminiscent of some of Escher’s prints. This extreme difference is what I’m talking about when I say you should have multiple focal points in your frame.
The next four get even more abstract and are shot in various situations. They display varying degrees of recognizability. Caitlin’s is beautifully toned.
The next set of four all use a similar visual device of vertical lines. In the beginning they are more visual and manipulate the way we see the space. Later they provide an obstacle for the viewer to look through. Getting a viewer to look through obstacles is a reasonable goal.
Now that we have moved outside, we have an extreme low viewpoint that extends the space followed by a glowing sky by Ian that has a lot of ‘feel’. These are followed by Veronica’s handprints on the wall that act as some kind of artifact or evidence of some event that will forever remain unknown, but is nonetheless fascinating. Kristen’s shot of the building is classic and would be reinforced with more of the same, again with ‘feel’. It should be more than just an objective view of a building. They should evoke something of what happens in that location.
The progression gets more and more abstract ending with Garrett’s “X marks the spot” photo, that again implies that something mysterious has happened. It says a lot by almost saying nothing!
From this we get even more minimal with studies of texture. Ali’s photo of the lightbulb works because he has removed the visual clues that define space. The flat photo is still recognizable because we all know it is a light bulb, but it is still a nicely curious shot. The surfaces in the next few shots get more complex yet they still have an absence of space that keeps them in the textural world.
Finally we get to Holly’s third photo where the shapes get very complex. This brings to mind the photo work at the turn of the 20th century when photo-artists were building ‘light modulators’ just so they could take abstract photographs. Laslo Maholy-Nagy was one of the leaders and his work is on my Research site, near the top at http://www.berk-edu.com/RESEARCH/lasloMaholyNagy. This work was also related to the Russian Constructivists, sculptors working in the same time period. All of this influenced our friend Marcel Duchamp when he built his ‘Bride Stripped Bare’ piece that sits in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If you have never seen it in person it is worth a trip to the PMA Every time I go there I have to pay it a visit, it is that extraordinary!
This is followed by 2 more completely unidentifiable but fascinating photos. These are weird enough that they stand on their own.
From here we come back into the recognizable world. These photo depend on their strong visual content. They get progressively more complex, using such visual devices as grids and circular forms, etc. You could use any one of these as a basis for an investigation. [I have sort of done that by the way I ordered different people’s shots.] Ultimately, however, there should be meaning behind the photo. And then you have to make sure that the formal qualities have something to do with the meaning of the content. This is why Kati's last shot of the button is the best of the set, because you start thinking about who that is in those pants and the photo opens up in your imagination.
Finally we segue into the final set of portraits and self-portraits, using the circle in the makeup case as the pivot. [How do you tell the difference between a portraits and a self-portrait?] Kendel’s has a feeling of, what is it- lost or found?, Natalie’s very mysterious unidentifiable person, Garrett’s setting with deep space that describes an event more than just the person, and ending with Mariah’s amazing dramatic shot.
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A note about grading:
Your grade can be assessed by counting how many photographs you have on this post.
If you have just 1 then you are doing okay but you need more work and better focus. If you have 2, you are doing better. If you have 3 you are doing quite well and if you have 4 you are doing exceptionally well.
This class is just as much about growth as it is about productivity, so fret not.
