Ken Allen Studios

The visit to the Ken Allen Studios last week was informative in the sense that it really honed in just how technical digital printing is (and how ill informed we can be of these kinds of processes). It's true, people have been taking bad pictures since the beginning of time - no one is expected to be an expert photographer, but in a way I think digital photography has made it even harder to recognize real quality imagery when everything can be automatic and we have little control (well, and it's our own decision) over how our images turn out.

With digital photography, I think sometimes it is assumed that since the camera is doing it for us, how can our images still turn out so badly? Even with an SLR, the camera can make mistakes that wipe out details, turn the sky a strange blue, or be completely out of focus.

Seeing the level of detail they use to determine accurate color and resolution was eye-opening in a way because in our everyday prints, there is hardly a pause for when things are slightly pixelated and most of us produce photos on our iPhones anyway, instead of printing images - in that sense, we don't recognize poor resolution or quality in our photos because we never have to view them outside of our phones, Facebook albums, or computer screens. "Accuracy" is also not really emphasized with the onslaught of camera filters like Hipstamatic and Instagram that warp colors into a retro fashion. This doesn't mean the printed photograph means any less to us, especially when we think of fine art prints, but our ideas of documentation, how we use photographs - to capture moments, and memories - maybe has been altered and our approach to our memories altogether. 

Homework #6 (2.) Photo-Narrative

all images found on google image search.

Homework #6 (3.) Photography and Children

left: self-portrait no. 3, digital print, 2006

right: Cindy Sherman, Untitled #282, chromogenic print, 1993 (Carnegie Museum of Art)

One of my first assignments was to copy an artist's work in my undergraduate program - so I copied Cindy Sherman. It was my first time experimenting with photography. Although later on I began to use film, my first experimentations in photo were all digital. Though I think understanding manual/analog photography is very important, for children I believe digital can also be a great entry way to using photography as a medium.

Possible connections to students:

1. Self-portraiture and fantasy. Cindy Sherman's works can be used a reference here. Also my old professor, Elizabeth Raymer-Griffin, and, well, many more. Identity development is a major component of adolescence, and the idea of self-portrait and playing with both costume and deformity, restraint, and body expression are things students could really make their own through a series of lessons and practices. Digital or film, the main objectives would be to explore what a portrait is and how we can either play to it or disorient it. For example, in the Cindy Sherman photograph above, she is playing with the idea of direct gaze, as well as the mythical Medusa. Students might look at traditional paintings as reference, as well as other portrait photographers, both commercial and fine art (maybe they are both!)

Other artists: 

Carrie Mae Weems, The Louisiana Project

Nikki S. Lee

2. Documentary. Using photography to document their friends, family, and everyday lives. While we do use photography as a documentary format all the time now with our iPhones and digital cameras, it's often that we take many instead of just one - in the classroom, part of this would be learning to examine narrative through the use of only several pictures - placing constraints on how you might tell a story - perhaps only through object, or only through landscapes, and what can be conveyed if you mix them together. Another important component might be talking about layout.

Documentary/fine art photographers

The Teenie Harris Archive (CMoA)

Alec Soth

Dylan Vitone (panoramic imagery)

3. Journalism. Recording events but also using text - similar to documentary, but a different approach and could be integrated with Language Arts.

James Nachtwey

4. The Complete Imaginary - Creating scenes, sculptures, and works solely for photographic work, i.e. Thomas Demand. What changes when it is photographed versus as a sculptural work? 

Homework #5: (4.) 2 Artists who use Photography

1. Geoffrey H. Short

Geoffrey H. Short is a photographer based in Auckland, New Zealand. The first two are from his series, Towards another (Big Bang) theory (2009). He stages explosions using a mix of gunpowder and fossil fuels and then captures them on camera giving them an isolated tone that lingers between "terror and sublime." You can read more on his blog.

2. Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr

Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr work with pyrotechnics that connect to the camera to capture light explosions - using the explosions as the material of the works and playing with chance. "The explosions take place in a domestic setting to play upon feelings of anxiety and unrest" (We Find Wildness). 

Homework#5: (1.) Digital Artist, Ruud Van Empel

World #36, cibachrome print, 2010.

 Reflection, archival pigment print, 105 x 150 cm, 2010

Theater #2, cibachrome print, 2010

Ruud Van Empel (b. 1958) is a Dutch artist, based in the Netherlands. He has been working with Photoshop since the early 90's; his photographs are composited from many different images he has personally taken both in and out of the studio. In this interview, he talks about the notion of "re-creating a better reality" through his methodical process. By using parts and pieces of photographs in such a way, Van Empel renders a real environment that is slightly off-kilter somehow, eerily imperfect. In terms of photography, he is taking concepts of light and space and making them his own, making his photographs somewhat painterly in how he creates compositions and subjects. He is also interested in innocence, and photographs from his own childhood.

Homework #5: (3.) 4 Creative Ideas

Based on the photograph from class, here are some ideas on how to use the photo creatively.

1. Using photography to explore obscurity and abstraction; taking a space we see everyday and reinventing it by exploring different camera views, zooming in, or even zooming out. Questions could be, what is the space and object usually for? How might you change its purpose through a photograph? Alter its meaning and function?

2. Telephone booth as a space. This could be a collaborative group project where students are asked to reinvent the space knowing they must keep the structure of the telephone booth. In an imaginary scenario, students would be brainstorming and designing a new function for old telephone booths in a public space - what could it be used for? What could you add to it? remove? repurpose?

3. Cut-up: using previous photographs and cutting them up to create new, refracted images; self-portraiture could be interesting. Students could take photos of themselves and divide them up and intersperse within those images textures, colors, objects, etc. that reflect an aspect of themselves (or several aspects).

4.Surfaces: using photography to explore textures that are physical (foliage, material-based) versus those that are visual (2D prints, text, etc); could also use collage as a physical exploration.

Homework #5: (2.) Photograph

I took this photograph at the old telephone booths located downstairs in the basement of Zankel Hall. I thought the booths themselves were interesting as these strange, antiquated spaces that no longer serve a function - even the phones were taken out. I chose this photo because of the infinity quality from the different panels of reflective surface, which then refract the face. Perhaps then the focus changes from the face to the lines that are created, dividing the composition across the photo.