Final Test-Contact Sheets

 

Final Project Proposal

Kyle Reeves

ARTO 354

Kaiser

5/11/11

Final Project Proposal

1.     What?-

With this project I plan on continuing to shoot more photographs of people, which has been my original goal for the course. I think I will turn towards the construction of staged narratives, which I studied in chapter 4 of The Photograph as Contemporary Art. I want to set up uncomfortable situations, possibly with two of the same subjects interacting with each other. I think my work in this project will vary as far as concept. I also want to vary each setting in different light types, shooting as much as possible in natural lights.

2.     Why?-

I am planning on working with staged narratives because I have been intrigued after studying the chapter on Tableau photographs. Using interactions between the same person in a double exposure or stitched images will force me to take pictures of people. I found ways to avoid taking portraits throughout the last few projects, which I think is unavoidable with this. I really like the strange outcome of some built settings; the surreal aspect will be difficult to build, because it is something I have yet to explore.

3.     How?-

I want to travel as much as possible, to get a wide variety of scenarios. I will shoot 2-3 shots of the same person, one clearly noticing the other. It should come across as seeing identical twins. I will also vary depth in this series by bringing a subject closer to the front in one, and in the next images, move their position backwards so that it builds a sense of layering. I am not going to constrain myself to certain light types in this project because my schedule never left me with enough time to accomplish everything I had planned in previous projects.

4.     References and Inspiration-

While researching my paper, I came across work by Sarah Small, who builds these strange family scenes with characters that are so drastically different. I think it will be interesting to direct things, instead of looking for natural occurrences. After the lecture on panoramas and stitching techniques, I also was inspired to test this process out. I think the outcome will be something that I have never accomplished before.

5.     Personal Accomplishment-

This project is going to accomplish my previous goal for the course of shooting more photographs of people. It is also going to be entirely new process for me, because I have never used the stitching tool in Photoshop before. I also rarely direct scenes to capture, which will be an aspect of every photograph in this series. Overall, it will be less structured then previous assignments, so I will be able to accomplish anything I can think of. It will be about building situations rather then searching for them.

Chapter 2 Paper

Kyle Reeves

ARTO 354

5/11/2011

Constructing Narratives

Looking back at photographs of vacations and family gatherings places my mind back in a specific moment, which would have been easily forgotten or vaguely remembered without their existence. If a photograph lacks a landmark or sign, clearly stating its location, someone needs a recollection of the memory. Unless a description is written down, it will only be understood by those involved in the photo, and is easily lost as generations pass. This lost information parallels what is created when a narrative is constructed for audience interpretation, rather then the purpose of capturing memories.  Just as an individual or small group only understands a snapshot of a vacation, the creating artist only knows a constructed narrative’s purpose.

Chapter 2 focuses on Tableau photography, a term used to describe an arrangement or scene. This reenacting style has obvious reference to fables, fairy tales, and myths (pg 49), because of their strange subject matter and setting. They are closely representative of what we might see in a dream, with accentuated visuals that may be too perfect and start to come across as non realistic. Because anything thought up by the artist can be created or re-enacted, there are endless possibilities, which stray from the boundaries of certain portraiture and landscapes. While these narratives have the ability to be highly influenced by surrealism, they can also be as simple as an athlete’s movement. There just has to be an inquisitive foreshadowing as to what is going to happen next.

Tableau also has a strong cinematic presence, which mimics a screenshot. It creates the basis of a storyline in a single frame, almost as a screenshot out of a storyboard. Any Motion or additional frames are provided by the use of the viewer’s imagination. With the addition of every viewer comes another perspective on how the story unfolds. However, only a certain level of abstraction can be reached, before the viewer becomes too confused to interpret what is happening. Hints of past motion can be represented subtly, with predetermined devices and angles, which leads vision in a specific direction. This technique has been used in the past in renaissance painting.

These constructions have the possibility to create a surreal environment, which yields a visual of what you might see in a dream. Work of artists such as Gregory Crewdson (Cotton, 68), or Sergey Bratkov (Cotton, 63), successfully create this strange, almost uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty. They also build on the inspiration of earlier painters, hinting to periods of art history. Artists use these references to the past because they “act as a confirmation that contemporary life carries a degree of symbolism and cultural preoccupation parallel with other times in history”(Cotton, 55).

There are images included in tableau photography, which provide very little about a characters personality or placement in society. By avoiding eye contact or photographing the back of an individual, their emotional appearance is in- accessible to the audience. Another technique is eliminating any descriptive elements from the setting in which the character is placed. Hannah Starkey’s March 2002 (Cotton, 61) shows only a women sitting in what looks like a restaurant. We know nothing about the person sitting there, yet the silverware placed on the tables allows us to recognize that it might be a restaurant.

Even achieving what looks like a simple snapshot may take a significant amount of time to compose however. A lot of time and effort can be spent building sets, creating costumes, and casting individuals. An amount of time that might be much greater than that spent on a painting is used to prepare what is needed for a photographer to capture this digital painting of what they see in their mind. This process seems as thought it becomes much more intimate, as you are troubleshooting to find a mid-ground in your idea, which will provide enough understanding of context for any audience to build upon.

This aspect of time and troubleshooting is what becomes apparent in quality work, for those who are not lucky enough to shoot perfect images every time. Artists included in Chapter 2 really create inspiration to build images rather then search for natural situations.  While Tableau includes subjects of any live act, it is more important to understand it as a placement or planned occurrence. Three artists who I think successfully outline Tableau photography are, Cindy Sherman, Charles Shotwell, and Sarah Small. Each follows opposite paths in imagery style, yet all share the common ground of making you feel severely out of place.

Cindy Sherman takes photographs of herself, yet they are far from self-portraits. Her focus in most of her work is commenting on the role of women in society, and the process of creating art. She begins by using herself as a blank canvas, and dresses up to build new roles and characters. She builds a type, or cliché individual, rather then showing too much personality in herself.  These unrecognizable personalities have always been “Untitled”, severing any emotional attachment to the artist; they are just manufactured portraits of people who will most likely, never be seen again.

            Sherman completed these series of portraits in 1980 after she believed that she had ran out of clichés to represent. She moved towards surreal manipulations, much more grotesque than her previous work, by incorporating the use of dolls and mannequins as subjects. Placing these figures in provocative poses, occasionally covered in mold or vomit, created something that makes you feel as if you shouldn’t be looking at it. This work is still highly praised for the beauty of the mannequin’s figure and its close resemblance to the human body. Cindy Sherman explored other ideas, but recently has returned to using herself as a model, focusing more upon the character and less on the narrative.

            Another artist’s work which I found interesting, and which highlighted the constructivism apparent in Tableau photography is that of Charles Shotwell. Shotwell does a lot of work with found objects and ready-mades, but has a series devoted to Tableau in miniatures. He describes the camera in this work as “The Vehicle of Discovery” because he feels as though his work in miniatures is built to represent social landscapes. These settings feel similar to the work done by Miles Coolidge (pg 72). Even though Coolidge’s photographs are of an existing miniature safety town, the focal plane in Shotwell’s work makes you feel like you are inside of a room with these objects.

            Shotwell’s work comes via a variety of inspirations, with each series dramatically different then the previous. His process of working with mirrors is something I would like to experiment with in the future. While the process constructs new spaces, the lack of subject doesn’t provide enough for a narrative, which Tableau is centered around. His portfolio does not represent Tableau photography in its entirety, but he is one artist that I think has a lot of potential to create a wide variety of story types with the use of miniatures. His work in his Tableau series is almost too simple, and not strange enough for me.

            Sarah Small’s photographic style is visually more appealing to me, with the use of a much more vibrant color palate than Shotwell’s neutrally built scenarios. All of her imagery is bizarre, yet appealing, providing an almost circus quality. A lot of her photos seem to be staged to represent an awkward or accidental photograph, with subjects looking towards anything but the photographer. It is surreal yet we can all relate to this moment and types of situations, which hopefully are less embarrassing.

            I think that a lot of her work is built with a severely abstract story in mind, and is illustrated with a focus on two objects, reality and the uncertain. One of my favorite photographs out of her portfolio is the alien in the hospital room, with a women sitting on the other side of a glass door. I love that it places science fiction in a setting where we all feel uncomfortable, but is still so well know that it seems like it could happen at any time.  Her work is extremely successful in building narratives, and has heavily implied meaning with the use of each outcast and accentuated character or prop.

            Cindy Sherman, Charles Shotwell, and Sarah Small have all experimented in Tableau photography. I think that they each represent different aspects of this style, as well as a different level of mastery. Sherman is known as being an innovator in constructing portraits; Shotwell’s work asks questions; Small’s work bridges an unfamiliar realm with aspects of innocence. They share the same overall purpose, which is building a snapshot of a scenario that needs further investigating or questioning. It is al fabricated, but feels like a collaborative dream, or the introductory paragraph to a story. There are so many interesting aspects of this style that I want to explore in the future.

Charles Shotwell- Tableau

Cindy Sherman- Untitled

Sarah Small- Pappa Sleeping

 Sources

Cotton, Charlotte. The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Second ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. 49-80. Print.

Online Portfolio’s Referenced-

http://www.cindysherman.com/

http://www.sarahsmall.com/portfolio/

http://www.shotwellphotography.com/

Project 4 Contact Sheets

Five Conceptual Rules

1. Take more photographs of people.
2. Experiment with longer exposures at night.
3. Vary depths by taking photographs closer to the subjects.
4. Spend more time finding locations.
5. Spend more time setting up shots.

Color Variations

Assignment 3 Contact Sheets

Chapter 3 Review-Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3-

Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3

Chapter 3-

            This chapter provided a good review of shortcuts in Photoshop, and a lot of new information in Adobe Bridge and Lightroom, which I have never used before. It described how to set up and customize your workspace in Photoshop, and then transitioned into fitting images to screen and panning. Layer properties and filters were described with captured images in a step-by-step format, which still provided a lot of useful information.  Bridge and Lightroom are both new to me this term, so this chapter helped understand Bridges similarities to Photoshop, and its use to view and organize a large amount of photographs. There was very little information included for Lightroom in this chapter but it laid out the basics for future reference.

Project Two Contact Sheets

Project #1: Old Work/ New Ideas

            Shooting a lot of family gatherings and vacations for my parents over my childhood sparked my interest in photography. They always approached me because I understood the technology in digital cameras, which they struggled with. I never spent time to learn more than the basics of my camera. I acquired a handful of 35mm equipment from my grandparents and decided to learn the manual controls and shooting techniques. A lot of the work that I printed in black and white is dark and usually obscured by the use of low angles. I enjoy exploring different compositions and making viewers think, but I also shoot a lot of simple landscapes. 

A rope in Charleston Oregon -2010

 In this course I mainly want to continue to memorize the effects of each manual feature of my camera. I just recently made the move to a DSLR and want to be able to practice using it while incorporating what I have previously learned in the black and white course. I know that there will be a lot of options as far as shooting in Eugene. When better weather approaches I hope to shoot more nature and move away of from indoor objects on rainy days. I really like historical music photographs, which are more candid. I really respect Bob Gruen’s work as a rock and roll photographer because it makes you feel like you are back stage at every show he shoots, or sitting there with each artist. 

Bob Gruen's photo of The Clash