A Picture You Already Know

“What appears to be reality is in fact only a reflection of a forgotten past.” (pg. 2.)

The sum of our past sometimes repeats itself in the future. It is heard that history repeats itself. It is no surprise then that the same ideologies and subject matter come in to focus if they were present in our past.

Repetition is a subject that Leong explains is particularly apparent in the realm of photography.

“Photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent and the hardest medium in which to have a personal vision because there’s no touch, there’s no hand, there’s no physicality, there’s no interface.”

Leong explains that through photography we are often less likely to generate a unique response to a subject matter because we do not have the same artistic space to create. We use a subject matter that may have already been captured, but there are only so many technical ways to produce an image. Leong explains that uniqueness, however, can only be comprehended in the context of repetitiveness and similarity. We can only say an image is unique by not being able to compare it to anything else. Therefore we look to repetition in order to maintain and generate uniqueness.

Leong challenges that photographers have added value in creating a series of images because it is more likely that the collection of images will be more unique than an image alone would be. A series by photographers is according to Leong more likely to create a more focused particular view.

 

Rules

 

Project #2 Rules

1.  No Black and White filter

2.  Human figure present

3.  Unconventional, consistent setting: Basement

4.  Use of different medium within all photos: Paint

5.  No talking during shoot

Project #2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wet Scan Negatives

 

 

Battling for Desire

Desire; A word that must not be mistaken for meaning. Where desire is contingent to the author, meaning is not. This battle between meaning and desire pokes it’s head in Wyse’s chapter entitled, “Too Drunk to Fuck (On the Anxiety of Photography.) Wyse explains that “desire permeates photography” (Pg. 71). It has a way to be manifested in a retrospect of ways. We may project meaning that is not among a photograph, but desire is dependent on a photographer. Photographic pieces transmit the weight of desire. Through photographs, we can display in fact our objects of desire. Williams, (a photographer mentioned in Wyse’s article), leaves us with the idea that restraining emotion is a solution for the anxiety of photographic desire.

5 things I now know, thanks to Photoshop

1. You can resize an image to a preset that you have created.

 

2. Layers can be organized into layer group folders.

 

3. Birds eye zoom. If you are zoomed into an image, you can hold down H while clicking and holding down your mouse to go from a zoomed in area to the birds eye view of the image while highlighting the zoomed area you were working in.

 

4.The graphic converter can open mildly corrupted image files.

 

5. Save image pyramid saves an image in a pyramid structure giving you a scaled down version of a full resolution image (able to preview with out full TIFF file)

Scanography

Class Work

"Photography as Art, or, is Photograpy All It Can Be?" Bedford Summary

Bedford addresses if photography, and accordingly photography criticism, is all that it is possible of becoming. The idea that photography can be viewed as a process and practice stimulates the reader in to thinking of photography in a nontraditional way. Bedford talks of Demand's work that presents intention, intellectual reflection, and considered action (same execution as painting) and displays this through stages of production. Demand introduces the idea that a photograph can be viewed as an incidental conclusion to a creative process. Viewing photography in this sense may provide for a more technical evaluation of photography. Currently, there is no model for evaluating photography with regards to the medium  in a way that addresses descriptive vocabulary and technical understanding. Bedford leaves us with the idea that perhaps the remedy for instrumentalization of photography is to produce a criticism that looks at photographs with a true understanding of technical aspects of production and the effects they have on the work itself. 

Is WHAT over?

I think the biggest question addressed in the responses to the SFMOMA question, “Is Photography Over?” perhaps is what exactly we are talking about. What is it that is questionably over? The medium? The art form? The process? The word? Accordingly, responses varied based on individual’s interpretations of what “photography” is. Some participants claim photography is over. Some allege it just started, and others suggest it is, perhaps, simply tired. Do I personally believe photography is over? No. I think the only thing that is really quite over is the way that we perceive the word photography. The art form exists, the medium, while ever-changing, still exists. The idea that we question what “photography” means implies the idea that it has grown from meaning just a singular concept. Photography is not over, but the way we think about it is.