Personal Project 4

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Personal Project 2

                                  

Artist #7

Artist: Betty Hahn
Title: Road and Rainbow
Date: 1971

Betty Hahn's Road and Rainbow alludes a vintage or nostalgic emotion. The photo in this image is of a road wrapping around the side of a house or farm with a brightly colored rainbow she embroidered. These images are printed onto cotton fabric using a process called gum bichromate and a negative of a photograph. She then embroiders external images onto the fabric that weren't in the original image, thus almost collages images together. The photo itself is not in color for the most part except for the yellow line in the road. In doing so it puts a bit more emphases on the rainbow itself since it stands out so much. This make the viewer question her intensions of adding this rainbow and why she made it so colorful. A feeling of happiness is present, but since the rainbow is obviously handmade the falseness of the image is obvious. There is a slight cozy homemade emotion with the whole fabric and the process of the printing as well. Everything seems more handcrafted than traditional photography.

Artist #6

Artist: Mike and Doug Starn
Title: Attracted to Light series
Date: 1996- 2007

The Starn brothers intension with these photos is to initially "feel" the artwork. What the viewer sees is a microscopic image of a frail powdered moth, but it is blown up in size and put back together on small pieces of paper. So the oh so tiny moth is now a larger more easy to register piece. The processes they use to develop these photographs, coating them in gelatin emulsion onto Mulberry paper that is hand made, strains them and the layers of paper start to peal off or crack. Not only does this add to the older look to the photos, they become velvety and fragile. Just as one sees a furry dusty moth, the images mimic this same texture. Their use of soft light makes these images dreamy and mysterious. They aren't quite on the stance of creepy or scary, but more the route of dark with a strange beauty. They seem experimental like they are challanging their techniques with light and shadow.

Artist #5

Artist: Karin Appolonia Muller
Title: Border (On Edge Portfolio)

One Major positive I can give to Karin his her use of color. All her pieces have soft light or glow a of green or blue to them. In doing this Karin makes her work seem peaceful and at ease. Reading her descriptions of the photos, particular for Border, I don't read into her work the way she intends them to be read into. She describes her work as showing peoples way of fixing the crumbling world around us by cultivating it. I can not really pull this out of her work when I view it. I do understand that the cliff in this image can be a metaphor for natures presence in pulling apart something so solid, but I don't see how people come into play in this. There is almost no sign for people except for the few nature goers who don't seem to be disturbing the place in anyway. Her point is a little more evident in other works, still swing closer to absence of nature completely or just natural beauties in the world. And I don't feel her use of color and light really help this either. Her images are incredibly beautiful and knowing her description behind them, in a way, distract me in a not so positive way. But maybe this is what Karin wants her viewers to do, read into them anyway they like. And if that is the case I think that she was successful.

Tech 3

Artist #4

Artist: Jim Campbell
Title: Fundamental Interval Commuters
Date: 2010

     In this work by Jim Campbell the composition is of a busy, high human traffic area. Many viewers can relate to this scene because of what they physically at work or school. There are people moving in all directions and the blurred affect seems to hasten their pace. The viewers can also relate through the feeling or emotions being evoked from being in situations similar to this. The anxiety and rushed feelings are very easily read. Campbell's use of long exposure is perfect to create this feeling. What makes the composition even more interesting is that every person is a complete blur of colors, except the one stationary leg. These legs give the eye a focal point to rest on then hop to the next leg. So not only do the blurs suggest movement, but so do the bouncing of the eye from each leg.
     To be honest, the lighting through the picture is very nice and aesthetically pleasing, but I don't really understand what it brings to the message. There doesn't seem to be any real purpose for it other than looking really nice. Having light displayed the way it is displayed seems it has to have a reason or purpose. It is just too bold of a statement to not mean anything. Other than the lighting I really have no questions or complaints, and if Campbell were to just hang the photograph alone the idea would have come across just fine.

Tech 2

Artist #3

Artist: Nan Goldin
Title: Nan, One Month After Being Battered
Date: 1984

Most series done by Nan Gouldin are of friends, family and herself. Her style is like a snapshot style, as if to record information of a happy time to remember, like most people do. BUt her images are brutally honest and personal. The titles of the works have the actual names of the people in them. She shows feelings of happy, sad, depressed, angry and everything in between. For most of the Seventies and Eighties, Goldin captured the sex and drug addiction side to her life and those in her life. They partied and had fun, but they also would withdraw from drugs or die from AIDs, and she documented it all. This image is of her with a beaten face and the only information really given about this image is that this was taken a month after the event had happened. She gives enough information to lead stories among the viewers. This is a good opposing example to David Levinthal, since both artists give us information to go off of to base this photo on, but Goldin’s work is of real events rather than staged.

Artist #2

Artist: David Levinthal
Title: Baseball (Mickey Mantle)
Date: 2003

All of David Levinthal’s work seems real, from a distance. If you take another look, however, you can see they they are entirely constructed of miniature figurines with staged backgrounds. This Image seems to be of a baseball game with the sand at his feet at the entire field around him. This would seem as if it was really happening. The image has great drama to it. with the dark deep shadows and the unfocused image in the back. The only focused part of the image is the uniform not even his face. He seems to be creating a false history of events that never actually occurred. In doing so, Levinthal is playing with the mind. Viewers are being tricked, just so slightly, then once the image is recognized it raises questions. It seems as if he is trying to see if he can fool the viewers or not.

Artist #1

Artist: Larry Sultan
Title: Golf Swing
Date: 1988

Larry Sultan did many series of photos taken of his parents house, and often even of his parents themselves. This Image is of his dad practicing his swing in the living room. Larry often has bright pops of color in his work and this green color seems to show up quite a bit. With the green carpet, his blew shirt or even his body movement  and the image on the television your eye seems to bounce round continuously.  This makes a triangular movement to this direction. Sultan’s work seems very somber or even at times nostalgic, which makes the viewers create stories about these Images. We want to create a background knowledge of this man, to make an identifiable personality with the information we are given.

Personal Project 1

Tech 1

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