Week 6: Elinor Carucci

After looking at all of the different photographers I found myself drawn to Elinor Carucci's work. When first looking at Carucci's work it felt incredibly personally. All of her different series seemed very personal and as if you were really taking a look into someone's life. The photos are beautiful but the people in the photos do not always look visually stunning.

In Carucci's series Closer, one gets to see Carucci's life and her family's life. I selected the photos above because I find them both very different but still fitting within the theme of the project. The top photo is a picture of Carruci's mother and father. They are seen throughout Carucci's photos and seem like very important people in her life. Additionally, the family seems very comfortable being photographed. The photos seem natural and not staged. Maybe this is because Carucci has been doing this for a while but I feel like when photographing family it is very hard to not have the photos look like they were staged. I always feel like there is one family member who also does not feel comfortable being photographed. 

I choose the second photograph because I liked how it looked. Period blood is something every woman goes through and to depict it in a natural normal setting is refreshing. The blood even looks beautiful in contrast with the bathroom floor. I might be wrong but I feel like Carucci's series Closer tries to push the boundaries on how close someone can get. I feel this way because a lot of the photos are about Carucci's personal life with her partner (?) and photos of her family and parents together.

These two are other favorites from Closer. It feels as though Carucci is not even there taking photographs. Carucci has inspired me to try and make my work feel and look a lot more personal. I have always struggled with trying to obtain more personal feelings in my work. I feel like this always happens due to the subjects I photograph. They are mostly my friends and sometimes they don't always feel really comfortable being photographed. I feel like a lot of my photos looked staged. In some ways I do like that because I like my photos to be interesting. I always feel like my snapshot photos don't always come out as strongly. I would like to continue working on making my photos more natural. It really does make a difference when looking at photographs if they feel personal.

Additionally, it was interesting to view Carucci's professional work in addition to viewing her personal work. Carucci photographs for magazines such a People magazine. I find that interesting because her personal work is a lot more creative than what one would see on the cover of People Magazine. Her professional work photos do feel a little eery but I feel like that has to do with the information she is trying to cover. It is also nice to see how one can have personal and professional work.

Stephen Shore’s The Nature of Photography Response

I agree with Shore when he states that framing acts as the end of the photo. It is completely up to the photographer to decide what to frame and what they are trying to state in the photo by creating a specific frame. In my own work, framing is constantly on my mind. In the instant I am taking the photo I have to quickly decide what I should include. A lot of the time, especially when photographing bodies I like to make the subject a tight frame. I do this because I want the viewer to try and figure out what body part I am depicting. I focus a lot on stretching and altering the body so framing works in my advantage when I do not want the viewer to know what they are looking at. Additionally, when not focusing on altering the body I still like having tightly framed shots. I think this has a lot to do with photographing my friends on campus. There is a lot I want to leave out in the background because it is so recognized as a college campus. Also Purchase College does not have the best scenery to photograph in.  Below is a photograph I took this semester.

I chose to tightly frame this photograph because I really wanted to focus on the texture of the coat. With the background included, which happens to be a dorm bathroom, the emphasize on texture would be completely lost. I also felt that the figure in the picture did not need to be photographed because that is not what I am focusing on. 

Another photo I chose to show my use of framing is a photograph I took of my mother for my photo 1 final.

I shot this photo from above. I like how the viewer can only see the ends of the fingers and not the rest of the arm. For context I wanted to add some more background and that is why I included some of the bathroom mirror and shelf. The viewer is able to look directly at the face and can see that the woman in the photograph is applying mascara. 

Shore’s work has always stuck out to me because of his use of color. Shore even states that when people look at his work from the 70’s they think of “1970’s color”. I have the same reaction to his work. Although there are lots of photographs from the 1970’s, Shore’s work has always stuck out to me. The color seems almost non-realistic. The compositions are always very aesthetically pleasing. I feel like viewing his work in black in white would not create the same feel.

When Shore starts to talk about digital photography briefly and states that “I haven’t seen a digital image that can compare to a large-format negative, scanned and printed digitally” I think about my beginnings in photography. I started off shooting digital on an automatic special. There is never anything really special in the photos I first took. I think that black and white photography takes a lot more time and thought. There always seems to be more feelings in black and white photography apposed to digital. I am not opposed to digital photography in any way but I always found myself turning my digital photos into black and white ones. Of course at the time I did not really know why I was doing this but it is more obvious today that I was trying to give them more feeling. I probably also thought that black and white would make the image more dramatic.

Week 4: Angela Strassheim

Sadly, I was not able to go to the Angela Strassheim lecture. After looking at her photographs I really wish I had the chance to see her talk.

After looking at her website, her series Left Behind is definitely my favorite. What caught my eyes first were the colors. All of the photographs look like middle America or a small place. I am originally from West Virginia and small towns always have this way of being a time suck. The way people dress and act is not up to date with how people live in the city. Sometimes everyone seems a bit off too and I can see a similar vibe/theme in this work.

There is something so attractive about this photograph even though it is one of a dead one. I am also drawn to the color of pale pink, I find it so aesthetically pleasing and it is used a lot in design work. I like how Strassheim is able to depict death in such a beautiful way. It does not even look like one is looking at a photograph of a dead woman. 

This is another favorite from the same series. The colors in this photo are slightly muted and the facial expression on the girls face is odd. I think the facial feature of the girl completes the photograph because I do not think anyone would be able to pin-point what she is thinking. Additionally, I love the touch of the fake flowers and old lamp with beads. Like I said before about West Virginia, this is a great example of decor that does not necessarily come from a specific time-period but because of that the photo is slightly off. 

After looking at Angela Strassheim's series Hearts I noticed the bio part of her website that she went back to school to learn how to take forensic photographs. I thought that was really interesting and I would like to know why she did that because afterwards she went back to grad school. These heart photos look like they do have a lot more artistic direction than a regular forensic photograph. Although they are gross to look at the dark background and lack of blood make them look more like muscles from other parts of the body. 

While downloading the photos above from the website I noticed that the first one is titled "shotintheheart.jpg" and the following is called "Teenage Drug Overdose". This changes the whole series for me because the photos now seem much more intimate. Hopefully Strassheim went over this in her talk because I think this seems like such an interesting and sad project. If there is a story behind each photograph I would love to know why they were taken. I feel that after learning the names of the photos Strassheim probably took these during her time studying how to take forensic photos. It is interesting that once you gain a small piece of information about a photo it changes your first initial idea of the project. The photos now look more grotesque to me and are not as pleasing as before. 

Week Three

The article I chose was “Does Binge-Watching Make Us Depressed? Good Question” (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/02/04/383527370/does-binge-watching-make-us-depressed-good-question). I chose this article because I think it really connects to a large percentage of people on campus. A lot of my friends burn through shows and procrastinate. I feel that constantly being in your room alone watching a show can definitely lead to depression. You are not doing anything but looking at a screen. Even though the shows can be funny and interesting I feel that people start to connect their lives to the shows and ask questions such as “why isn’t my life like this?”. I also feel that binge watching shows makes people less motivated to get their work done which leads to even more stress because one could be falling behind in classwork that they need to finish.

            The article states that “Once the researchers defined binge-watching, they set up surveys to see if people have the same response as they do to recognized bingeing disorders like binge-eating and binge-drinking.” I feel that this is an extreme and of course binge-watching is not on the level of serious disorders but I feel like it really does bring people’s motivation and drive to a much lower level.

            For my photos I chose to photograph my two friends in their room mostly lying on their beds. I usually connect depression with staying in bed all day and not having social interaction. My photos are not accurate depictions of depression because depression ranges but I chose to focus on people who mostly stay in bed.

            I used a tripod to take these photos because I wanted them to be sharper and the lighting in the dorm rooms are hard to work with when just holding the camera. I also pulled one of the rolls because I have not yet done that. I wanted to experiment with lighting so that I could alter the appearance of the face and make it more eerie. I have always been interested in using lighting to affect my photos. I have not yet mastered the technique of altering photos with light and it is something I want to experiment with even more during the semester.

            After reading the article this was the first thing that came to mind to photograph. I tried a little bit to photograph one of my friends with their computer but in photo 1 we were told to not photograph modern day technology because it kind of messes with the whole idea of dark room photography. I also found that a lot of the photos with phones or other technology kind of came out cheesy or corny. Lastly, I also felt that my photos did not come out as eerie as I wanted them to. I think this is because my friends were trying to pose “normally” for the camera and my photos may have provoked different feelings if the facial expression were uncommon or offsetting.  Trying to depict depression is hard in photographs because depression isn’t just looking “sad” or “unhappy”. Next time I will look up more unsettling facial features in order to give my photos an off-putting vibe (such as Carrie Levi’s work).

Week 2: Response to "Why People Photograph"

Robert Adams seemed shocked to find out the Gary Winogrand was trying to create photos like him. I think this is one of the main reasons many people take photographs and that is because they are inspired by someone else. Interestedly enough Adams and Winogrand's work are very different but that is the beauty of photography it all depends on the photographer's eye. 

I personally take photos because I like being in control of what my subject is doing. When I started doing dark room photography it became a lot more difficult to control the outcome of the negative. This is always a stressful but mostly fun part about developing your own film. Photography is one of main outlets for my inspirations. I like to take what I loved and project it somehow in my photographs and that is why I want to create photographs. 

I am constantly looking at contemporary photographers for inspiration. I really enjoy Petra Collins' work. She mostly photographs young women. I usually use my friends as subjects in my film and it's nice to look at work of just women to gain inspiration for my own work.  Most of her work can be seen in Rookie Magazine.

Although Petra Collin's primarily uses color film I very inspired by her content and how she captures women in their youth. The photos seem so fresh because of the subjects in the photos. The lighting is always intensified and adds more generally moodiness to the photos. The top photo seems a bit eerie due to the green lighting. The bottom photo on the other hand is much more delicate and pleasing to look at. The details of the shadows and white bra go well together. Also her photos have very specific themes and I am always trying to make sure my work looks as if it goes together.

When I was younger I always dreamed of being a stylist/photographer and wanted my photos to be seen in magazines such as Vogue. Now that I have been able to experiment more with photography I do not think I would want my photos to be so editorial. I would love to see my photographs amount other young photographers in magazines and books. Hopefully one day my photography will serve as inspiration for young photographer just like Petra Collins' work does for me.