Blog Entries #11, #12, #13, #14 and #15

#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.


The photograph that stands out in my mind most is a picture of when I was little of my mom and I when I was a flower girl for my cousin's wedding.  I was about four and extremely shy at the time.  I didn't want to be a flower girl and I went very slowly down the isle and never looked up.  I remember the picture because I have such a terrified expression on my face while my mom is happy as ever to be taking the picture with me.  I was wearing an ugly bright purple dress with poofy sleeves.  If I were to go back to that church I don't think I would remember that, and if I were a flower girl now (obviously this would not happen) I would be so happy to do it, but still shy.

#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?


Another photograph that I remember is one when I was little and in gymnastics.  I just had bought a new leotard and was SO excited about it.  It's just be standing, very proudly with my hands on my hips.  I was about six and look so small.  It makes me laugh to think about it,  because looking back I now know that I really wasn't very good at gymnastics and just thought I was.  I have changed a lot since then.  I was always so happy/excited when I was little, and I still am somewhat, but not as much because if you always look happy when you are older you look crazy.  I don't even know if a reenactment of this photo is possible but it would probably be of me in a swimsuit because I was in swimming through middle and high school.  I would be happy but you would be able to tell that it wasn't completely as genuinely happy as me in my leotard.

#13____Human-Made Space: In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. “"New Topographics" signaled the emergence of a new photographic approach to landscape: romanticization gave way to cooler appraisal, focused on the everyday built environment and more attuned to conceptual concerns of the broader art field.” http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibTopo.aspx

In addition, at the same time in history artists created (and still do create) “land art” in which they use materials found in the landscape to make sculptures that remain in the landscape. Many of these works now only exist as video recordings and photographic documents.

Pay attention to the number of ways in which you encounter humans’ interaction with nature and the physical land. Write these down. Using these as inspiration, describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might create that would be documented by a photograph. Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?

When I think of places that have not been touched by humans I would want to show the space on a large scale to show what unalteration looks like on a large scale but also what it looks like on a small scale in order to show the detail.  However, few places like this exist.  My photographs of familiar places would be more much more posed than pictures of faraway places. 

#15____In-Camera Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe how you might use a slow shutter speed and/or double exposure to capture two moments in one image that tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.


You could have the subject move from being the person they were to the person they are not, emotionally or even physically.  There could be a double exposure to show the subject in 2 different settings in order to show movement as well.