Anastasia Cazabon

Grow yourself. Don't stay in one comfortable spot. Antasia Cazabon intrigues me because I don't consider her work particularly strong but she carries a specific style throughout her body of work. Although each of her photos are simple and quite different in space and lighting, she is consistent about what she shows and how she shows it. This purely motivates me to try more things. I think that my style is similar to hers in the marginalization and limitation she shows. As the viewer we know that there is a face- eyes, ears, mouth that is not communicating with us. I ask the question- why. Why don't we see the face? Why are the figures marginalized? Then I question my own work, similarly. This work makes me motivated to try something new. Yes, it shows me a more developed style and its potential, but it also makes me want to explore my own photographs. I think that the second photo is similar to Randi's recent photos. It has the same sort of idea/quality. Notice how the shadow plays a large part of the photo and our interpretation. Everything in the frame is recognizable/relateable but we cannot decipher one particular meaning from it.

Continuing from my last post, there is nothing extraordinary about the above photos. They are quite simple and could be easily recreated. But they are not telling us a story. Unfortunately, nothing we shoot will be original as we think. Therefore, don't stop exploring all ideas. Don't be comfortable with what you have created, don't be comfortable with what you ARE creating. Shoot more. This is a lesson for myself. Even though I know how I want to shoot, I shouldn't settle for that. This is the hardest thing to overcome because I want to settle for something. One thing that will determine my path. But truthfully, that is shit. Most of the work I've done so far has been shit and will continue to be shit until I really push myself to NOT SETTLE. As photographers we have nothing settled and everything is undetermined. I think this means that we need to be uncomfortable and feel unaccomplished in order to grow.

Are we growing?

Compete

Ok, so I have no artists for this post, but I wanted to throw this question out there anyway.

Adam Vanvossen and I were talking the other day out at the bar on $.25 wing night, and we were discussing each others' photographs, and discussing the upcoming Juried Art Show. We were also talking about how you should go about naming your work. We went back and forth offering our constructive criticism towards each other's name choices, etc...We also we're offering our compliments towards each other's work as well. Saying..."Oh no, yours is so much better then mine." Or, "I have no doubt you will win something in the art show." Then out of no where Adam says..."I feel threatened by you." I was stunned, because his concepts, techniques and execution have always impressed me. Then we continued to talk about how competitiveness is somewhat essential to make good art.

It is, at least I believe in our group it is, a very friendly and helpful community atmosphere. However I think we all still feel like this sense of competing with one another. We give so much praise, and I know we mean it, but when we leave, we think, "wow, she/he is really good... How am I going to top that?" I don't think our purpose is not to top each other, but it pushes us to always put something on the screen that people will be awed by (in an extreme circumstance) or moved by. It was cool to hear him say this, because i felt the same way towards him, and many of my classmates, but I didn't want to be the one to say it. Do you feel this sense friendly sense of competition when creating your art? Does it make you a better artist? Is this one of the only places you feel like you want the other people to be "semi-threatened" by you? Isn't this an occupation where, even though we all care about each other and each other's success, to make it, we need to keep competing?

I think we can say we will all offer help to each other if needed or asked, and encourage one to do their best with making their ideas reality. I just thought it was an interesting thing to realize and to hear someone else say it to.

Inspiration or Discouragement?

As you can see, Chris has put up all the these photos/paintings of pictures he has found by artists who have created pictures that are similar to some of our work. I am going to be doing the same about Jacki's work a bit. But when I do that I would you to think about this question...When you see these pictures, do you get frustrated or discouraged, or do you feel like it is a way to motivate you and makes you want to "best" that artist. After seeing Chris's post of the paintings, and the arch nemisis I had last semester, I can say now that I look at these things and immediatly start studying what makes my work different/better/worse/similar to these other artists' work. Last semester, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach, because does this not make my work original anymore? Then I studied mine hard, and even though, orginally, I wanted to give up on my whole idea, I started looking at his and I felt like mine grew on me even more. I started to become protective almost of my pictures. I wanted to make them the best they could be, and knew that I had done mostly everything in my power to make my signature on my art. So, when you see works that are so similar to yours, how do you react? Does that negative or positive feeling stick with you, or does it change as time goes on, and the more you look at your artwork and your competing artist?

Here are pictures I found when I was researching, by Roderik Henderson. It reminded me so much of the ideas we were throwing out to help Jacki add that "surprise." It also reminded me of the pictures she has taken already. That ability to want us to develop a relationship with the subjects in her pictures. I always feel the need to want to know so much more when it comes to her photos, and I am so intruiged by the way she views people. I think Henderson does this well also.

importance of research III

This one is for Ben.  *We should really get the intermediate students to use this blog*

There are a lot of different possibilities to move forward wi

th aesthetically when dealing with long exposure light-controlled situations.  Jan Wöllert and Jörg Miedza have become masters at dealing with long exposure LIGHT DESIGN.  I'm emphasizing the "design" because this obviously took some careful and precise planning and a lot of experimentation.  But with every great photograph there is a starting point.  Usually when you deal with a stationary camera with moving light source(s) the common starting point is setting up your camera and just attempting to get a good trail of light.  As you move on there is the potential to design and stage situations that create a very unique and "unreal" situation.  

if you want to check out more of these, their website is here

importance of research II

Another artist that Mary can use as a great reference is Alyssa Monks.  Alyssa is a painter that is great at creating photo-realistic situations.  It's obvious that the subject matter is extremely similar.  The more import things to take note of is not the subject matter (although it may be), but more importantly what this medium does for the situation in comparison with Mary's photography.  Does it do anything?  Does it create a different feeling?  Or does this subject matter really stay the same regardless of the medium?Another thing to refer to is the lighting situation.  This spotlight that highlights the face creates a nice bright head with a desolate background.  

Anyways... I've been looking into different mediums for inspiration lately because a lot of photographs have been annoying me.  Whether or not it works for other people is a different topic, I just get a different feeling from these paintings compared to Mary's photography.

importance of research I

After the critique today I wanted to bring up the importance of research and allowing your peers to enter your creative process.  Obviously it's up to you whether or not you choose if their words will have any significance, but being open to ideas and building off of fellow photographers is a great opportunity to have.  Basically, I like what we are doing.  

There are a couple of photographers that I wanted to bring up, but could not think of their names on the spot.  Anthony Kurtz is an artist that can relate to what Gina is somewhat moving towards.  Simply viewing his works could be a great reference as well as a good kicker to get her project jump-started and headed in the "right" direction a little faster.  He is in this situation where a police force is executing a typical raid, but he did not just take these wide, easily distinguishable photos the entire time.  Kurtz shoots medium range

shots as well as detail shot to expose great color and reveal the aggressiveness behind what is truly going on.  There is obviously going to be a certain aura in a situation like this, so why not document that along with what is truly going on.  It is important to note WHAT is making the atmosphere and not focus on WHO the entire time.  Explore both, and use them as tools.  Kurtz has a library of photographs were he explores everything that a situation has to offer.  Here are a two more from different collections of photographs that I urge you guys to check out.  He documents the situation, the people, the location, and really works with all aspects of the environment around him to create a body of work.

My approach to research has often been to continuously use blogs and photo-sharing sites that are available online.  I also like to physically print out what I am working on, and sit with them for a while before I feel like my prints are satisfactory.  How to do you research?  Also, how do you apply your research to your work?

1st Meeting

Shane mentioned putting up "minutes" from our meeting, so those who couldn't be there knew what we covered. It was a super casual meeting that didn't have much structure, so I am not sure what all to put on here, but we do have an itinerary for next week, so I think it will be more structured then, yet still relaxed and casual. Here is what I have though...

* Started around 7:30. Brought Chinese and Ben and Sam so kindly got drinks
* We started things off just by talking about our classes and seeing how everyone was doing.
* Conversations started between different groups talking about what they are trying to accomplish and frusterations.
* The food was enjoyed and conversations continued.
*We moved all to one table and continued our conversation about our desires and what we were "trying" to accomplish with out photography.
* Suggestions were thrown out when people were struggling and needing that spark to get an idea, or different approach.
* We discussed how to shoot "everything" and what that all entails.
* Jacki and I decided to make an itinerary, and decided that girls pair up to make snacks/dinner for each meeting, and the guys will pair up and bring beverages.
* We made the meeting time for Thursday at 7:30 every week. Reminder emails will be sent out on Tuesday. Rotation will occur with food and drinks.
*Everyone packed up and decided if we were going to go do a photo shoot at our dirty dance club of a bar that night.
*Stood in the hallway for awhile and played hackysack with Jacki's gloves.

MEETING=Success