artist statement v2

I take my work seriously and myself less so. I think it’s important to have a sense of humor about everything: self-seriousness almost always leads to unnecessary stress. Still, I like to produce the best quality work that I can. I’m no master of photography, but I enjoy challenging myself with new photographic pursuits, even if I complain about them to my photography teacher.

Ultimately, whether producing it or simply appreciating it, I’m a huge fan of art.

artist statement

Despite my intensive training at the esteemed CVS Photo Lab, I’ve never considered myself a particularly creative or daring photographer. I work well with guidelines: I’m comfortable completing assignments with specific directions. But when my photography assignment was as nebulous as “mastering a new technique,” I was at a loss.
Fortunately, when I approached seasoned photographer Telayah Sturdivant, her help was invaluable. As it turns out, Telayah is as good a model as she is a photographer. Poised and confident in her vibrant red dress, she made shooting portraits—something I have had very little experience doing—easy for me.
Both photographs were taken in the school, which, behind the lens of a camera, turned out to be a much more interesting place than I thought.

Art Night Proposal

For art night, I plan to take a nighttime photograph of my front door, and the lantern beside it, in particular. I experience this strange light when I walk my dog every night, and thought it might be fun to photograph. My house is rather bland on its own, but I think that the eerie light of the lantern by the front door could make it seem somewhat creepy and interesting. Extensively Photoshopping the image will be essential to creating the desired effect.
Though I can't pinpoint a particular technique, I strive to achieve the effect that is in my two reference photographs. The photographer seems to have upped the contrast and desaturated the image (I might keep a bit more color in mine) to emphasize the effect of light in darkness. Vignetting the photograph will increase the effect.
I plan to shoot on Thursday (?) night. I will use a tripod and take the picture when the sun sets at different times (probably around 8:30 - 9:00). This way, I will have a gradient of darkness levels and will be able to choose which one provides the effect I want the most.


I can't seem to post the reference photographs, so I'm giving you links to them instead:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacelion/226051724/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rborja/1827815257/

Photo Document Proposal

For my photo documentary, I plan to document the subculture of the cafe-goers in Saratoga. More specifically, I’m going to take pictures of the people who work at and frequent Saratoga Coffee Traders. From what I can gather, this group of people includes college students, intellectual homeless people, wealthy tourists, and just regular townies. I have always found the “Coffee Traders crowd” to be an likable although rather elusive group of people that will hopefully prove interesting to photograph.
There are a wealth of things to photograph at Coffee Traders, ranging from coffee to bins of colorful vintage candy to just interesting-looking people hanging out. Given the friendly and accommodating aura of these cafe-goers, I don’t predict having difficulties photographing them. In order to seem more casual and less like an intrusive photojournalist, I might try talking to them for a bit before I commence picture-taking. This way, they will be less inclined to change my behavior when photographing them.

The attached reference photographs have both the subject matter and the warm aura that I'm trying to attain.

3

(detail of birdhouse from one of my storybook photographs)

Take away the birdhouse from this photograph, and it would be dreadfully boring.

Like the jar that Wallace Stevens places on a hill in Tennessee, or the sculpture that Maeve photographed, the birdhouse rules the picture.

The birdhouse is small, yet extremely powerful. Stevens' jar is similarly small. But once he places it on the hill, there is order. If there were no birdhouse in the picture, we would not know where to look. The birdhouse, like the jar, creates a focal point; once it is there, we know where to direct our eyes, and we have, to some extent, created order in the wilderness.

2

The Anecdote of the Jar
Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

The wilderness, however vast and powerful, is subservient to the jar.

By placing the jar, Stevens has rearranged his M&Ms by color.

Is the jar civilization?

1

"The spontaneous direction of energy flow is from organized to less organized forms."
- the second law of thermodynamics

It is human nature to try to organize things, to create order from disorder. Even adults will acknowledge the temptation to rearrange their M&Ms by color.


(photograph by Maeve Gilman, Emerson '10 art major; edited by me) This abstract sculpture is placed on a mount and, accentuated by the rather dubious placement of a trash bin, dominates the landscape. Without it, we would see a field with a few trees spaced at random intervals. But instead, the angular, unnatural stone sculpture takes precedence over the natural forms. I find the sculpture rather unpleasant. But undeniably, it creates order within the disorder of nature.