Monday Entry: Larry Sultan

http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa422.htm

Thursday Entry: Liminality

"Demand's photographs capture moments that refer to a greater event, a before and after. An abyss might me concealed behind each door and every blind window. Demand's sites evoke scenes and stories in our imagination..."
-Susanne Gaensheimer

Gaensheimer, S. (2002). "Second-Hand Experience".
Thomas Demand, 70-74.

Susanne Gaensheimer's essay, which accompanies a collection of Thomas Demand's artwork, expresses the the essence of the artist's photography, and also ties in to issues pertaining to my own work. Demand, whose final product is not unlike that of James Casebere, photographs a constructed model based upon a charged, pre-existing image. The viewer is thus several degrees removed from the actual scene-which is itself a representation. Demand gives us a specific view of each scene and every object within the photos are essential to its interpretation. Various parts in the compositions lead the viewer towards estimations of the location's significance. We are caught in between moments in his fabricated scenes; as the aforementioned quotation makes clear, the viewer can sense the importance of what has just occurred or will still come. Perhaps it is the overall stillness that pervades in his photographs that suggests a disruption is imminent. The artificiality of the scene lends to the tension as well; the artist must have recreated these scenes for some reason.

This essay has helped to elucidate some of the issues that I have been working out with my own photography. It eloquently addresses the need to envision what has occurred in the scenes that Demand presents us and speaks about the layers of recreation that he plays with.

Monday Entry: Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson, one of the most influential contemporary photographers, was born in 1962 and received his BA from SUNY Purchase, and his MFA from Yale University. He is well known for his cinematic tableaux, many of which were extravagant productions. He deftly moves between shooting scenes on location and photographing in a soundstage at MASS MoCA. Whether inside the studio or out, his control over the details in his imagery is absolute. The lighting is bold and exquisite, as are the colors in his saturated scenes. He began by constructing dioramas for museums, and as his creativity grew, the set-ups became increasingly macabre and bizarre; in one set of images, he made a life-size cast of one of his legs, and placed the severed limb in the fabricated environment. Crewdson's Twilight series has gained an enormous amount of recognition for the stories it suggests and the tension in each image. Just like the series title implies, these scenes are set in that fertile time just before evening begins.

In an interview with Aperture Magazine, Crewdson reveals that he finds most of his inspiration while swimming. This bit of information stood out to me as quite intriguing. When I look at my own thinking process, many of the ideas I have tend to come to me while I'm in water as well. I do most of my creative thinking while in the shower, and have visited the local swimming pool for inspiration when I feel frustrated. Perhaps it is just the relaxing nature of water that allows the mind to focus, or it could be a subconscious link to the womb, a place for ideas to come to fruition.

http://www.luhringaugustine.com

http://www.aperture.org/crewdson/

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/

Thursday Entry: Impermanence

"Photographing spontaneously, (Maxine Henryson) has an instinctive perception of the fleeting moment"
-Mario Kramer

Kramer, M. (2007) "The Visible Time"
Red Leaves and Golden Curtains, vi-vii.

This essay examines the qualities of Maxine Henryson's photographic body of work. The artist creates her colorful abstract images by setting her camera for a long exposure and adjusting the focus while the picture is being taken; the resulting images evoke distant recollections and sensations-strong impressions of past visitations and events. Composition is important to the artist despite the blurred product, and some of her locations are identifiable, but only just. Interiors and exteriors are obscurred with varying degrees of blur; leaving some photographs more discernible. Henryson is prone to travel in search of locations across the sea, shooting most often in Asia and Europe. The author notes that the sense of timelessness in her photographs is furthered by the absence of contemporary technology and advertising. Just like in a dream, it is difficult to place when events take place. Not every element in her images is blurred to the same amount; there are clearer areas in the picture, allowing the viewer's eye to wander about the scene, wondering the significance of the revealed portion, in comparison to the unfocused sections.

I am particularly interested in Henryson's practice of excluding modern cars and technology. It takes away from the effectiveness of a scene to recognize a cell phone or certain new car, and instantly dates the image. The pervasive feeling of obfuscation in these images is clear; you are near an object or in a location yet are not quite able to find all the details that you desire.

Anderson Gallery Submission

I submitted three photographs to the Anderson Gallery Student Show last week, and one was accepted. They will be showing my "Doctor's Office" image in the gallery starting Friday the 10th.

Monday Entry: Christian Vogt

Swiss photographer Christian Vogt was born in 1946 and studied at the Basel Design School. He is known for his diverse body of work; he can easily transform, creating imagery in many different modes. Having worked steadily since the late 1960s, Vogt has acquired attention for numerous series, including 1994-1995's Idem Diversum, which is made of several, full-scale portraits of subjects with their eyes closed. The restricting black borders are reminiscent of the walls of a coffin. His more recent work was created outside of the photo studio and is surprisingly fresh for someone who has been working in the medium as long as Vogt has. Since Last Summer, Vogt's 2003 collection of color work, is rife with bizarre photographs, which appear formally sound, yet spontaneous at the same time. The landscapes and figural scenes are set at dusk, which almost becomes a character itself. This collection was an experiment for the artist, he was not attempting to build a series, rather just photographing what he observed during long summer evenings. Moving on, he returned to the practice of creating series in 2004 with Viewings, a more detached and cerebral group of images focused on the tension between interior spaces and the worlds that lie beyond their windows.

Vogt's photography from 2003-2004 resonates strongly with me. I love the mischievous and dark qualities in Since Last Summer; one longs for the events that immediately led to the scenes caught on film. The sobriety of his compositions in his 2004 series of interiors is as unnerving as it is fascinating. Everything is balanced, and the colors almost form bands, as in color field paintings.


http://www.christianvogt.com

http://www.schaden.com/book/VogChrPho03785.html

http://www.webjournal.ch/article.php?article_id=1015

Thursday Entry: Impact

"A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence"
-Susan Sontag

Sontag, S. (1977) "In Plato's Cave".
On Photography, 3-24.

This essay, the first in Susan Sontag's classic collection, extols the benefits of the still image over motion pictures. She sights the influence and power of the photograph, writing about one image in particular, the Vietnamese girl, stripped of her clothing and running away from a napalm attack during the Vietnam war. Sontag opines that the hours of destruction in Vietnam aired on American television in the 1970s were not nearly as effective and memorable as that single still image of the girl. The critic writes, "Television is a stream of underselected images, each of which cancels its predecessor". With photography, the artist pays closer attention to the composition and details, distilling what could be an entire narrative down to a single frame. In many cases, there are too many images in film to really appreciate the individual shots. Sontag appreciates the tangibility of photographs, whereas film needs to projected through a machine and cannot be physically interacted with to the same extent. She sees photographs as a unique moment in time; more accessible and considered than motion pictures.

While I am a great admirer of film and would love to experiment more with the medium, I do agree with Sontag. Photography can be extremely potent, when handled correctly. As with several artists I am inspired by, I aim to use the medium to relay an entire story, recounted through the visuals, without relying on text or audio.