Summer Fun

Just a few notices of interest...

...and just because school is out for the summer doesn't mean you can't keep the dialogue going...

A few things to do this summer:

Frida Kahlo

SF MOMA

June 14 - September 28, 2008

Chihuly at the de Young

Dale Chihuly

de Young Museum

June 14 - September 28, 2008

Eve Sussman

West Coast premiere of her "The Rape of the Sabine Women"

Begins May 1, 2008 through June 27, 2008

One of my favorite artists...here's a blurb from the SF MOMA web:

Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation, 2006, 82 min.
Fridays, 3:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
SFMOMA is pleased to host the West Coast premiere of the acclaimed video musical The Rape of the Sabine Women. The work recasts Rome's founding myth of abduction and peaceful settlement as a chaotic fall from midcentury idealism. Constructed as a 1960s period piece, the film presents the Romans as government agents, the Sabines as butchers' daughters, and their union as an affluent, International Style idyll. Inverting the Roman source, the piece tracks not the origins of empire, but the end of utopia. The May 01 and 02 programs feature live musical performances, and the May 03 program includes a panel discussion.

Portions of this film contain nudity and violent imagery that may not be appropriate for all viewers. This film is not rated.

Celebrate Worldwide Pinhole Camera Day!!

Bus Obscura tours & Build your own pinhole camera festival @ Rayko
(SOMA, ie. South of Market Area)
FREE at Rayko Photo Center
Sunday, April 27
11:00 am to 5:00 pm

RayKo Celebrates WorldWide Pinhole Photography Day - Sunday, April 27,
2008 (11am-5pm) | Bus Obscura Rides (12pm-3pm) | Meet the artists
(3pm-5pm) Demos | Build your own pinhole kits | Two gallery shows. As a
unique celebration of WorldWide Pinhole Photography Day, FREE bus rides on
the oh-so-unique Bus Obscura will be available on a first come first
serve basis only on Sunday, April 27, 12pm-3pm. The Bus Obscura is a
passenger bus converted to a multiple aperture camera obscura using a rear
projection technique that allows the individual images to flow into one
another. As the bus moves down the street a 360 degree animated
panorama is created inside.

Final Critique Schedule

Hey all,

The schedule for final critique will look like this:
(Please also consider this the order.)

Monday, May 5th

Ann
Maryam
Kate
Julie
Tricia
Dena

Wednesday, May 7th

Alysson
Victoria
Michaela
Kristin
Lily
Jennifer

Please note***
Plan on spending an hour after class participating in cleaning up the classroom and lab facilities. We'll be splitting the duties among all three photo courses. If you can't make it for that hour you must make other arrangements with me.

You're all cooking along - I can't wait to see what the next few weeks bring.
Cheers!
deirdre

Schedule for Monday, April 21

Hey all,

Monday the 21st of April will be an open lab day. Please bring work to do.

The Polaroid shipper didn't get our film out on schedule, so we will use the time
to work on final projects and meet one on one to discuss the next steps in folks'
work.

The readings are still due on Wednesday - bring digital cameras as well if you
have one.

Enjoy your Sunday,
Deirdre

Frank Gohlke responds to our project

Wow! I was excited to find this email in my inbox. We will most certainly send him a copy of our project! Read on:

Dear Ms. Visser,

One of my computers is down, so I don't know if I responded to your message of Feb. 11. As you can imagine, it's very gratifying to learn that something one has done has found its way to
people to whom it is useful. Thank you for letting me know. It's a reminder to me of what the whole enterprise is about, of what makes an artist's absorption in his or her personal obsessions more than just self-indulgence. It really matters to any of us when we encounter thoughts that echo or clarify intimations we ourselves have had about our common experience; it reassures us that we're not as alone as we sometimes feel.

Please feel free to use the essay in your publication in whatever way is best for your purposes. I'm quite curious to see the results of the project. I hope you will consider sending me a copy of the book when it is finished. My address is: 3041 N. Gaia Pl., Tucson, AZ 85745.

Thanks again,

Frank Gohlke

Tangled in the Web

Ok, we all know how easy it is to get off course while hunting something down on the web.... one interesting image, and I'm chasing down one rabbit hole after another. Anyway, I was looking up stuff by Lygia Clark and found this blog... I don't know how long this post will be there, but you might enjoy it.... I suggest skimming the essay...

http://anziche.blogspot.com/2007/01/functional-fake-objects-concept.html

Thanks for all the wishes of support for installing the show.

k

SF MOMA

At the SF MOMA I found several images to be compelling. However, I came away with questions regarding how imagery, (since we were looking at photography) becomes MOMA worthy art. I greatly enjoyed looking at the "small wars" which was visually compelling. We, here at home, do not know what it is like on the ground in a war zone. This show helped bring the of loneliness and abstraction of war home. However, the more I am exposed to "high" or critically acclaimed art I leave feeling like I missed the point. I don't understand what makes an image MOMA worthy, rather than IKEA worthy? 

~Kate

Project Proposal:

I am interested in the notion of presence through absence, history, and the relationship between place and experience. For this project I will be using my house as a way to begin considering environmental space/structure in relation to psychological space/structure. This will initially involve photographing primarily the structure of interior spaces. Through thinking about perceptual fragmentation, I would consider converting these spaces to various installations. Other sites, domestic and otherwise, may become more relevant to the project. I will present the images as a linear sequence in print form and will use the 4x5 camera and both color and black and white film. I anticipate that the result of the project will challenge it’s initial logic and the production of images will successively encourage more nuanced questions.

Kate's Revised Proposal

After much thinking, I have boiled it down to working on an environmental portrait of my self through my family. I am going to present the project in a book. My plan is to create a portrait of my family, and myself, that is a reflection on family and identity. I don't want to make a "family album" I want the project to be a deeper exploration into family/identity utilizing my family for images. I would like the viewer to be able to feel a connection to the work through reflection. I want to explore the connection with the past, and how it has helped shape the future. The first few images of the book will be of objects and images of past family members, the later part of the book will be image of me. Accompanying the images will be text, probably in the form of poetry. These are the only three objects of my Grandmother's (my namesake) that I own, she died before I was born. However, through my mother I feel a strong connection to her.  ~P. Kate

Revised Proposal

After learning about the waist view-finder medium format cameras, I have decided to take my photos using the Bronica. I am still going to present the finalized photos in a grid format along with short texts that will be type-written on the same sized paper as the photo prints. I will be taking photos that deal purely with the compositional elements, specifically that of the grid, and surreptitiously taken spy photos of people that exude a sense of loneliness, longing, vulnerability, and defense mechanisms.

Revised Project Proposal

After much deliberation, I finally decided to focus on something completely different from the "creating food sculpture" idea.
I was inspired by an assignment from my Digital Imaging class about nostalgia, and got very excited about that project. So I decided to use that assignment as a starting point for this class.

My current project idea is this: I want to create a portrait of a specific day in my past in pictures. I have a photographic memory from a certain day during the summer of 2002 when I was 15. I was in love with someone 11 years my senior. He and I, as well as many of my extended family members, went on a rafting trip on a river together. This day remains nostalgic to me, because although I was very happy at the time, I realize now what the real circumstances were. The day was full of judgement, tension, unspoken things, and negative thoughts hid behind a facade of smiles.
My goal is to recreate various situations that occurred that day, but reshape them according to what went unspoken. I want to expose the feelings that were hidden under the surface in my photos. I plan to use my memory of the day and recreate different scenes from that day, but add the emotions that I feel now and push it to the extreme in my props and set-up...like representing feeling cold with a big pile of ice, and wearing blindfolds to show how I couldn't see the truth that day.
I have concrete ideas drawn out for the different shots already.
I want to work in both black and white as well as color, to see what works best for this project. I am going to switch between digital and medium format cameras, with some 4x5 too. I plan do do mostly self-portraiture with additional models when necessary.
I hope this makes sense...
Lily

Don't miss this show:

Gilbert & George 

de Young Museum

through May 18, 2008.

a modest proposal (not the baby eating one, sorry)

So I've been having some trouble with what had been my proposal. I decided to stop panicking and just write about what I REALLY want to do for this project. I suppose this is an appropriate place to post it. Feedback is greatly appreciated, I have no set images in my mind, all of this is still in progress.

new proposal?

I will not begin with a meaning; just like a good novel, I believe that the metaphors aren’t added by the author. The author just presents an image and the reader takes it in as they will. Intention does not always translate. All the creator can do is present something that is pleasing or moving to them in some way, and watch what the audience does with that information. On that note, I continue to find myself wrapped in the idea of the formal portrait. I want to completely utilize the 4x5 camera’s selective focus. I want to see what the camera is really capable of creating.

I like the production of portraiture. I like lighting, I like posing models, I like conceptualizing images without “meaning”. By “meaning” I mean some sort of intended message for the reader. If I wanted to tell them something about society, or life, or humanity, I would just tell them. I create photographs as a way of capturing the imaginary world in which my opinion is truth. It is a biased look through my own eyes. Photography adds a level of distance between word and listener, similar to how metaphor works in poetry. The space between photographer and viewer also grows with each layer of absurdity.

I continue to come back to the formal portrait. What if something wasn’t quite right about a fashion portrait? What if the woman who exists through the photographer’s eyes to advertise an outfit, exists to destroy it, exists to make the viewer not want to buy. Or what if you could see the advertised woman come undone? This is not commentary on the fashion industry, or on media exploitation of femininity. This is a simple documentation, with the 4x5 camera, of what happens when we dissolve, mentally, physically, spiritually, or otherwise. Abstracted by the format, the setting, and the pre-conceptualization, the viewer will be forced to not only search for a message, but to imagine a plot for a storyboard. In this way, the viewer becomes the creator. This becomes the pith of the image. What does the viewer make of it? How can I distort perception? I hope to explore these questions, and test to see just how far I can distance myself from the image, without losing control of it.

Dena's Proposal

In the past twenty years society has experienced an incredible pull into the age of technology, where we are forever improving and miniaturizing. Now available are wafer thin computers and MP3s that let you hold thousands of songs in the palm of your hand. It is in our very nature to evolve and constantly use old information to develop new ways to “improve” or simplify our lives; as the computer was an improvement of the typewriter and the MP3 the evolution of the record. With every “improvement” there is a discarded primitive version that is abandoned for the newest product. What I hope to investigate through this project is what actually happens to the discarded or unused technology that lies to waste as a result of our constantly growing demand for newer, better products. I plan to photograph places in the Bay area such as recycling plants and auto scrap yards that deal with obsolete computer equipment and other technologies. I plan to use 35mm slide film and to project the images. Although I like the idea of photographing such subjects with a 4X5 camera, I do not think it will be practical enough to use in such locations and would best be shot with my own Nikon N80 camera and 35 mm film. In using such methods I hope to give my photographs the feeling of abandonment that exists in the unnoticed waste and refuse of the past.

Alexis Pike

Alexis was the opener for John Divola last Friday at SFAI. Her project, Human Nature, touches on an interesting juxtaposition of nature and its representation in her native Idaho.

Flying into Oakland this morning.

This was the sky this morning flying into a lovely overcast day here in the Bay Area. I hope you all had a productive weekend. Just a reminder on a couple of fronts:

Check out the show currently up at the Mills Museum:
We Interrupt Your Program

Gail Wight and Anne Walsh will be speaking tomorrow at 7:30 in Danforth.

Don't forget to upload your image edits to the blog. If you're having trouble, holler!
That's all for now.

You Go, Modesto!

I was a little late getting there, but it was well worth the effort to see Modesto's innovative ideas. The shallot skin and mushrooms were my favorites, but all of it was intriguing.

I don't know about you, but I always feel like I know a person better after I've seen their work... so it was nice to meet you, Modesto :-)

Old Work

I'm posting this as a reference to myself and Deirdre but to anyone else who's interested here's an overview of selected photography projects from the last 5 years.

project proposal

This semester I plan to continue my investigation with growth and perception. I plan on using a medium format camera and going out every day to photograph plant-life, I plan on also trying to do this project in 4x5. I am going to use the available light in the morning for my project. I like the idea of this project in a square format because it draws attention away from the shape of the image and brings your attention to what the photograph is about. I would like to show change in the most obvious way it presents itself to us.

Project Proposal

For my semester long project,  I want to take old Hackneyed phrases, "Old sayings," that have turned into modern cliche's and make them into a photo representation.  I want to make these as LITERAL as possible so that there is an element of humor to it. When I say old sayings I mean:  A penny for your thoughts, Don't throw the Baby out with the bath water... things like that. Ideally, I'd like to have 15 prints... but could be... out of sight.  I'm still working on a timeline for this project. 

ANYWAY.

I want the photos to have a vintage macabre to them, and as I said, I want them to be way literal.  So when I say: A man after my own heart, or Break a leg.... you get the idea. 

I would like to use the 4 x 5 camera for this project. Last year I tried to use the 4 x 5 but I got so frustrated that I stopped and didn't even give it a second chance. However, this year I really want the quality of pictures that only the 4 x 5 can give me. I need the sharpness as well as the versatility of the camera. I really like the idea of making a picture versus taking a picture. I still don't know about locations yet, somewhere in San Fran and back home.... wherever the picture calls for. I hope to have 7 prints by midterm.