Response to Gary Winogrand's Women are Beautiful.

Garry Winogrand and Women are Beautiful.

            Garry Winogrand was quoted saying “I do not know if the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know they are beautiful in my photographs.”  What he seems to be quoted on again and again is that it is not necessarily about the subject in a photograph it is mostly about how the photographer wants to portray the subject.  I am inclined to agree with him, because I feel that many pictures are taken for granted for showing something without biased, especially photojournalism.

            Through out the series “Women are Beautiful” Winogrand photographs women in the late 60’s in different strata of society and very different situations.  The way he photographs them seems to be in a way that is not very obvious however is composed very well.  What I take away from this is the key to good documentary photos is either to hide the camera or to take the picture when the subject is not paying attention.

 From what I have read he would roam around and take a bunch of photographs very quickly with a pre-focused wide-angle lens.  From studying many of his shots in this it also appears that he was taking them with the camera at head level.  This seems to be a very effective method for doing this as even though you might get a bunch of poor pictures you may still get that one that works very well.  Also this trains your eye to take pictures very quickly, and this is something I really need to work on to become a photojournalist.

For this project Winogrand named few of the pictures in this project instead he let a lot of them stand by themselves.  His one picture of two women crossing the street walking their dogs is just one such untitled photograph.  In this picture their faces are obscured and the primary focus is their breasts.  The reason the focus is on that is the sharp contrast between the top and bottom of the breasts since the photo is shot at noon.  This also works to obscure their faces, which is generally a no-no in photography but in this case is used very effectively to make them an every woman. From this I take away an effective way to abstract personality to show the way that you want the person to look.

While my project is about the campaign for Grijalva’s election, I believe there are many similarities between Winogrand’s project and mine in that we are both attempting to show what we see in our heads over what we see through our eyes.  Also his project was mostly about how people were interacting with woman and how women were presenting themselves to the world.  I am also showing how Grijalva interacted with the voters, through signs, in the campaign office and with the canvassing of neighborhoods by volunteer and paid canvassers.  While Winogrand focused his project on the idea of beautiful women in many situations, I am focusing my project on areas that are fairly static, and are chosen with purpose. 

Photo update

Response to print viewing

    This is a picture from Lauren Greenfield's Fast Forward, which dealt with life in the shadow of hollywood.  The woman with the bandages is the main subject and is framed by the balloons on the left and the man on her right.  The man appears to be her husband by the way they are sitting.  The balloon and the husband are wearing similar colors in similar spots, which makes the framing very nice, maybe implying an extension of him.  The pool completes the color similarity by being the man's blue shorts.  The two woman in the photograph seem to be kind of unhappy or at least kind of bored, which is odd because this seems like a scene out of a pool party.  Also the juxtaposition of the woman on the left who is alone and looks kind of frumpy and the woman with bandages who has a man beside her and nicer clothing on could be a commentary on cosmetic surgery being viewed as more beautiful.  

    The thing that first grabs my attention is the woman with the bandages on her face.  At first I thought she was a victim of domestic abuse, however I realized that she had had cosmetic surgery.  That could be hinting at the idea that cosmetic surgery is a symptom of social abuse to the self image of people.  The symmetry of the man next to her and the colors of the balloons and the pool, along with her body language, which is trying to not to take up too much space,  makes her feel claustrophobic.

    The theme of this photograph seems to be how common place cosmetic surgery is here.  Where I am from if someone had a bandage on their face like that someone would probably assume they had gotten injured in an accident and ask why they were out at a party they weren't seeming to enjoy.  The party does not seem to be too fun for both of the women in the photo, however the man seems to be enjoying himself just fine.

    I am pretty sure this photograph was created to at least imply that the beauty standard that is prevalent in hollywood applies mostly to women and men reap the benefits.  This is not only backed up by the uninterested, almost bored looks of the women, but the banal dress of the man, and the sheer unattractiveness of him show that clearly the women put much more effort into themselves than he does.

Response to War Photographer.

Response to “War Photographer”

The photos that Nachtway took of Kosovo are the most impactful to me.  The houses seem much like houses you could possibly see in here and having grown up with a lot of eastern Europeans the faces seem familiar.  However the environment they are in is completely foreign.  The blown out houses and all the men carrying assault rifles is almost as strange to me as seeing Martian landscape.  The way Nachtway walks around quietly and takes the pictures makes the whole scene feel even stranger.  When he is following the crying woman into her house, his “apartness” is very evident in this point.   While she allows him to photograph, the mechanical noise of the reflex moving is the only sound emanating from him.  This makes him seem like some kind of robot or machine further emphasizing his apartness.

 The photo of the person carrying all the scythes next to the house is one of my favorite of the Kosovo series.  It almost makes you think that there is so much death in the area that they are going to supply extra deaths with scythes.  The strange façade on the bombed out house makes the scene all the more surreal.  I feel like if I were there I would now know what to make of the whole situation.

The silently solemn strolling that Nachtway so unassumingly uses to go through these scenes of intense violence and horror is in great juxtaposition with his subject matter.  The calm way he talks about the things he has scene shows that he is either greatly disturbed or in complete control of his emotions, which one could argue is also insane.  The way he talks about what he saw in Rwanda betrays his steely exterior though showing me that he in fact is deeply affected by the events he has scene.

The image of the man with the assault rifle shooting out the window of a bedroom is also another very very good image.  The disruption of the bedroom and the man shooting out the window make what should be a comfortable room into a terrifying scene.  While you cannot see the man’s face because the gun is in the way you can tell from his stance that he is preparing to shoot at someone possibly coming to attack his place/town.  I think the image shows a strange calm before the storm, in that it seems like this man is preparing to ambush someone and the minute that happens all hell is going to break loose.  It really makes me feel like Bosnia is not a great place for a relaxing vacation.

His most famous picture of the Somali child who starved to death is terribly moving.  The position of the baby’s body makes it seem like it is begging the woman’s skirt to help it.  Without being told you would not naturally assume that the baby was dead however once you are told it change the context of the photo entirely.  Dying of hunger is something that is incredibly foreign to most Americans, a culture where we have “Dollar Menuaire” commercials and we are told that in order to be attractive we should shun eating the readily available food, or to leave half of it on the plate.  While people die of hunger in America it is not to the same scale that it happens in refugee camps or war zones where it is used a weapon to break whoever’s “enemy.”  The thought of doing that is so beyond comprehension for me that it seems like one must be pure evil.

Assignment 3

Final project update

I don't have photos because I haven't been able to attain permission for either project.

Assignment 2

My idea behind shooting this project was to show what it is like to hit on girls, and to be hit on in bars.  The dance that ensues is nothing but a courting dance that is much like any other animal.  There is the approach, and attempts to impress.  The worst ending of course being total rejection.

The Omega Proposal

Proposal 2/The Omega

The objectives of this documentary project would be to document the sex workers of Tucson, how they live, how they work.  What they think of themselves.  I will shoot this with my cannon 50d and most likely obscure faces or do something to protect anonymity.  To exhibit the photos I will have 8x10s or perhaps larger prints.  The access I would be able to get would be different on a person-to-person basis.  However should I get permission I should have pretty good access to documenting bits of their lives.   I would attempt to shoot them at their studios, and at home showing the pictures near each other to show the dichotomy. 

            The parts of this project are just interviewing different people and photographing them at work and at home.  I have heard they have large sex worker get-togethers and  might see if I can’t document that. 

            I should be dealing with getting permissions this week and from there on out be interviewing and photographing my subjects over the coming months, at regular intervals set up with them.

            I feel if I do this project well I can show that sex workers aren’t people forced into the life but people who have chosen it as a profession, or at the very least give them more humanity than is afforded them in the general media.

            Budgetwise, I only see gas and interview related fees(coffee, food, etc.) really shouldn’t cost too much besides printing twenty prints.

The Alpha

Proposal 1/The Alpha

            Having been in Tucson for over three years now I regularly explore Mount Lemmon, yet I know almost nothing of the rangers and other support staff whose job it is to maintain public areas, check trails, and look for lost persons.  In this project I would contact the Coronado park rangers and ask for permission to go along with different people in their day-to-day jobs, documenting things they do and what not.  I will use my Cannon 50d and perhaps a 120mm film camera.  I will exhibit single images in each print.  My ability to do this project will be restricted by my ability to get permission to go with park services/rangers, to get this I will go to the local office and ask what I can do.  I will be able to shoot them mostly on weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) because I lack the time during the week to get up the mountain shoot and make it back to classes, and most of my classes end late enough that I would be having to take a lot of night shots, which while I am willing to take I am not sure they would turn out very well as I do not have the proper equipment to actually shoot it, however if there is an opportunity to do so I will take it. 

            This project is significant because the Coronado parks area is slowly being more and more developed by different projects aimed at improving the economy of Arizona while destroying this unique environment.  This would be a study of those people who are there conserving the “sky island” from the public, for the public. 

            Step one will be to obtain permission, This will be accomplished by contacting the ranger office, by far the easiest step as email contact and phone calls can be made from anywhere at any time.  Should I be rejected I will go down to the office and plead my case.  Step two will be working out who I will be following and when since I have 3 free days I feel I can accomplish one or two “ride alongs” a week. 

            From this project I feel I will be able to capture a sense of what it is like to be a park ranger.

Funding for this will be covered from pocket, it takes half a tank of gas to go up and down Mount Lemmon, and if I am going to shoot two days in a row it is possible to camp at a free campsite on the mountain.  Also film will be a cost, but developing the film will be free as I have access to the darkroom’s film development, and I have enough left over paper that I will be able to print for “free.”

Assignment 1 Space Ships and Photos

      I chose to take pictures of situations I would miss to remind me of what awaits when I return.  I figured that for a long trip in space I would go crazy without remembering situations.  While the pictures themselves are pictures of specific events they are types of events that I enjoy the most and thus when looking at one I can think about all the other things that I will get to see again upon my return.  Most importantly these pictures are a reminder to never be bored because life is short and there are plenty of poor decisions to make still, and even more great ones.  

      Whether they be personal situations such as waking up next to someone or the almost deific feeling of watching ants, situations are the things that I will miss, because while I love my family and friends I can remember them better doing things rather than just as people I know.

Bug watching

Adventures and Bad choices

Art and Architecture

Dinner

Music

Sunsets

Perfect days

Roadtrips

Waking up to someone else

Angela singer

I’m going to start by saying Angela Singer has a love of photography that few people, even famous photographers possess.  I would not call her prolific clicking away dedication because I feel that implies she was willingly trying to take a lot of pictures.  I believe that she was really more in the mindset that she needs to take pictures and a lot of them.  This mindset differs from mine, I like to photograph things when I go out on specific photography minded walks and for projects I think of.  Something similar is that we both will rephotograph the same things over and over again as the seasons change.  We also take pictures of other people’s art.  While I like my photography to try and grasp the essence of what I am looking Angela truly gets an unnoticed look at like in a southern town.  She is able to get pictures of things that she would see everyday, and if some people noticed her taking pictures because they were so used to it they were just greeting her.  A lot of her shots are also pictures that are just documenting events in her life, common everyday events.  Combined with her telling stories about the context of the pictures it brings a more complete view of a southern town.  For instance her picture of the “Salute” they used to give when one of the boys had their birthday shows that even the elderly who tend to be more conservative in the south were once younger and did raunchy things like that, as opposed to how she may have been viewed by her grand daughter.  Few of her pictures show a technical understanding of composition, however the ones that do are truly great pictures.  This is mitigated by being able to see how she took the picture, the offhand snapshot in the morning of her mailbox to start off the day, or a shot of a random leg both of which explain their situation with little to no need for help from an outside source.  I think it is more of a constant documentary of her life and not a picture archive.  You can literally see what she did everyday and interpret maybe how her day was going.  The videos certainly show how ridiculous of a life she led, raising 6 children with a husband who would beat her.  I think the vast number of pictures that there are attest to how much we as people see, I personally am much better traveled than she is, but she has amassed tons of different pictures of essentially the same things, since she does not travel too far from her home.  This truly shows that photographers do not need to be in darkrooms all the time or editing photos or going to critiques they really just need to love the art.  One day I hope that I will be as diligent as she is enthusiastic about photography and the love of an image.

Response to Sally Mann documentary

Sally Mann’s method of dealing with things is to document them with photography in a way that is no longer the usual method of interpreting them.  While most parents see their children and take snapshots of their childhood, Sally decided to turn their childhood into art.  The kind of access you get with family members and those close to you is almost absolute, really only limited by their comfort with it and your willingness to document it.  However in documenting people that are close to you objectivity becomes skewed.  I believe Sally’s turning them into art is a great way to over come that hurdle.  A major sacrifice you make by doing this though is privacy, you end up either sacrificing vital moments of life to privacy or you sacrifice your privacy or the privacy of those around you for art.  This can be a delicate balancing act as you do not want to alienate your friends and family, however if you are going to document these things you do not want an incomplete record.

            It appears that in Sally’s mind the whole world is a goldmine of untapped pictures just waiting to come to life.  She mentions that n her childhood she was given a book about there being beautiful pictures hidden in plain sight all around her.  I believe she took this to heart more so than most people would have and decided that it was her duty to seek these pictures out and expose them to the whole world.  This is very evident in the detail shots she takes, but also to an extent in the portrait shots she takes.  The pictures seem to be capturing a single moment that could be fleeting in a regular person, but makes the moment timeless, much as the statue of The David has a hip positioning that can only be held for a split second while switching one’s weight from one hip to another.  However Sally does this with positioning of objects and facial expression.

            Watching Sally’s documenting of her husbands degenerative illness reminds me of my avoidance of my sister’s four year battle with cancer which she eventually died from.  While this made me feel as if I should have documented my sister’s illness I realize that, that was not truly available to me at the time of her illness, as most of the time she was in Philadelphia getting’s treatment, or for the final two years of it I was away from home and only saw her when I came home for breaks and the last time when I spent two weeks at home when she was in the final stages of dying. 

            Since getting serious about photography I have often pondered about something I can do as a long-term project to document something about myself.  Over the summer after taking some self-portraits, I discovered some old photography I had done where I had taken pictures of myself.  Looking into it I found that there are in fact quite a few portraits of me taken by my mother, however I had posed myself for the camera.  On top of that once I had a camera of my own I took pictures of myself that reflect how I thought of myself.  I’m currently tracking down where a bunch of them got to and trying to figure out the chronology, to see how my self-image developed through photography.  This is a major benefit of having a photographically prolific mother.  One of the more difficult aspects of this is to accurately deduce the chronology of the pictures; another is to admit to myself what I actually thought of myself at that time.

            Sally’s series on landscapes where a great many people have died is kind of a strange documentation to me. It is actually documenting a non-event.  In many ways it is like the Carl Sandburg poem “Grass” which goes thusly:

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work--

          I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:

          What place is this?

          Where are we now?

          I am the grass.

          Let me work.

However it resonates with me because of a project I thought up during the summer where I would look for old photos of things that happened in my childhood and go back to that spot, and position my camera the same way the camera in the picture was.  Of course there will be no one in the picture and it will be essentially a landscape or still life, but it is a record of the change after something happens.  With Sally being a southerner civil war battlefields are places where great events occurred and the memory of those events is remembered in the collective stories of small southern towns.  I am a Italian Mick from New Jersey, all my great events occurred around family events and happened much more recently than the civil war.  This means that there has been less time for there to be change, but living in an urban environment leads to there being a great deal of change in 10 years as opposed to a preserved civil war battlefield.  Also my project uses juxtaposition.

            

First post

This is an intro test post.