Friday, July 11, 2008

Removing Linear



I knew the first thing I wanted to do with my work as an artist when I finished Columbia was to move away from linear and series-based photography. It's so boring, so expected. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it's a yawn fest. I don't want to be just a photographer. I'm interested in using all mediums in one project (gasp!) - something Columbia wasn't too friendly with. I still want to discuss the same issues as my senior project but yes, in a different way. I think that people didn't hear me in critiques when I said I wasn't happy yet with the project and how it was photographed. For the time and place it was in the project it was as successful as it could be. People took me saying that I wasn't willing to loose the idea of the project, as me saying I wasn't going to budge photographically or aesthetically. This was THE most frustrating and irritating to handle throughout the nothing-but-frustrating project. Anyways, my head has been spinning with creativity and ideas, but I have no direction. And having no direction is absolute bliss! I know I am guilty as charged for trying to get the point to the viewer as clearly as possible and ended up taking photographs that I would never ever want to take. Caught in that mindset though, I was proud of them. Whatev. Live and learn. I didn't listen to my gut-instict back in photo sem, so after that everything spiraled into a Columbia-inspired, cut and dry, linear piece of crap.

Here are some sketches of ideas that have been running through my head that I've managed to capture on film. It is completely different from my final project but still has the same ideas, which means I'm completely excited about it. I love sitting in a certain way and being instantly inspired. That's what happened here:



Ironically this example is linear, but in a much different way. ha! when i speak of non-linear I mean One photography, the next one, photograph number three, blah blah blah. I'm thinking of Wolfgang Tillmans, who i actually don't particularly care for, but the only example I can think of.

I also like it when you take pictures for a completely different reason that what they turn out, when in context of others. Lika zis one:



Especially in context with this one:


and this one:



And here are some others I like:







1 comment:

caitlin arnold said...

i think that when you take a huge step back from making work and explore different ways of making art, you realize a lot of things about yourself. not having taken a picture for a month a half after graduation was awesome. the first picture i took again felt amazing and refreshing. i really look forward to seeing what direction your work goes and what happens. i'm actually really excited to see a lot of people who graduated do things, i feel like our class may actually take pictures after they graduate!

i hope your summer is going well and you are enjoying the sun shining on us,even though it's humid as fuck. <3 :)