Jeff Whetstone

Jeff Whetstone Artist Talk

On a very basic level, I enjoyed hearing Jeff Whetstone speak about things other than his photos: I learned a lot about nature/human nature, and it seemed like he was very passionate about zoology. He also had a great sense of humor, making the lecture consistently entertaining.

"Everyone is Postmodern."

I quoted Whetstone while he was showing some historical examples - a few of his favorite photographs. I can't remember who the photographer was during this specific quote, but said photograph was taken by an American veteran and commissioned by the U.S. government. Whetstone describes this photo of the Midwestern mountains as deeply emotional, solely on account of its formal qualities.

Another quote I wrote down went somewhere along the lines of "We need to make a new definition of wilderness - one that includes man." He says that humankind, and our impact on the earth, is not separate from "nature." We developed from nature, and therefore everything we create is no less a part of the environment than tress and rocks.

Another fascinating idea Whetstone brought up relates to nature and human history. He explored the caves around his hometown and photographed the graffiti that had built up over the generations. He shed a new light on this "graffiti" by comparing it to the caves in Lasceaux and Altamira, where the world's first pictures (graffiti?) can be found. They're not exactly comparable, but the parallels are uncanny; perhaps this tendency is inherent in our nature. Mark things with our identities so that they will last longer than our bodies.

Taking these photos, Whetstone didn't know what he was going to get, because he couldn't see much in the pitch blackness. It sounds like an exciting (and evidently a rewarding) process. Not many people can achieve these photos (with a view camera. no less!), and that makes them so much more special.

To be honest, my favorite part of Jeff Whetstone's talks were not his photographs (although I truly did like his pictures), but the snippets of information that they were based on. I feel like I learned a lot of extraneous information from Whetstone, which is something that I have not really been able to report after an artist talk. Thanks, Jeff!

Week 11: Barthes

Roland Barthes has a distinct writing style; long sentences with lots of breaks in them and complicated vocabulary. I enjoy reading his writings because of this, but it seems to go against this particular text, in that it doesn't exemplify the death of the Author. I can recognize his voice, and as a result of this, I must think about the text in relation to my perception of Barthes the Author.
But throughout much of the reading, I kept wondering, "What is so bad about the Author?" I read a book last summer that was heavily political, and the author naturally had a strong opinion on the subject. This definitely influenced the opinion of the reader, and their interpretation of the facts presented. I agree that this type of text (political, news, scientific or anything involving objective facts) should not have an Author. Textbooks have no need for an Author, and also would benefit without one. Fiction, I believe, could go either way. But it seems to me that Barthes is advocating for the Author, their voice, their influence, and their background to be no longer existent. Forever.

Language can be messy, with one person trying to communicate their ideas to another (or even more complicated, to a group of people) given the author's background, prior knowledge/experience, and their understandings of semantics. Every person has a different combination of these, and other, circumstances, which can make for misunderstandings. But this is one of the natural challenges of communication. We cannot simply upload a thought directly into another's brain, and we never will be able to. And this is okay. Everything in the world has imperfection, but this issue can easily be solved if the author knows who their audience is, how to most effectively communicate to them, and is sure to be explicit enough in their writing so as to not leave room for reader error...if this is what they want to achieve. Not all writings need to be without a voice, without an Author, and I am somewhat confused as to why Barthes finds it so important to do away with the Author altogether.

Art can be the same way. I was required to take a course titled Visual Language in my freshman year of college, and the content is just as it sounds: how to use completely abstract forms in artwork in order to communicate an idea, theme, or mood. There was often miscommunication within the class as to what one student's piece was "saying" using this universal visual language, just as there is miscommunication between an artist and his/her viewer in professional art galleries. It comes with being human, and it is something to be embraced (though maybe not all the time, depending on the effect the maker wants to have on the audience) both in writing and in art.

Week 10

My focus for this project is on manmade structures that are not given much attention by the better part of the population. Not given attention because they are do not directly serve us, because they are under construction, because they are behind a building, and so on. I am photographing them for no other reason than the fact that they are beautiful - I often make the composition symmetrical to emphasize this beauty, and to make it more complete.

I was inspired by the thinking behind Anthony Hernandez's Automobile Landsscapes.

This photograph in particular appeals to my thinking. It appears to be a junkyard - something we don't typically focus on, but that is still just as important as the brand-new car dealership. Its existence helps define our world, the landscape that we have manufactured.

I am also inspired by Shai Kremer's work. Much of it is landscape-heavy, but his body New York - Notes From the Edges, reminds me of the work that I have been making this semester. Kremer went to - you guessed it - the edge of the city, on the river, to take pictures of things that we don't normally look at. The twisted metal of a bridge no longer in use. A deserted construction site. Stacks of palates with the skyline in the background. These are not the things we choose to surround ourselves with; they are out of the way for most of us. But they are there, and they are beautiful because they are so rarely seen.

Looking at Kremer's work also inspired me to go a little further to take pictures. It is clear that Kremer scoped out every angle before taking a shot, went to the outer edges, nooks, and crannies, to find the shots for his body New York. Perhaps if I try going into the further reaches of my photographing locations I will find something even more interesting than I have before.

I was intensely drawn to a photograph belonging to Lucinda Devlin while flipping through a book. This photo was at first very clinical - white lights, rectangular composition, void of a human presence. But like many of her other photographs, it was very eerie and sobering because it was a photo of a lethal injection chamber. This kind of photograph is very eye-catching because it takes advantage of our tendency to be morbidly curious. It's disturbing, but you can't look away.

I hope to combine this eerie-ness with the beauty of Hernandez and Kremer's photos. I hope to represent these unseen structures and locations under the context of "art" so that a few people can see them for the beauty that I see them for. However, the scenes I photograph are not completely out of the way, mind you. You can pass them by on the street any day. They do not require special access, like Lucinda Devlin's work. The structures I photograph are somewhere in between those that we see every day, and those that are off-limits.

Week 9

For the time being, I am having fun with my photos. I like the pictures I am taking and I'm still really excited to be doing digital printing. I tack it down to being a graphic designer, and especially, a lover of posters. Printing digitally is one of my favorite things about graphic design, and by extension, about photography. I suppose. As cool as darkroom printing is, I am so happy to be printing digitally.

As for my photos, this past week I finally got my hands on a tripod. I had been wanting to use one so that I could get more information and a larger depth of field in my photographs. I also had been looking forward to trying some night photography, which I attempted this week (week nine) and had a lot of success with.

The above photo was taken after after the sun had gone down for the night. I kept the shutter open for fifteen seconds at a small aperture (f/11). As a result of this, I have found that people tend to think that it was actually taken during the day (which is not exactly a good thing). I am thrilled with the way it came out; it is so sharp! I wasn't even sure if my exposure time was right at all, because light meters just don't work with such little light. It was exciting to see how all these photos came out.

I also printed a photo that was a little different for me. So far, I have only shown photographs that are of places (like the first one). I am, however, also very interested in textural photos (I know you hate that word, Kristine!) I don't know exactly how it will fit in with the other ones, but what I am envisioning is that photos like the one above will be a way to break up the standard vacant lot/empty building. It might even begin to build a narrative.

Based on the photos that I seem to be making (such as these two), maybe I will go in a geometric direction. I am drawn to taking photos that are symmetrical (like these) and that have organized formal qualities (like these). Or maybe I will go in the direction of eerie and isolated like I was planning. I will have to have look at them and decide.

Week 8 Papageorge

I would first like to say that I enjoy reading Tod Papageorge's essays (which is saying a lot, because essays can be really boring). They are well-written and well-balanced. I enjoy the breaks that he makes to tell a story (as in the end of Henri Cartier-Bresson: Two Lives) and to narrate (as in the end of Eugene Atget: A Photographer's Photographer). It livens the essay up and makes it 200% more enjoyable to read.

I am going to speak about the essay on Henri Cartier-Bresson. I could actually identify with the author's fascination with Cartier-Bresson's photos. "It was poetry," he says of Cartier-Bresson's 1933 photograph of a boy looking up. While I was not enamored by the same photographs that Cartier-Bresson was, I certainly was by others.

http://beautydelux.com/?attachment_id=14214 Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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 I found myself looking at the above photograph longer than the others. I love it because of the moment it shows. It's a simple, common moment - nothing too extraordinary - but it is perfectly captured. From the position of the man's arm and how we can see his watch to the dog's glance upward at the moment of his companion's kiss, it amazes me that Cartier-Bresson took this photo candidly. I suppose this is a large part of the reason that I am so impressed. I could never capture this moment so perfectly! Just today I was taking photos with my 35mm camera and I pointed it at the man sitting across from me on the train, hoping to get his head and torso as he was reading his newspaper. But before I could focus and set my exposure, he looked up at me and I got uncomfortable and the photo was ruined. It's difficult to frame pictures of people on the street.

Many other photos by Cartier-Bresson are like this one. He was expert at photographing the "decisive moment." I define this not just as the moment that a photographer decides to press the shutter (although that inherently is also part of it), but also as the moment where things come together with their maximum amount of static/tension.

Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, France, 1932, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos, courtesy Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

 Like a social interaction between two people where the photographer captures the moment that both subjects react to something, or the instant before a man jumps into a ambiguous depth of water. I wonder if Cartier-Bresson often waited a long time with his camera in position until that moment came. He must have.

I can begin to comprehend how Cartier-Bresson came to find the things and people - situations, so to speak - that he ended up photographing. He walked everywhere and traveled the world, using his camera as an extension of his eyes. I imagine that he also practiced his Buddhism and entered a concentrative zen state while photographing. But what I can't fully explain is how he was able to photograph so perfectly the split-second moment that he so often did. And how he was able to make himself so invisible while doing it.

I noticed some large similarities between Cartier-Bresson's and Papageorge's work - namely, their subject matter. This made sense after reading that Papageorge was inspired to begin photography as a career by looking at one of Cartier-Bresson's pictures. I scarcely see any landscape, geometric, or abstract work by either of them. It is mostly people; street photography. I am usually not drawn to this genre, but after looking at both of their photographs I was quite amazed.

Week 7

I  have chosen to write about the photographer Joel Sternfeld this week. Joel Sternfeld has made quite a few collections of work, most notably American Prospects and On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam, which I will primarily be talking about.

Both of these bodies are relevant for similar reasons. The most obvious reason is that they depict true American landscapes, scenes, and events, and to someone who has always lived (and continues to live) in America, it doesn't get much more relevant.

I also find his photographs to be very appealing. I am trying not to overuse the word "beautiful." Down to a single blade of grass or piece of rust, they are full of detail. This gives me a lot to look into and keeps my interest for a long time. Similarly, and in the case of American Prospects, his photographs cover a large area with a large depth-of-field. I believe that his photos depict a scene that is beautiful - but also depict it in an elegant way, using time of day (a.k.a. light) and vantage point (high above to capture more stuff). These things are what make Joel Sternfeld's photographs so appealing to me.

Money, Mississippi, June 1994. www.Getty.edu

Copyright: © Joel Sternfeld

On a conceptual level, Sternfeld's photographs are largely illustrative, in a similar way to that of a journalistic photographer. He seems to be photographing places as they are day-to-day without tampering with how they look. From what I can tell, he is not setting up any extra light, or placing actors in the frame, or manipulating the landscape/scene in any way. In other words, the photographer's hand is almost nonexistent. This allows the viewer to take in the scene and focus only on what it contains. With On This Site, we need to read the commentary about the scene's history to give the photograph the extra weight (I question the effectiveness of this approach, however. When I regard Sternfeld's method of taking a static photo and pairing it with equally neutral commentary, I cannot help but feel that there should be a little more to it. Is it too simple, too obvious, to depict these locations in this manner? Does the method agree with the subject matter is represents? I do not know the answer to these questions. I simply can't shake the feeling that there could be more thought put into the process in order to best represent these horrifying stories). The strategy of almost-pure documentation of a scene makes the photographs relevant in that they are very relatable.

After a Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage, California. American Prospects.

© 2015 Joel Sternfeld. www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=55263

This photograph, for example, allows me to take in the scene and the event that it presents to me, and then allows me to interpret it - to compare it to my own life, home, climate, and so on. The photographs speak for themselves.

On one last note, I want to talk a little about something of which I have been thinking. I have been becoming aware of how many professional photographers use the view camera to create their pictures, and I am beginning to realize why. I have never used a view camera before (and most likely never will), so I am not 100% confident in its functions, but what I've gathered from my brief research is that they allow for a lot of detail - more than you could ever get with a 35mm camera or digital camera. This must be a result of the time one must take to expose the negative, as well as the size of the negative itself. It carries a ton of information. Discovering these things about photography is fun, because I am just beginning to figure out all of the possibilities and what their specialties are. It's really just good to find these things out on your own, through experience, instead of being told.

Week 6

This week, the photographs of David Hilliard resonated with me a  lot.

Right off the bat, they have a unique format. They are panoramic, but not in the traditional sense: they are really more like diptiks, triptiks, and upwards (all the way to seven or eight in some cases). Different viewpoints of the same scene sit side by side or on top of each other to complete the photograph.

All photographers represent something that exists in the world; they present something to the viewer that was first presented to them. They RE-present it. Whether it be studio photography with light setups and actors or street photography or landscape photography - it is always a representation. What I think is relevant about Hilliard's photos is that this representation is more lifelike than a standard photograph. They present the same scene to us but at different angles of the same view, and sometimes, at slightly offset times. The picture below demonstrates this.

 The man's arm is at his hip on the left, but on the right it has moved (or been moved from?) the side of the house.

Looking at Hilliard's photographs is a little like being there with him. It is like looking out of one's own eyes. When we are experiencing something in real life, we move out eyes around, turn our head, and take in the whole scene in a few seconds. This is the experience that I get when looking at one of Hilliard's panoramas.

I also can't help but think of practically the only other experience I have had with panoramas: the iPhone pano. I know that Hilliard's work is not a direct response to this because his panoramic style predates any cell phone with that capability. Nonetheless, it is satisfying to see this technique done professionally. There is deep thought and consideration in Hilliard's panoramas. They are a joy to look in and look into. And, of course, the quality is much richer than a phone camera shot!

Many, if not all, of Hilliard's photographs have a narrative quality to them.

This always adds to the impact of a photo. It makes the viewer want to figure out what is going on, makes us ask questions and contemplate what we are seeing. Everyone loves a good story, and with photography is can not always be deciphered easily. As for the above photo, I see a couple enjoying a lazy (and romantic due to the roses, candles, and of course, nudity) summer afternoon in what appears to be a cottage. One has fallen asleep by the fire while the other quietly reads a book by the window. Very peaceful.

Others are not so clear.

I suspect that his photographs mainly function in the context of their collection, or series. As with his collection The Tale is True, some photographs tell a more explicit tale, while others serve as punctuation; a breath or pause from the story. I am fond of the photograph above because I can get lost in this place by going deeper and deeper into the space. While I cannot determine what narrative it contains (if any), I find it interesting to look at because of its peculiarity. What's with the castle in the middle of nowhere? Is this truck unloading or picking up the junk, or is it part of it?