Sarah Michels: October 2013

"Adela Holmes." Artist a Day. Artistaday.com, 2007. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://artistaday.com/?p=1129.>

Adela Holmes Photography. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://www.adelaholmes.com/>.

Hersh, Allison. "Modes of Transport." Savannahnow.com. The Savannah Morning News, 26 Apr. 2008. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://savannahnow.com/accent/2008-04-26/modes-transport#.Um3X8_WJssg>.

Holmes, Adela. "No Time To Stand Still." Afterimage 33.3 (2005): 34. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://0-web.ebscohost.com.dewey2.library.denison.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=5ab287a9-2a16-4845-9451-b716a9c5b7b2%40sessionmgr198&hid=120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d>.

Torres, Jesus Manuel Rojas. “Hattie’s Capricious World by Adela Holmes.” WUM: An Online Journal for the Arts. What's Up Miami, 25Feb. 2013. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://whatsupmiami.blogspot.com/2013/02/hatties-capricious-world-by-adela-holmes.html>.

Monday, October 7, 2013

What color is a forest?

Project #4 Proposal

For Project #4: The Mutable Image, I plan to create an extended image. I really enjoyed the result of my Project #3, in which I combined both drawing and photography into one image. I would like to try something like that again, except this time instead of cutting and placing my drawings by hand, I want to do it through Photoshop. I intend to make a drawing of some sort of fantastical creature, and place it in a woodland settings. I also want to place a human subject in my image, interacting or conversing with this creature. I will use one of my friends as this human subject (or I might use more than one, so that there are a few humans with a make-believe character in their midst). I image the final image to be something reminiscent of the product of a child's imagination, much like Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Cotton Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 3 of Charlotte Cotton's The Photograph as Contemporary Art is titled "Deadpan," and describes photographs that lack both visual drama and hyperbole. These images make use of a style that is cool, detached, and sharp, and rely greatly on clarity and monumental size to have an impact on the viewer. The photographer's perspective and emotion are markedly absent within these images; instead, it is the subject that dominates, and its meaning extends beyond the frame of the photograph. Andreas Gursky has become the figurehead of contemporary deadpan photography; his works are usually large-scale, and many place a considerable distance between viewer and subject. Cotton considers photographers who use deadpan in order to depict images of industrial, architectural, and ecological sites, including Walter Niedermayr, Candida Hofer, and Jem Southam. The chapter ends by looking at artists who use the depersonalized deadpan style in portraiture. One artist that was highly influential in this area was Thomas Ruff, whose head-and-shoulders portraits offer extreme physical detail, but give away nothing of the character of their subjects.

Cotton Chapter 2 Summary

Chapter 2 of Charlotte Cotton's The Photograph as Contemporary Art, entitled "Once Upon a Time," looks at storytelling within art photography. Specifically, Cotton concentrates on what is called "tableau" photography, or photography within which pictorial narrative is focused into a single image, a stand-alone picture. The works depicted in this chapter exhibit scenes that are carefully designed and choreographed by the photographer to create such narrative images. Examples of photographers who stage these images include Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson, whose elaborate photos display highly preconceived, incredibly labor-intensive sets with the narrative quality found in tableau photography. Sometimes, tableau photography draws from specific historical imagery or cultural codes for their narratives (such as the works of Sam Taylor-Wood and Tom Hunter); other times, it relies less on this and instead portrays much more ambiguous, unreferenced narratives. Tableau photography does not always require the presence of human subjects. These kinds of photographs encourage the viewer to piece together the narrative by tracing the thoughts and actions left behind by humans.