Project: Critique 03

Weekly Snapshots 02: Orange

Project: Critique 02

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Project: Proposal

1)      For my project, I would like to examine the presence of identity in portraits. As we discussed in class, some portraits convey a greater sense of the subject’s identity while others convey a greater sense of the artist’s identity and many fall somewhere in between. Personally I would like to focus my work on photos that emphasize the subject’s identity. I think that a lot of the sense of identity is generated by a subject’s awareness and relationship to the rest of the world. By awareness I mean their conscious ability to experience the moment of the photograph; we as viewers know that the subject is capable of comprehension and as such we are able to relate to and possibly empathize with them on some level. And by relationship to the rest of the world I am including their relationship to the setting, to other subjects, between the subject and photographer, between the viewer and the subject, etc. However, the subject’s identity that is created through the photograph falls somewhere on the scale between ‘real’ identity and constructed identity (either by the photographer or the viewer). I would like to explore either how identity is created or the extent to which that identity is ‘real’.

2)      I’m drawn to several types of portraiture, but what they all have in common is that the viewer (at least I am) is interested not only in the formal elements of the photograph, but also in the identity of the subject. I’m particularly interested in Richard Avedon’s work, a lot of which has a very staged quality about it. But I also admire Henri Cartier-Bresson's street photography that still encompasses an aspect of portraiture. And I love Helen Levitt's work, which is somewhere in between those two extremes.  

3)      I am fairly positive that I want to approach this topic through black and white, but I am unsure whether I want to use film or digital. I am also unsure if I would print with a printer or in the dark room. I think it might be best to use subjects whom I am somewhat familiar with in order to be able to address the issues of identity that I am most interested in.

 

Photos of Interest

I finally got the chance to have a few rolls of film developed that I had shot over the past year or so. I really liked these three photos and thought I would just go ahead and put them up here.

 

  

 

Project: Critique 01 (Opposites)

While looking through photo books at the art library I realized part of what draws me to portraiture is the sense of identity and personality embodied in the photos. The subject (person or animal) is aware of their existence and surroundings. They are conscious of and experiencing the moment that the photograph is taken.The viewer may be more inclined to have thoughts such as "Who is this person?", "What is their life like?", "What are they thinking here?" because of this quality.

 I tried to think of what the antithesis of this would be and came up with two different options to pursue.

In the first opposite, I tried to take photos of non-living subjects in such a way that they might still be viewed as having an identity and awareness.

 

  

  

 

In the second opposite, I took photos of objects that could be look at as personality-less and without a consciousness.

 

  

  

  

  

 

Weekly Snapshots 01: Shooting without Looking