Touchy Subject

I saw this ad when I was browsing a photography website. And it brought back to mind the trite debate of Photography being art. Nothing irks me more than someone disregarding all of photography as art. Its not an illustration, or a painting, but its not the media which truly defines whether something is art but the meaning it has. Although the photo in the ad is crap, so maybe it wasn't art until they applied that awful filter to it. Actually, its still not art, or at least not good art...

Alec Soth Lecture

Its always great getting to hear photographers (and artists) lecture, to put a face to the art work you've been admiring. Yesterday I saw photographer Alec Soth (rhymes with both) speak over at UPenn (and I got to ride the L, which is always an adventure, especially around rush hour!) Alec's talk was kind of a downer, in a good way. He spoke about his frustrations with photography, the over saturation of photography, with sites like Flickr, and Facebook, pictures are everywhere. It was great to hear a photographer I admired admit to inner turmoil over his work, it made him relatable, not this unreachable lofty figure. His solution to this problem, was to try and connect his images with a narrative, attempting to follow the Aristolian Arc.

(Actually used this image in his presentation, yay google for helping me find it)

It does raise a valid question, what separates our "art" from these unconnected "snapshots"?

I want to say that a well thought idea is what separates the two, but some great photographs are spur of the moment, taken as Cartier-Bresson would put it, the decisive moment. I've been finding myself struggling with the same issue. Why should my photograph be important, does it have meaning, or a back story? As a result I find myself dissatisfied with most of the photographs I've taken because something was as Alec put it "pretty".

I'm not sure where I'll end up along this path, I love photographing things with backstory, meaning (although my ideas are usually dark and brooding as of late) So I was glad to be cheered up by doing polaroid transfers. And that is what I leave you with.

Its always good to have a camera

Sometimes walking around with a camera people heckle you, Hey! Take my picture!

Which sometimes I do, but usually not.
But mostly because they aren't related to the project I'm shooting.

Today I happen to see a guy outside just break into dance moves, good time to have a camera.

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Its nice to branch off from the city every once in a while.

All About Alex

These were printed for the Surface Altered class, the assignment was rather open, simple entitled "All about Alex". Processes used include liquid emulsion, cyanotype, vandyke brown, gum bichromate, acrylic lifts and transfer, tape lifts, as well as charcoal pencil for the text.


My concept was to portray "Alex" across various stages of his/her life, Alex was chosen because of the androgynous nature of the name. I chose my models based on how well I think they could portray stages of a life, not necessarily if they were actually in that "stage" of life. I could have applied more text to the images to help define them but for the most part they are successful. I plan on redoing this series in order to better unify it as one life that represents us all. Some of the stages are more blatant than others, and not all of the pieces incorporate text right now. Hopefully new and improved pieces will be up soon (If I ever find free time, har har!)