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Showing posts from November, 2022

Susan Sontag In Plato's Cave

  “The inventory started in 1839 and since then just about everything has been photographed, or so it seems”. Being able to photograph anything was convenient. Events and fleeting moments were never able to be captured before. But with a photograph, you could capture a moment and keep it forever in near-perfect detail. It's like a memory frozen in time. As cameras became more advanced and modern we started to capture more and more of our daily lives. As of today, I bet that almost every major event in our lives is photographed. “In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe”. Because people were able to capture anything and keep it as a memory, people started photographing everything because they never wanted to forget anything. Since so many things were photographed artists had to start looking at things differently in order to be original in their work. Photography also pushes the boun

Leslie Mullen’s Truth in Photography

  “Photography can change the way we look at the world”. I agree with this sentence. Photography can change a person's view of the world but literally and metaphorically. Abstract works literally distort an image forcing the viewer to look at the subject in a way they could not before. Photos can also open the viewer's eyes to a truth about the world they did not see before. Such as war photography. People used to be able to disconnect from war because they could not see what it was like, but after photographers started taking photos of war zones the war was brought to the people and they could no longer ignore it. They could now view the effects and devastation that war left behind. “Photography approaches art insofar as it is made or created with skill”. I also agree that photography is a form of art. While it is true that nowadays anyone can take a picture on their phone, true photography takes skill and hard work to make. Because of the years of practice and the amount of

Self Portrait

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      Above is a self-portrait of me. While this image does not show my face it does represent part of who I am. I am a photographer. While I may not be a professional or known for any of my work I am at heart a photographer. I see the world around me as images waiting to happen. I am always looking for what would make a great photo, and when I don't have my camera I capture the image with my mind and carry it with me so that maybe next time I will be able to capture the moment. And I love the process of creating an image, whether in analog or digital. An image is but a moment frozen in time forever, and it can never be touched by time again. However, when you edit the image it is like you are reaching back in time to alter the landscape to your will. It gives you a sense of power and control that we don't always get in our lives, and it can be intoxicating. Once I started photographing my world I found I could never put my camera down again. And I will never see the world in t

Jonas Bendiksen

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  For a Magnum Artist I chose Jonas Bendiksen. The image of his that I chose is of Skogs ø ya Norway in 2012. I love how much detail and how many shades of gray he was able to get in this image. I love how the person in the image is only a silhouette. The fact that the individual is silhouetted keeps them from distracting from the rest of the image while also adding perspective to how far off the mountains are. I also like how he captured the light breaking through the clouds. The light hits the mountains in the background which leads your eyes to focus on them. The lighting leads me to believe that the main focus of this image is meant to be the mountains in the background. If the person was intended to be the main focus they would have been the one in the light not the mountains. I also love that even though the water is in the background you can still see detailed ripples. Most of his other picture on the Magnum website are in color and have people positioned in the image as the sub

The George Eastman Museum

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  I really enjoyed our trip to the George Eastman Museum. There were so many amazing photos there. Above are three of my favorite images. The first two images are both from the same artist. I really liked these images. I like the contrast between the dark background and the light subject. I also like how the whites are not a pure white, they are a little muddy. That helps the subject blend better with the background. I feel that if they where a pure bright white it may have felt to exaggerated. I also like how in the first image there is a singe blue flower. I feel that that small splash of color really adds to the image, and I like how subtle it is. At first I didn’t even see the flower, but after looking at the image for a little I noticed it. I also really like the detail that the artist was able to capture in these images. You can see the small details in the delicate lily pads, the small ripples in the water, and you can see detail in the feathers of the bird. Sadly the images I t

Color

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  When it comes to photography color can be a very important element. Color can be used for a number of things. One reason being to set the subject apart from the rest of the image and another reason is to depict emotion. For instance in the image above the red of the flame sets it apart from the rest of the image, and your eyes are pulled to the flame. If there was color and detail in everything around the image it would be very distracting and you may not see the flames as the main subject. You would view the image as a whole and your interpretation of the meaning could be skewed. However, since only the flames are in color you would interpret the meaning sole based in the flames. The colors of an image can often be depicted as emotion and help lead you to the meaning behind the piece. For instance blues represent sadness, reds represent anger or passion, and yellows would represent happiness. In the above image the red of the flames can also be used to depict rage or passion. With f