Topic investigation for Thurs. Oct. 8th

com⋅bine  [v. kuhm-bahyn for 1, 2, 6, kom-bahyn for 3, 7; n. kom-bahyn, kuhm-bahyn for 8, 9, kom-bahyn for 10] Show IPA verb, -bined, -bin⋅ing, noun

–verb (used with object)
1. to bring into or join in a close union or whole; unite: She combined the ingredients to make the cake. They combined the two companies.
2. to possess or exhibit in union: a plan that combines the best features of several other plans.
3. to harvest (grain) with a combine.
–verb (used without object)
4. to unite; coalesce: The clay combined with the water to form a thick paste.
5. to unite for a common purpose; join forces: After the two factions combined, they proved invincible.
6. to enter into chemical union.
7. to use a combine in harvesting.
–noun
8. a combination.
9. a combination of persons or groups for the furtherance of their political, commercial, or other interests, as a syndicate, cartel, or trust.
10. a harvesting machine for cutting and threshing grain in the field.
Origin:
1375–1425; late ME combinen (< MF combiner) < LL combīnāre, equiv. to com- com- + -bīnāre, v. deriv. of bīnī by twos (cf. binary )

Related forms:
com⋅bin⋅er, noun

Synonyms:
1. compound, amalgamate. See mix. 9. merger, monopoly, alignment, bloc.

Antonyms:
1, 4. separate.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.





I picked combine as a word these week as I will be combining families into one single person. I wanted to explore the word not only in meaning but also through images and I found that these images best showed the meaning of combine.

1st Artist talk for October

Until I heard Penelope Umbrico speak I totally did not agree with the use of appropriation. I know there are a lot of artists using it and that it was wide spread throughout the art photography industry, but I thought it was a cheap and easy way for artist to gather images. I thought it was essentially stealing especially when the original artist didn't know you were using their image. I had seen Umbrico's work before and enjoyed it. Had even done a favorable artist presentation on her, but still I didn't understand the need to use others images when it can be so easy to create some yourself. That was until I heard her speak. I know see how the use of appropriation is essential to her work. I think the turning point was when she explained that she could have gone and taken all those images of suns but it wouldn't have added anything to her work it was showing the masses idea of the sun that gave her work such power. I guess I had never looked at appropriation from that point of view and now see how powerful it can be.

Out of all the work she showed I think I was most captivated by her Suns From Flicker. I would be interested in finding out if one of my suns was used in her work, not likely given the shear volume of suns on Flickr, but still interesting.




This piece caught my attention not only because of the use of mass appropriation, but because of it's shear size and the colors that slap you in the face. The one thing that slightly turned me off not only about this piece, but about Umbrico herself is how she seemed to dismiss the feelings of the artist who possibly helped her with this work. When she was talking about the Flickr forum discussing her work and about the comments people were leaving I thought her dismissal of their feelings or maybe even a little anger toward them was inappropriate. I mean these are the people who helped make your work possible, I don't believe she should have stopped using the images because as she said no one would be able to find their sun among all of hers, but I think she should have showed a little more gratitude or at least acknowledged their feelings or been a little empathetic.

Listening to her speak about her work was very enlightening and I was most surprised to find out that the concept behind one of her pieces was not what I had always been told. I had always been told that her Mirrors work was a look at the differences between class aimed marketing. That the work examined both low end and high end catalogs and showed the differences in what if anything was reflected in the mirrors.




Needless to say I was interested to find out that the real meaning behind the piece was more about the disappearance of self and how the marketers try to place you in the middle of the room by showing you what is behind you. I think this is interesting not only because of the new meaning behind the work, but also how the concept gets changed from artist to viewer and how drastically it can be changed.

Artist Research for Mon. Oct. 5th

Loretta Lux is a very influential digital artist right now. She poses children and sometimes herself in the studio and then photoshops them onto various backgrounds creating very somber portraits. Which is rare for child portraits. On a personal note I am interested in her use of red headed models as this is not a common hair type to use and she uses the hair color quite a bit. I would love to know if there was a reason for the color choice. Looking at pictures I believe she also increases the size of her models heads for an added effect of wrongness.

I enjoy the somberness of her subjects and would like to employ a similar feel in my models.

http://www.lorettalux.de/

Topic investigation for Thurs. Oct. 1

du⋅al⋅i⋅ty

  [doo-al-i-tee, dyoo-] Show IPA

–noun

1.	a dual state or quality.

2.	Mathematics. a symmetry within a mathematical system such that a theorem remains valid if certain objects, relations, or operations are interchanged, as the interchange of points and lines in a plane in projective geometry.

Origin: 1350–1400; MEdualitie <>duālitās.See dual, -ity

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

du·al·i·ty (dōō-āl'ĭ-tē, dyōō-) n. The quality or character of being twofold; dichotomy.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

This post I decided to take a look at the images generated by my chosen word to see how they interact with my overall concept. I found a few that were either interesting or were a good fit to my concept and then I also found a few that were just plain funny.

2nd Artist talk for Sept

Todd Wright came and gave a lecture and studio demonstration to the Advanced Studio class and I was lucky enough to be able to go and listen. Todd is a local photographer in the Richmond area, shooting mainly commercial and editorial work. It was interesting to watch him go through his website and talk about the work he has up currently. He would explain the lighting on each image as well as comment on any aftereffects that were used. He also talked a little about his rep and the feed back his rep gives him on different images. The most intriguing part of his visit was his lighting demos.

Todd not only explained what a ring flash was and what it did, but he brought one in for the lecture and gave several examples of it's use. He showed that the ring flash gives an even shadow all around the subject that gets larger as the subject gets farther away from the background, yet gives perfect shaping to the subject. Mr. Wright also gave examples of traditional beauty lighting with a large octa bank directly over the models head and a large white bounce card at the feet to reflect the light back up. One other trick he showed us was to use black cards to give the model a dark outline (this was my favorite trick and something I hadn't seen done before).

Artist Research for Mon. Sept. 28

Jeff referred me to Bernd and Hilla Becher. When I first looked over their work I wasn't sure how it related to mine. All I saw was grids of industrial buildings, barns and water towers. Then I started to think about what they were doing and read more about them and I can see perfectly how they relate to what I'm doing. The reason they were doing grids was to show similarities in what they were photographing. They wanted to show the similarities of a large group of subjects which is what I'm trying to do also.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on them: "They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. In addition, they were intrigued by the fact that so many of these industrial buildings seemed to have been built with a great deal of attention toward design. Together, the Bechers went out with a large format camera and photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward "objective" point of view. The images of structures with similar functions were then displayed side by side to invite viewers to compare their forms and designs." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher).

I found I am actually following their lead in comparing similar forms. I am intrigued by the way faces that seem so different can fit so perfectly together, just as they were "fascinated by the similar shapes" of the buildings.