Tuesday, November 29, 2011

superimposed (two bird photographs)

Two kinds of light (daylight & lamp)

Something loud (soon to be loud)

Shape cut out of it

scene from a movie (Godzilla)

Scene from a book

Something you would otherwise forget

Reject

Photograph of printed image

Photograph in chosen setting

Nothing

Looking through hole

Monday, November 14, 2011

So behind on things

Due to a severe injury in the family, I have become stretched really thin.  My dog, a rescue basset named Sassy, was playing last week and injured her spine.  On Wed. she was moving very slowly.  Thursday, she began to lose strength in her back legs.  Fri (after Thurs injections), paralyzed.  Fri., to a veterinary neurologist in OC.  Sat., back surgery for large acute rupture disc. Sun., spent part of day in the veterinary hospital's critical care unit visiting her.  I'll get caught up.
Thanks, Anita

Forgot to mention last week's book

Last week I brought Cindy Sherman to class.  Though nobody saw her!!!  Only me and my backpack.  She is such an entertaining photographer.  Sometimes when you can't find a model, you are it.  Sort of, a stretch, like a quarter back when he has to run because there is no receiver.  I don't know if Sherman's inspiration was herself, or became herself out of desperation.  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  Great ideas, and images.

I'm posting a photograph by a photographer that was recently discovered.  She was never known during her life.  It is a fascinating story about Vivian Maier.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Visit to CMP, Thurs. Nov. 3

Anita Six
Nov. 8 2011
Photo 131
Visit to CMP, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011

                A black and white photo from a past decade hangs in the exhibition along with 141 other photographs taken by 43 photographers.  The exhibition is Seismic Shift: Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal and California Landscape Photography, 1944-1984.  This exhibition is part of a larger arts project which incorporates over 60 cultural institutions across Southern California.  The purpose is to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene.  This celebration began this past October and will continue to April 2012.
                The landscape photography at the California Museum of Photography, CMP, starts in the 1940s and moves through four decades to the 1980s.  It begins with the Zone System master, Ansel Adams, and ends with two New Topographics photographers, Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal.  What is represented in this exhibition are not just the few  beautifully  printed black and white landscapes of the early photographers, but photographs which focus on the altered landscape by man’s big ugly footprint.
                It is difficult to say which photograph is my favorite; however, since I must choose only one I would have to say it is Rondal Partridge’s, Pave it and Paint it Green, Yosemite Park, mid 1960s.  The transition from glorious landscape to the Partridge image of Half Dome along with a parking lot full of cars depicts the collision of nature and man. A scene that is repeated over and over in Seismic Shift.
                Pave it and Paint it Green, is a horizontal black and white print.  The bottom third of the photograph is crammed, and weighted down, with cars parked in zigzag parking spaces.  The photograph is taken from a higher vantage point with the tops of the cars closest to the camera clearly visible.  As the viewer’s eyes move up to the middle of the scene, there are pine trees which separate the bottom from the top.  The pine trees separate the cars from the top third of the photograph which has Half Dome in the distance.  Clearly, the automobile is the focal point along with a wee bit of sarcasm.
                Partridge has taken a photo of one of the most seen images in nature photography—Half Dome.  This is a place that many tourists like to escape to, and coupled it with a modern day convenience which is the antithesis of nature.


                

Friday, November 4, 2011

Fri., Nov. 4

Book this week, I brought in Phillip Lorca diCorcia.
Reading was about Robert Cumming.
Thurs., class was to the CMP for Seismic Shift and After Shock.