I just finished reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. My favorite line was "Everything is a self-portrait."
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The Photographic Medium is a forum designed to promote the production and discussion of photography. The contributors to this dialogue will propose their own topics and contemplate others. This is a composite of its members' talents and a venue for creative output and artistic theory.
12 comments:
Hmmm...Your i.d. photo is what I am familiar with in your work and I like it. This has such a snapshot feel, accidental. The inclusion of the arm of the chair seems sloppy. My impression of you has always been that you are very calculating or at least set in your way and very comfortable with it. Without getting philosophical it's a cute picture of your cat.
Fine...everything is a self-portrait, woo-hoo! At least it is almost Sunday and we will have a new topic soon (although I am sure people will find a way to over-exploit and abuse whatever is next too).
You could ask the question what is the purpose of a self-portrait:
- to show your face
- to show your whole body
- to show your character
- to show something special of yourself that you keep hidden normally
- to show what you feel
- to show some thing that is very characteristic of you
Or is it all of these above, in any combination of it.
right on dutch! (i dig your shot)
so, how bout this. if i had posed for the camera but then manipulated the shot, say lucas samaras style, to the point where the subject is unrecognizable, would that be more acceptable, cause hey, i'm in the photo?
really it comes down to this, are these topics open to interpretation or should i treat it like my first high school photography class? (and continue to shoot my cat)
oh of course they are open-ended...this is not a school, it is supposed to be a helpful device for those of us interested in further developing our understanding of the photo art world.
I know there is not one easy answer, and I don't want to be dismissive (we can't get to great art unless we leave ourselves open to interpretation), but it is a hard thing to do to be critical of something while at the same time trying to see where the artist was going with it. There is no denying that all the people involved with this blog are good artists, and so without questioning that we should be able to try to push them into really examining what they are trying to do with the images they make.
In the end, don't we all want this debate and discussion? I surly don't want a bunch of similar photographs that we all agree are either good or bad.
The other point is that you can't expect to post a photo like this one or like Leo's and not get a mixed response.
derek well said. You are right that because we know each other we have the advantage that we know what we are capable of. We don't have to prove ourselves in that respect. I am glad that our pictures are creating a discussion that hopefully makes sense and not makes you disengage.
Any picture with good intentions and supposedly deep meaning can still be a bad picture.
Honesty, trust and respect is in my opinion the reason why this blog can improve our work.
Completely agree. It has been less than two weeks into it and it has already made me want to get back into my coffee shops and writing in notebooks days...Maybe I will start doing some more lengthier writings on my other blog again.
It is all good.
I think it's a perfectly legitimate example of who you are through the things that represent you. I agree with Mimi though about it feeling a bit sloppy. The chair arm bothers me a lot.
I can't be too harsh though because your cat is really adorable.
i think, (deep breath) that the discussion is good of course. It comes from being completely frustrated with post modernism. Frankly i think it's dead. And it's death was represented by something completely random like a bird perched on the end of an erect penis and then it took a 10 page thesis written by the artist to explain it's meaning. You follow?
So it's not that i disagree that one can't or shouldn't represent themselves in someway other than a face or a body but i'm just sick of it. It in itself is cliched. I, and perhaps Derek as well, am looking for honesty where the art speaks for itself -so just by looking at it you can understand. The problem is that in order to do something new as an artist you have to push the limits push in all directions because it's all been done. Maybe that's the new artistic movement the acceptance that since post modernism it's all been done and if we want to move on we need to embrace the fundamentals and the absolutes and... well i think i see a thesis forming.
Post-modernism...modernism...it's all out there for us to pick and choose from on any given day with any given mood and, yes, exploit. Isn't that how we explore our own creativity? There are no rules in how we choose to express or interpret only our own limitations.
Right Mimi, but if you make a picture that has obvious connotations to modernism or post-modernism, then it is going to be labeled as such, so you will have to address it at some point.
The other factor with doing a picture such as this one is that, yes you have created a discussion and, yes you have thought outside the box to create something that nobody else has thought of...but...the picture itself is not visually interesting. We can sit and discuss this image and others like it, but are we really discussing the particular image or just what the images stands for? I am all for images having deeper meanings and explanations and statements beyond their visual representations, but you still have to make the image itself interesting. I took one look at this image and saw nothing of interest. I went back to it, thinking I missed something, but again found nothing. I was not excited or intrigued the slightest bit(sorry to single you out Mike, but I thought with your back catalog being what it is you could handle it). I think this is what bothers me and make me relate it to post-modernism. It appears as though the artist thought himself clever enough to make a new definition for the assignment and create an image different from all the others, and, in doing so, make an image whose sole purpose is to create discussion. Again, this is a good thing...just make the picture interesting to look at.
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