Blogs #11-15

#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description. 
    The place that i am coming up with is the old house that i lived in. I lived in this house for most of my childhood. We rented this house since we could not afford our own. Given that it was some what of a bad house. It was a very old house from the early 20th century if not older and it was starting to fall apart when we were living in it. It is a red house with panels along all of it. It had a front porch. The front yard was very small but the backyard was very long. My old house was located on a street called La Prairie. This always made me laugh because of the show, The little House on La Prairie. I always like that's my house. Since we moved out it has some what been fixed up a little bit since they wanted it to still be rented out to people. For the most part it still looks the same as it did besides things on the porch that now belong to the current renters/owners. Most pictures i have of the house are the house by itself. 

#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?
    The photograph that i remember from my past the most would be the one of me holding a Kola Bear. I went to New Zealand and Australia a few years back and was given the opportunity to hold a kola bear. Before we went to the zoo our leaders told us that we should wear something bright that day so that it would be easier to see the kola in the photographs. The day that we went to the zoo i wore a bright colorful tie dyed shirt. This picture is such a great picture. Everything is so crisp because the kola bear's Grey fur against my bright shirt created a great contrast. When i think of this picture it makes me happy and reflect on my time over there. I don't know how much this place has changed since i am not really able to go back. If i did a reenacted picture to this picture i might just use a stuffed animal since it is hard to find places that will allow you to hold so to speak wild animals. 

#13____Human-Made Space: In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. “"New Topographics" signaled the emergence of a new photographic approach to landscape: romanticization gave way to cooler appraisal, focused on the everyday built environment and more attuned to conceptual concerns of the broader art field.” http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibTopo.aspx

In addition, at the same time in history artists created (and still do create) “land art” in which they use materials found in the landscape to make sculptures that remain in the landscape. Many of these works now only exist as video recordings and photographic documents.

Pay attention to the number of ways in which you encounter humans’ interaction with nature and the physical land. Write these down. Using these as inspiration, describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might create that would be documented by a photograph. Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.      
    Human interaction with nature and the physical land does not seem to happen that often to me. I feel that people just tend to go about there business and forget about all the nature that is surrounding them. I did occasionally see people bathing out on the grass or maybe sitting by the river but other then that people do not seem to interact with nature. I am the type of person that likes to collect leaves especially during the fall. I am thinking about doing a piece that incorporates leaves on the ground creating and image or something like that. 

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them? 
   A familiar place would be my house that i live in currently. A place faraway would be were i spend a lot of my time on vacation which is Virginia. I would use  photographs of the places i go there and the places that i go to here in order to convey a difference. Places that may have been barley touched by humans would be hard to find. I think you would photograph them in a different perspective compared to everything else. 

#15____In-Camera Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe how you might use a slow shutter speed and/or double exposure to capture two moments in one image that tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.
 An importance place in my past would be when i was playing my violin and i was originally a music major. Now i am an art major so i am always working on art now instead of working on my music. If i was going to combine the two of them it would be two images. One showing me who i was and kind of still am and one that would show who i am now. i would try to find a way to overlap them in a certain way if possible.