Response to Roland Barthes

     This reading by Roland Barthes was a dense one to read.  After dissecting a couple sentences, I understood that it was about the authors importance in pieces.  I came across this sentence and it stuck with me:

 "The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions, while criticism still consists for the most part in saying that
Baudelaire’s work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh’s his madness, Tchaikovsky’s
his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if
it were always in the end..."

     What I got from this sentence was that both the author and the work named are so well-known, and that the author pretty much completes the writing piece that they create.  At first I thought it was a positive thing.  When I kept reading, I got more of the idea that Roland Barthes is saying that the authors work is a complete reflection of the author and his/her life and morals.  This was hard to agree with completely because I began thinking about my own work, writing work and artwork.  And how I don't know if I would want someone basing me and my personality and lived experiences completely off of my work.  I think it is important to know the author in some situations but in others it could be better to leave the author out of it and let the art or writing speak for itself.

     On page two, Barthes talks about how an authors book is like the authors child; author comes before, and after his lived experiences he creates the book.  This does seem reasonable and makes sense to me.  I do think that writing stories come from different experiences, although people can make up stories that have not specifically happened to them, but I'm sure other events in their life could have sparked the idea of whatever new one they created.

     He then talks about giving a text an author, and how that will finalize the reading of the text.  How knowing someone someone specific wrote something can completely change your opinion on it.  I agree with this as well.  This is a well-known instance that I once read from Facebook, a bunch of people were told this quote and they all said it was great and made a lot of sense and they really liked it.  Then they were told that it was said by Hitler.  Many of them changed their minds and were really surprised because he was such an awful man but said this thing that made a lot of sense.

     He ends this essay with talking about the part the reader plays.  How the reader is just as if not more important than the writer.  Sometimes the writer needs to be completely taken away from the work in order for the reader to really be able to experience it.  I relate this back to art, where it makes the most sense to me.  When I'm at a gallery looking at a series or a piece, I've never been there experiencing it when the artist is there.  So the view that I have is unbiased, I am looking at the work without knowing really who the artist is.  But in school in art classes during critiques, I know (most of) the people in my class.  Some of them I am very close to.  And in those instances, it is pretty much impossible to look at their work and forget who the artist is.  For example in my Photo II class I will see a friends work on the wall and I might have been there with them when they had taken some photos so I know the circumstances and I might give them excuses like 'well this photo could've been better but it was getting late and they didn't have much time to get a certain photo.  Whereas if it was someones work that I did not know at all, I would look at it completely differently.  This essay made good points, some that I agreed with, some that I didn't.  But one point is sticking with me and even influenced me while reading the essay.  When I kept reading the name of the author, Roland Barthes, and I would go back to reading the essay, and knowing the date, 1968, I was judging the work based off of that.  I found myself thinking that this was written a long time ago by some man who could be a philosopher, who thinks he knows so much about writing and artists and "the author".  That point does make a lot of sense and we all judge a work based on its author whether we realize it or not.

ASX artists: Daido Moriyama and Kara Walker

The first artist I came across on the american suburb x website that interested me was Daido Moriyama.  I found a review of one of his works called "Labyrinth" (2012) which is a book made up of contact sheets.  Each contact sheet is almost supposed to be seen as one picture, one image.  He rearranged and remixed negatives from his past years of work and put them together to create new images.  There are 300 pages with thousands of "snapshots of black and white contact sheets...".  In a couple examples of contact sheets shown, the individual pictures on each sheet are of the same subject just seen from different angles.

Especially the contact sheets of the woman in the hat and the legs in the fishnet stockings capture my attention.  They seem dark and mysterious like there's something about them that is not right, it is uncomfortable.  What I also find interesting about these two is that there is a clear femininity being shown but the softness that femininity is (supposed to be) is contrasted with a twisted dark sad feeling.  The review of this book talks about certain themes that reappear: "Women appear, often naked, with an asexual eroticism."  This seems very true to me, as I look at these contact sheets the woman seems alone with herself, she is interacting with the photographer and the camera but perhaps it's because when you put all of the images together, it just seems like the subjects are figuring out their bodies, they are set on themselves, they're mostly interested in that.
The reviewer also talks about Moriyama's use of clothing.  He has, for example, this woman contort her legs and body while wearing fishnets and she is seen from many different sides.  And you think you know what he is trying to say with the work but then contact sheets like those are followed by street photographs of New York City in the 70's.  This is confusing which is why Moriyama chose to call this project "Labyrinth".  I am a huge fan of the word labyrinth and I think it definitely describes the confusion and running in circles that this book is.






The second artist I came across was Kara Walker.
In an interview called "Rise Up Ye Mighty Race!" (2013)
She was first introduced to an image of a black girl with a caption "Some Class, Eh?" and Kara realized a stereotype that she might be perceived as.  She made a series of drawings for many years called "Negress Notes" many are of white girls/white people harming black girls/people.
She had started to do cutouts, silhouette pieces that acted as wanting to enter the patriarchy, be equal in society but not being able to be powerful because of society.  The first exhibit that showed the silhouette pieces was called "Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart".  In this exhibit she referenced known books like "Gone with the Wind" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin".  She took some scenes from each book and remade them into the silhouettes.  She wanted to show the themes of racism that these books show.  She used black paper to infuse the overall blackness that she wanted her images to convey and show herself, her own body in her art.
Kara Walker's art is extremely interesting for me because everything I have seen from her is very big and simple-seeming, with just using blocky black and white.  But the issues that she is talking about are so big with the longest history that is told in her silhouettes.  There is a brutality, a hardness in her silhouette scenes.  Mostly brutality against black women.  She shows the oppression of black women that existed and still exists.  The silhouettes almost are reminiscent of fairy tales but turn into dark fairy tales when you realize what the scenes are depicting.

This work is very inspiring to me because it is feminist, but a different kind that I do not have a lot of experience with because I am white and do not face the same oppressions as a black woman.  But i am very interested in how women are seen in media, in society, and the way Kara Walker explains and depicts women in her silhouette works are very intriguing to me.  Because they include the history that is connected with black women but it also includes the present and how it affects black women.
I want to be able to show a past struggle with women and include the present feelings towards women in my photography, it's something I am still struggling with.

Ted Papageorge on Henri Cartier-Bresson

     Ted Papageorge delightfully recounts Henri Cartier-Bresson's life in this article.  He grew up in a wealthy household in 1908.  In his artist career, he actually started out as a painter, and went to school to study it.  And then in 1931 he spent time on the Ivory coast and started concentrating in photography.  A little later in the 30s he started to work on films and documentaries to help out other artists.  He was also taken prisoner by Germans and finally escaped on his third attempt three years later in 1943.  He then became one of the founders of Magnum Photo with Robert Capa, David Seymour, Williams Vandivert, and George Rodger in 1947.
     Ted calls Bresson arguably "the greatest photographer who's ever lived" and was someone who looked up to the writer Rimbaud.  Rimbaud was known as capturing the young genius mind and Bresson was attracted to that.  Ted writes about his friendship with American couple Peter and Gretchen Powel, who introduced him to the work of Atget and Kertesz.  Later Bresson had an affair with Gretchen.  He also writes about Bresson's bad temper and how he wasn't really friends with that many other photographers.  He probably thought highly of himself, was a bit conceited.
     Cartier-Bresson completed a book called The Decisive Moment made in 1952.  Ted talks about the sexual content in the book and how it impacted the society when it was seen.  There were even some photos edited out of the book: "the brothel-keeper and the 'gay'".
     Ted Papageorge talks very highly of Henri Cartier-Bresson, but also mentions the awkward unfriendliness towards people in general but mostly other photographers.  His work is a great success and will always be known, and it will always have power.  

3 Influential photographers

     Andre Kertesz's work comes from mostly the early and mid-nineties.  He was born in Budapest and moved to Paris in 1925, then in 1936 he moved to New York and took a bulk of his photos there.  He wasn't a surrealist or a strict photojournalist but existed somewhere in between the two.  I find his photographs really interesting to look at because they are weird.  He uses juxtaposition in many of his images which I really like and am inspired by.  After looking through his work I was inspired to not choose the composition that would look "nice" or "even".  I tried to look at things a different way.  I  also am inspired by his work because it made me want to look for things that are strange and abnormal.  And find feelings in photographs where you didn't think there could be.  Instead of finding comfort in photographs which is something I normally like doing, I am starting to try to find weirdness and uncomfortableness.  
     Something else Kertesz does is he crops photographs weirdly.  And not all of his croppings are the same.  Some photographers have a specific way of cropping that they stick to.  Although I have always admired that I know as a photographer I am not like that.  I always like to try different ways of cropping things.  Recently I have been cropping things differently to add a stranger tone to the photo.

     Laurie simmons is an artist that I heard of just in the past few months.  She uses women as her subject a lot of the time but its mostly not just a human woman.  She manipulates the woman/female human figure and turns it into doll form.  She plays a lot with the ideas of typically what a woman is or was expected to do (I'd like to think our society is a bit progressive).  She uses simple ideas like that women have to maintain perfect figures (the use of dolls), that women have to "take care of the house" a lot of her set-ups have to do with houses or kitchens, where a woman is most likely expected to be.  I feel like she has a somewhat feminist approach to her work, because she seems to be trying to tear apart the expectations and norms that are attached to femininity and womanhood.  I am really interested in doing that as well.  

     A series she has called Walking & Lying Objects features photographs of different dolls legs with an object where the dolls torso should be.  Each doll is photographed in a different light, some in black and white, but most in color.  Most dolls are photographed with various objects on top that seem to be "feminine" like a house (for a mother) and a handbag (for all fashionable women).  And later on in the images, there is a doll with a gun for a torso and it looks to be lying down.  A couple later is a more disturbing looking image of dolls legs with a gun top.  

     I think some sort of idea that she wanted to convey was no one is allowed to talk about or venture into the "dark side" of women-identifying people.  Women are allowed to be one thing.  I took a photograph that was related to this series (it was pointed out to me afterwards).  It is a photograph of my mom.  She is wearing only a tight tank top almost as a dress, and is holding up napkins to conceal her face.  It's a strange photograph and actually kind of pushed me in a direction I now realize I'm interested in.  Taking ideas of femininity and making them uncomfortable and awkward to look at, almost wrong.  

     Jacques Henri Lartigue is another photographer who's art I have come across just recently.  I am very attracted to black and white photography of people that have humor behind them.  Like Kertesz, Lartigue did work throughout the 1900s, but Lartigue shot mostly people.  He  found moments that seemed almost to mock the subjects in them.  He liked to find humor in most of his photographs, which I really admire.  His photographs make me want to find humor in everything.  Even though most of his photographs don't inspire my idea for my final project, the intention behind many of his photographs is something I want to include in my intentions.  I can keep with my main idea and have in mind humor for some of the photos.  For him it seemed that he found the perfect moment where everything seems strange, funny, or off.  I want to try to get better at paying close attention to finding the moment when someones face contorts, or something abrupt happens.

     My idea for my final project has to do with people looking at themselves.  But I am making that broad.  I am interested in people critiquing themselves because it's something almost everyone does.  I like the idea of cinematically capturing parts of peoples lives that somehow show them reflecting on themselves.  Some photos will be set-up, some will have symbols and some photos will look a little more like everyday scenes.  Even though this seems somewhat narrow I am going to try to keep the idea broad - it will be a lingering idea that I want to capture people looking at themselves or thinking about themselves, or it being hard to face themselves, or loving themselves.

Work of Larry Sultan

I had never heard of this photographer, Larry Sultan before.  After looking through his work I got the sense that it was somewhat documentary.  As in he was taking in his surroundings and documenting what was happening as it was happening.  He has one series where it looks like he is documenting pornos being made.  This series, 'The Valley' has mostly photos of nude women and some men in these huge houses in California, with some film sets and what looks like directors.  He was photographing what was going on behind the scenes instead of capturing what the movie was filming, he was catching moments behind everything else.

I didn't really relate my own photography to  this series but coming across another series called 'Pictures from Home', I started seeing more things that are similar to my aesthetic.  This series includes many images mostly of Larry Sultan's parents in (probably) their home.  The first photo that caught my eye is below:

 And some more from the series:

These photographs in particular caught my eye because of their compositions, and subject matter.  Each one is weird and takes you a moment to understand what is going on in the photo.  I am not sure what Larry Sultan's process is in terms of setting photos up, I am not sure if he intentionally set all of these up, or saw something interesting happen and was just able to capture it.  But these remind me of photographs that I intend to make when I am inspired.  Sometimes I will get to a place and can't help but feel inspired and into everything I see.  And it's great if I am with someone who knows me well and who I know well because whether it's a home where someone is comfortable and doing household activities, or it is a new strange place and there is more exploring going on, I can ask that person to just do their activity and I will most likely see something they do as interesting for a photo.  It seems like in this series, Larry visited his parents in a house that he knows well and was able to just photograph what was interesting.  But each one has a strange, uncertain vibe.  The parents looking at the sunset should be soothing but because of the angle and intensity of color in the background and shocking light in the foreground, it is almost an uncomfortable photo, it's worrisome, almost like the parents are looking at a fire in the distance.  

These photographs reminded me of my aesthetic because I like to find strange shadows and juxtaposing things in an everyday action or scene that isn't always turned into an image to be seen.  Things are passed by a lot of the time and I hate passing them by.  I like seeing extreme anger and extreme happiness happen between people and capturing it.  I like seeing someone sitting in a weird way and getting it.  I like the nervousness that something weird has been captured in a camera for people to see when awkward things are not something people normally want to continue to think about.

Work of Cindy Sherman

I first heard about Cindy Sherman in the first photography class I ever took.  It was a great free summer program held in a high school in Queens, NYC.  There was a girl in the class who had been inspired by the work of Cindy Sherman for a couple of years and wanted to take self-portraits as well in her photography.  I didn't take a big interest in Cindy Sherman because I didn't really understand self-portraiture then (I only have a slightly better understanding of it now) and her photos also just freaked me out, because of the crazy colorful costumes and makeup used.  A few photos below are from the series which have a few different names after researching, but could be known as Disasters and Sex Pictures, and Myths and Fairytales.  These photos were pretty disturbing to me, but interesting.

I don't see a similarity with her color photographs to my own photography, but I really like her famous 'Untitled Film Stills' series made in the late 1970s.  This series is all black and white photos of Cindy dressed up as similar to or exact female roles from different mostly well-known movies.

I do see that in some of my work I interested in a similar thing that Cindy is portraying/showing in these photos.  I like to photograph in a narrative sometimes, because I also like to shoot video so I sometimes approach my photograph-making the same way I make videos, finding a specific moment that could be awkward or like you're looking into someones life when you shouldn't be.  In this series of film stills, Cindy catches certain awkwardness and discomfort that all human beings have, but she's photographing herself, not someone else.  And she is able to become a different person in every single on of the pictures.  I love that she chooses to use certain scenes that show what movies wanted this specific women to look like and act like.  Which was sometimes, unaware, naive, the sex object, materialistic/shallow, and the stay-at-home cooking mother.  But even though the roles she is embodying in the scene pretty much look down on women and their worth, she is strong in every single photo.  She is owning her sexuality, her body, whatever emotion she is feeling, she just looks sure of herself like she is in control instead of looking embarrassed.  Though there still is that discomfort because the photographs all seem to be attached to time.  Which is why they are called film stills.

What is really interesting to me about Cindy Sherman is how different her photos can look from each other.  Comparing the two sets of photos I included in this post are so different from each other, but all include the uncomfortable element.  I am attracted to the darkness in her photos.  I like the ones that are just blatantly about sex and bodies and the scary, maybe perverted, sick world that sex can be and seem like.  And I think it is amazing that she is one of the most well-known female photographers.  It is great to have this female perspective who is commenting on sex, bodies, pressures of society, certain traits or myths of femininity.

Response to Stephen Shore interview

     After reading the interview between Stephen Shore and Luc Sante, I had a lot of new ways to think of photographs.  Stephen Shore introduces an idea about how a piece of paper has three dimensions, it is an object with an image embedded on it, which I had never thought about before.  

It was interesting when he was talking about framing and how the frame depends on what you are paying attention to.  It's different if you are taking a portrait of someone with a neutral background but if there is a lot going on in the background, that has to come into play when you are figuring out what to include in the photo.  

     Also when Shore is talking about forming a mental idea of what an image will look like.  An image that is in a photographers head, conscious or unconscious.  This made me think of my own experience and thought process.  I mostly don't like to plan out a photo unless I know I'll get exactly what i want.  I will make some small plans normally, but sometimes I'm let down if I come up with something in my head and I realize I won't be able to create it in a photo at that time.  As a photographer I also more often work with things I already see on a daily basis.  At this point in my photographing, more of my interest comes from what I will see everyday happen, without me instructing anything.  I love the beauty of normal interactions and sometimes being able to capture them at the right moment not looking like a boring snapshot, but something interesting.  

     I liked what they were both saying about the fear that there is nothing left to photograph, and young students always wondering if there is anything new.  Even though there was a time when photographers would go out to the West, for example, and come back to show this new area to people, it was new to them.  That doesn't mean that there aren't other new places to photograph.  There will always be new ideas, good and bad things happening in the world that will keep people motivated and inspired.  

     I like this photograph because it is a really interesting thing to look at, though you're not sure what you should be thinking about it or what you're even looking at.  You don't really know who or what to focus on, because there is just a man with his back the camera and a street with some parked cars, and some stores.  There isn't anything specifically happening but it is still a really interesting picture.  You wonder who the man is with his back to us, you wonder why there is a big leafless tree in the middle of a sidewalk, you wonder what city this was taken in, in what year.  Because there isn't really anything to understand or not understand about it.  I just think that sometimes its okay for a picture to just be a picture, there doesn't have to be a big explanation or a big issue exposed in it.  This specific photo can be seen as happy or sad.  I also really enjoy the colors in it, the yellows seem to pull you through the street, and the blue sky is faded, so it isn't too invasive.