Artist Lecture : Michael Cardinali

I was excited to see that Michael Cardinali was going to have an artist lecture because I have him as a professor for the second time this year and I was interested to see what his work was really like. After already taken one of his classes, I knew that he had worked mostly in New York and a little bit in Boston after moving up this way to go to school at Mass Art. I wasn't quite sure, prior to the lecture, what he actually liked to photograph or what inspired him. I learned that he particularly enjoyed photographing things he saw on a pretty regular basis. He mentioned how many of scenes he has photographed in the past were from his running route or his route to work/school. I found it especially interested to learn that his process of choice (for most of his work) was a platinum palladium process. I knew that he enjoyed film photography more than digital photography, just from being in his classes, but it was very interesting to learn about how he went from shooting only in black and white, to expanding to color film and how it opened him up to a whole new world. I enjoyed how enthusiastic he was about how photography can sort of trick the viewer into thinking an image might be one thing, when it's actually another. He told a few childhood stories that explained his path into majoring into photography. I liked how with many images, he related back to some of his stories and his earlier images. Although, many of the photographs he chose to show during the presentation were landscape or nature photos, I think the ones he chose to show of the figure worked nicely. I like how the presentation showed his growth throughout college and I could definitely see changes and maturity as a photographer. Overall, I thought Cardinali's lecture was inspiring and definitely made me see my professor differently (and more positively) than I had prior to attending the lecture.