Tierney Gearon "A Mother's Project"

I absolutely loved this documentary. I love when artists make a documentary that is very truthful and honest. The ones where they don't try to hide their struggles, frustrations, successes, etc. I think that Gearon went through some similar issues that photographers go through when photographing children. I think that Gearon's work is beautiful and compelling. I liked seeing her interact with her mother in many different situations. I can only imagine how difficult it can be to deal with someone who has some type of social disorder but I think that Gearon worked well with her mother and was able to capture so many different aspects of her personality. I liked how raw the documentary was and how it didn't seem like they were making the family do something just for the sake of making a good film. I especially liked that Gearon wasn't afraid to show her vulnerability, snippets of her childhood and her true working environment to the viewer.

Emulation Project

So, Julee told me to check out Michael Henna because he does  a lot of landscape photography that is similar to some of the landscapes that I've done in the past. I read up on him and viewed his website. What I really like about him is that his images are in black and white, he uses the Hasselblad medium format and the Holga for almost all of his work. His images are really in focus and are so clear. He's traveled all over the world and photographed lots of well known places but also some not so well known areas. I'm looking forward to investigating Michael Henna's work and perhaps emulating him.

Contact Sheets for Slide Presentation

These are my contact sheets for the slide presentation. My film got ruined so I got less than half of each roll of film.

Slide Presentation Finals

These are the final three that I chose to print from my slide presentation project. Because my film got ruined, I didn't have too many pictures to work with. I'm happy with the ones that I printed, but I wish that I could've seen the pictures that got ruined.

As for what I like to photograph, I like textures, nature, landscapes, and old, rusty, broken down things. I like to adventure in the woods and see what types of textures can be found in the woods.

Museum Visit: Chris Jordan

On Thursday during class we went to the Museum of Art in the PCAC to see Chris Jordan's Running the Numbers exhibit. The focus for his work was sustainability and using photoshop to create images that were very large and in your face. I enjoyed this exhibit because it was fun to look for all the different objects in the photographs. I liked how each smaller object or series of objects created something larger within the image. I thought it was creative how he created some really great images using hundreds of smaller images.

I think that his work is successful because at first you see one larger image but as you look closer at each image you see that it's made up of hundreds of smaller ones. In order to see all the aspects of his images, you have to walk up close to the piece and really look at it. I think he is trying to tell us that we have to look at everything we do, close up, especially in regards to sustainability. Everything we do affects our planet and our environment and if we are only looking at the big picture, we won't be able to see how each little part of our daily lives, affects how long planet Earth will be able to sustain us.

Here are some examples of his work:

I really enjoyed looking at his work and the sort of over-stimulation aspect of these large images.

Self Portrait

Artist Lecture: Joan Marie Kelly

Today, I listened to Joan Marie Kelly talk about her work in Singapore and India in the the sex slave industry. It was really interesting to hear about how she was working with these women, using them as her model and showing them that they are worth more than just sex. She paints and draws these women in such a beautiful way while still preserving their heritage. I liked especially how she was allowing these women to draw and paint in sketchbooks and on their own portraits. I also really enjoyed seeing how this project originally started with her painting people in a local hangout place in the Red Light District.

She didn't really explain how she began working in Singapore and I wish I could have stayed longer during the lecture so I could have asked that question. I didn't know that Singapore was so strict and after learning that prostitution was legal was even more surprising. I felt kinda of bad for the students she was talking about because it seems like they don't really have any freedoms and the way she described how the government controls their every thought is so foreign to me because here in the U.S., many schools and state governments encourage personal thoughts.

Joan Marie Kelly's artwork is really interesting and I like how she's breaking out of the norm by working in Brothels. I enjoyed this lecture and I'm glad she took time to come out to UNH and speak to us.