Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 9)

What is the concept behind your series? How has the idea taken shape or changed as you set out to begin shooting?

After passing through a few other ideas involving other similar themes that either didn’t work out compositionally or were a little too dark, I started thinking about the possibility of creating the concept of a world through “Patron Saints” of darker issues such as self harm, drug use, homicide, and other things of a similar nature.

What inspired you to pursue this idea? What particular photos are you thinking about (from class or from anywhere else in your life) as you’ve begun shooting? Do you have any painting, design, or other non-photographic visual references in mind for the project? Are there any particular styles that you are attempting to emulate?

The main three things that inspired my idea was the concept of Patron Saints and their aesthetics in the Catholic Church, Greek Mythology (or Mythology in general), and Grimes’ work, especially her albums Art Angels and Miss Anthropocene. A lyric from Jack Off Jill’s song When I Am Queen inspired one of my characters as well (the Patron Saint of Self Injury). I wasn’t exactly looking at any specific references, more so just going off of the idea of Catholic prayer cards. I wanted my photos to look like prayer cards that were shot in hell- something uncomfortable to look at.

How did the first week shooting go? Did you encounter any difficulties or setbacks as you began to shoot? Have any parts of your series proved more difficult than anticipated? Have you had any great successes in your first week of shooting? What has gone better than expected? Have you been surprised by the outcome of any shots? Which images are you most excited about?

Despite the original ideas falling through, shooting the Patron Saints series has actually been a breeze! I’m having a lot of fun with the concept and conception of these characters and the world I’m building. Nothing has been extremely glaring in terms of issues while shooting. I’m very excited to tackle difficult topics using art and reclaiming the aesthetics of a religion that ruined my life.

Which images is your group most excited about? Are there particular qualities of those images that you can pinpoint or define? Can anyone in the group clearly state why they’re reacting to these particular images?

I’m mostly excited about the Patron Saint of Self Injury for it’s “shock value” and use of fake blood, the Patron Saint of Domestic Violence for its use of makeup (hearts surrounding the black eye, displaying that people who are usually abused in relationships are still in love with the person), and the Patron Saint of Drug Use, for it’s more personal nature to me and the way I portray it using actual needles I’ve used and actually stabbing the needles into my skin to create a more real effect.

According to your group, which aspects of your pictures need to be improved or refined? Are there any technical issues that need to be resolved? Are there ways you could improve your exposure, your composition or your framing? According to your group, where should you focus your energy in the coming weeks? What would members of your group like to see added, changed, removed, etc.? How will you go about doing this?

There was a lot of debate about the color of the background of the photos. Half liked the red and half liked the idea of black or white. Lighting and final composition were also discussed, and I’m not married to the ideas concerning light and composition in the final project, maybe even doing portraits for each Patron Saint instead of prayer cards. My group thinks I just need to fine-tune the more technical aspects of my series, maybe even playing with different costumes, lighting, and backgrounds. I might also even add some Patron Saints as well.

What is your agenda for shooting in the next couple weeks? When will you be shooting next? How many more shooting sessions will be necessary to complete your project? Remembering that you’ll need time to edit your images, what are your dates for shooting?

My goal is to do one-two saints per day, leaving two days free for my sister’s wedding. The makeup and fake blood I use stain REALLY easily so I’ll probably do those images first. I’ll probably start shooting late tomorrow just so I can get more ideas together. I’ll probably need about 7-8 more shooting sessions with two days to edit the final images. My goal is to shoot for a full week starting tomorrow and then letting my sister get married before going back to edit photos.

The focus of my final assignment would be movement, although I do have plans on switching to the focus of new vision. The concept for the movement was the view from a car seat in which a series of images would be taken of sceneries . The focus of the assignment is still subjected to changes as I’m still unsure of either focuses.

For this assignment, we were tasked to recreate the works of Gordon Parks. He was a prominent photojournalist and a lot of Parks’ works captured the lives of black communities in 1970s Harlem and as such, I wanted to emulate those for this assignment. Therefore, I decided to capture black lives in 2020s New York City. While wandering the streets of SoHo on a sunny Sunday, I suddenly was disturbed by a group young predominantly black men, walking around, being loud and rowdy. It was not until I paid closer attention to them that I saw I could see joy and happiness on their faces that I realized that they would make the perfect to capture for my assignment. My goal was to capture the expressions of joy and laughter from these young men because I felt it refreshing to witness these young black men incarnating their Black Boy Joy considering the daily woes faced by black people. Just as I assume was Parks’ intention, I wanted to honor Black lives and the beauty within their happiness.

Other happenings I wanted to capture, was an Asian-American manifestation against the hate crimes they are facing. For this image, I wanted to document the current events that are happening in the country and our communities. This is a further homage to Parks’ photojournalistic craft in which we documented life. Asian- Americans hate crimes are extremely pertinent at the moment and I felt my images could serve as a contribution to providing historical evidence for future uses.

For this assignment, we had to recreate our favorite pictures from Gordon Parks. The image I chose to recreate by Gordon Park is 

“The Invisible Man”. I chose to recreate this picture because I liked how the subject sort of sinks into the ground and there is nothing else in the frame. The man truly becomes invisible as he goes into the manhole.

I recreate this picture by using a figure drawing mannequin and cutting out a circle into a piece of paper to simulate the manhole. I used the circle that was cut out as the manhole cover. I thought it would be interesting to use a mannequin to recreate this picture because it doesn’t have any physical feature but it does have a humanoid form and I think it gives new meaning to the title of “Invisible Man”

The second photo I chose to recreate is a self-portrait of Gordon Parks himself. I chose to recreate this photo because I liked the lighting of the shot and I believe every photographer must have a cool self-portrait. I wanted to see if I could take a good self-portrait like Gordon Parks. I tried to take the picture in the mirror but this ended up flipping the image and I couldn’t quite get the light to match Gordon Park’s picture.