Talking About Photography 4

Abstraction

There is a formula to straight lines and to curved lines.

A secret code.

Mystery hides real forms; and the photographer, in this case, is the hiding place.

The art of Deception (misleading) shows one thing and talks of another.

Is it of the fortuitous meeting with things?

Is it from recognition, to what was already there, waiting only to be told?

Or perhaps, in hopes of finding something

where little is to be found.

Isn’t it finally a combination of words, knowingly ordered and disordered, isn’t it a poem?

The beauty of abstract is that you can follow your eyes to a meaning entirely your own. For me, often this means capturing an unusual shape or texture. The lines here drew my eyes. I knelt down to follow them, and I found something stark. There is not amusement to me, as the photographer in these pictures, even with the warm tones. To me, this is light taking on two forms and drawing a parallel between them. HS

 

(Using reflections and light to play on an abstract concept- Heather)

Abstraction can lead people to see the same thing differently.  It is amazing how light shining through a window can look different to different people and can even look very different at various times throughout the day.  (Hadley Manfredi)

Abstraction is a subjective concept. These pictures are amusing, because they describe light as lines of hope through the windows. (Corinna Rombi)

No direction.

Beauty beyond perception.

It is the jump and the rest

at the same intersection.

The stiffness.

The fragility.

The infidelity and the overrated reaction.- Kirila


See whatever you want. Take whatever you need. Adjust is to you, and read what you wish to hear. Is there any kind of specific message that author wanted to convey? Does it even matter? If it speaks to you, isn’t that enough?
Tamara S

The light represents life, here is a lyrics to a song
You light up my life
 You light up my days
And fill my life with song
It can't be wrong when it feels so right
'cause you, you light up my life
(Federica Nuzzolese)


"Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one." - Brad Bird. 

- Similar to this statement, the illusion of life will be viewed differently for each person based on the vision of life they have developed from their personal experiences. Everyone looks at life from a different lens and therefore the same object can have an infinite number of meanings. (Margot Rittenhouse)

Talking About Photography 3

Witness

Photography as evidence, the photographer as witness.

A spectator is not a witness.

Both are present but only the latter stops forgetting.

To be present is not enough to be a witness, to experience an event does not make one a witness.

And not even Seeing  is sufficient to count as being present.

But so much history is burned in the memory of those who cannot forget.

To  witness, not only to see, concentrates time in a moment—in a memory—for a self, and for others.

This is a noble job, free, and absolutely priceless. 

Pilar: Devastation all around. Torn up trees with roots exposed. A crushed school bus collapsed on itself. Houses with only basements left. An American flag hanging, still as the rest of the town. The sky growing in drama and darkness, gazing over the devastation and threatening the inevitability of more to come...


- The concept of photographer as witness brought to my mind pictures with extreme emotion that leaps off of the paper and strikes a chord in the viewers heart. Often these pictures that have the most impact represent situations and emotions that are not seen on a regular basis. However, the emotion is so raw they feel they can, or can at least try, to identify with it. One such picture that always does this for me is the picture below of a solder returning home and holding his baby for the first time. It's joyous and beautiful yet heartbreaking at the same time. (Margot Rittenhouse)

Molly Reich - Photography is a way to freeze a moment in time.  The photographer has the power to capture an action and turn it into a memory.  Heres a quote that I think pertains to this idea - "Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. . . it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything" - Aaron Sussman


Witness photography captures an emotion that the subject may not have known they were emitting.  Candid photography of people grieving or rejoicing or even suffering manages to express what people are feeling without using any words at all.  (Hadley Manfredi)

A story.

New glory or forgotten “sorry”.

She screams while he dreams,

stealing away memories and sins.

Another story.

No glory.

Only a piece of paper with a note “sorry”.  - Kirila


Look. See. Experience. Feel. Remember. Share. Be. Remember.
-Tamara S

Every Tear is a waterfall -coldplay
as we saw oh this light
I swear you, emerge blinking into
To tell me it’s alright
As we soar walls,
every siren is a symphony
And every tear’s a waterfall
Is a waterfall

(Federica Nuzzolese)

Talking About Photography 2

Iconography

Images reside inside of us only to resurface occasionally.

A sampling of faces that belong to our own experience, for the most part “western”  children, young people, and adults.

We have seen more breast-feeding madonnas than actual mothers, and many a blonde-bearded Jesus.

The most beautiful representations of religious iconography rest in silence.

Every time a photographer, often in a war zone, reproduces the usual suffering --the scorn of injustice, of mothers and fathers that weep for a martyred son--- the repetition of events  make mourning similar, over centuries, to statues of stone.

- These pictures remind me of an American musical, "1776," which details the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the Revolutionary war. One song titled "Mama, Look Sharp," is sung by a young soldier who is dying in a field crying out to his mother. This was brought to mind from these pictures because it details the mourning of a mother over a child that she was never meant to bury. The part that most reminds me of this grief is,
Young Soldier:

"Momma come find me before I do die
Hey, hey, Momma look sharp"
Mother:
"I'll close your eyes, my Billy,
them eyes that cannot see.
And I'll bury you, my Billy
Beneath the maple tree
And never again will you whisper to me,
'Hey, hey, Momma look sharp.'"

(Margot Rittenhouse)

Finale 

Oh God, I'm bleeding

Oh God, you're bleeding
Oh God, I'm dying
Oh God, you're dying
Oh God, I'm dead
Oh God, you're dead
Long live God, long live God
(Federica Nuzzolese)

Talking About Photograpy 1

Every discipline feeds on and is fed by metaphorical images.

Much of the sense of photography is emcompassed in the word “darkness.”

Every metaphor contains its opposite.

Darkness /light, like postitive/negative, or simply black/white.

The word darkness takes us to a place without light, a place where the perception of sight is denied to the human eye.

For one to see, there must be a passage from darkness to revelation.

It is a technological process that brings with it much thought.

It is a passage that originates in “blindness.”


We begin life without sight. We develop our other senses first, learning to hear a voice, seek out warmth. Our sight develops slowly, expanding by a range as we age. Eventually we will return to that state, our bodies returning to infantile capabilties. Blindness can be a cycle or a continuum. If we are lucky, we only experience it physically at the end and the beginning. But there will be several times in a human life where ignorance, pride, or refusal can create a blindness far more damaging. HS

The definition of blind is  a. Sightless and b. Having a maximal visual acuity of the better eye, after correction by refractive lenses, of one-tenth normal. This definition states what the picture below is saying. The women is blind in one eye, but can see in her right eye. Though she cannot see clearly. I believe the statement of her sign is self explanatory, and it states the fact that she is partually blind. The picture of a black and white colors adds the depression and sadness of the picture.-Federica Nuzzolese

- I think the picture below shows the passage from darkness to revelation discussed above. The raw emotion and grief is obvious once one looks at all of the components of the picture. The man standing in the grave has his face covered so you can't deduce a specific emotion off the bat. However, once you see the dead body laid on the side, covered and prepared for burial you can feel his sorrow. The woman touching the face of the body also has her face only in partial view and not focused on but you can sense by the way she is touching the body and the barely visible grimace on her face that she is also in deep pain. The image of the body is such a sharp contrast in this picture because of its lifelessness amidst all of the stark emotion that it brings an emotion to the photo itself, without having made any facial expression. With all of the components a viewer is able to feel the pain and grief in this moment in time with no direct access to the subject's emotions. (Margot Rittenhouse)

The Jewish religion believes in death as the great equalizer. No possessions are taken with you, and wealthy or poor, you are buried in humble white cloth. In much the same way, sight or the lack thereof is a great commonality between us all. HS

I think the this picture deals with sadness and darkness, which is seen in the expression of the poeple's faces. The grief of both adults makes this picture emotional and it adds silent feeling to it. This picture also states how one's life can affect the life of others and how each life is valuable. -Federica Nuzzolese

There is a comfort in not knowing, in darkness, in concealment from the light. In a crowded street by night lights suddenly go off and that small universe has changed- you can hear, feel, and touch people around you but you don't see them, they are and aren't there, the street is packed yet empty, you are all together yet alone.

Tamara S