To & Through the Window - [final project]

...step back; simply look; look closely. I started looking out the windows of the ‘places’ that interested me. While I still thought about the place (and my draw to it), I began looking more frequently at these transparent glass surfaces that effectively separate a person from the space they are in to the spaces that are beyond (outside, inside, etc). But they were transparent because I made them so. In the effort of looking I began to take long moments looking at and through the glass where ever I was. By focusing on those surfaces I found that the scenes and settings beyond faded away into undecipherable information, no longer needed because I had a new scene, a new place to rest my gaze into. I kind of fell in love with the forms found on the surface of windows - ugly dirt and animal feces transformed into something else, something more sculptural. I used a shallow depth of field to mimic the conventions of our own eyes which cannot focus on anything very far beyond the subject we are gazing at. The result is a permanent image that allows the viewer to see what the space beyond would look like beyond the subject of focus - something our own eyes do not allow....

Color as Content...some pleasing images...

Color as Content...the unpleasing image...

Color as Content

Color Ring Around

Seeing in [RAW] Color - Selected imagery

Seeing [ in RAW ] Color

...favorite shot of the day...just for fun

Contact Sheet #2

Assignment #2 - Exploring Color

...why photography...

I use photographs and photography to explain to myself and others, the way in which I perceive bits of the world; to explain my experience within the world. This project specifically was a way to work through my thoughts and understandings of family relationships between myself, my sister, and my mother. It was about trying to understand how those relationships between the three of us change with time because we continue to change. It was about understanding the relationships when one or more are no longer present. Executing this work last spring term I kept the project visually very simple - only three Van Dyke Brown images repeated in a set of rows and columns. There was an equal number of each image, but the repetition of the images I altered in accordance with the presence of each individual throughout my life.

I think that choosing another artist’s work that exemplifies where I want to go with my art is difficult only because I do not know where I am headed. I have come to realize that photography can teach me nothing about a person. A portrait or candid can never truly teach me about someone, yet I am still so obsessed with searching for information about and understanding of someone [or as stated above a relationship] within their image. Christian Boltanski’s 10 Portraits Photographiques de Christian Boltanski 1946-1964 is a wonderful example of showing how photographs can lie and lead one astray as they take the portraits for truth. I like a lot of his work but I really like how simple and candid these portraits are, leading the viewer to think nothing of the possibility of being led astray and lied to (after all, who would lie about simple snap shots?).

...hey, this is me...

Name: Maria Gammon
Major: Art, Photography
Year in School: Super Senior! [year 5]
From: Alsea, OR
Goals: I want to really understand the technical aspects of digital photography - I want to come away from the class knowing how to produce images that are as close to real life [color wise] as possible. I want a firm understanding in how to takes images from my camera & process them in the most correct manner.

p.s. sorry about the silly self portrait...i am not usually on that side of the camera!