What is marriage to the female population from all ages and backgrounds?
For many women marriage is understood as being part of life, something that will happen. Once it does there is lots of pomp and circumstance around the ceremony event and then it ends.
Afterwards the crescendo of what love and marriage dies down and the partnership takes its own life. What is that life? What is a view of a woman in a loveless, a happy, or a controlling marriage like?
What if you have never been married? How do you view a union? How does your cultural or social economic background influence your opinion on marriage? Does it?
How does a parents’ marriage affect the future relationships or marriage of their children?
This endeavor it see what the female’s perception of marriage is unveiled by asking several simple questions on marriage and recording their responses. In their own words how does a child comprehend marriage, a single woman in her 30’s, a divorcée, a same sex union, and a marriage lasting generations?
How will these submissions on marriage lay upon me or anyone who experiences this project?
The second component of this project is the portrait of these females. When presenting the project to these women, I ask them to think about something that makes them think of marriage and go from their on photographing them. At this time I am taking full portraits as well as partial portraits in the style of David Hockney where I would use many images to make one portrait.
It is my hope to build these images of the individual in a slide show format as their audio on the idea of marriage runs until the end when you have a full portrait of them.
This documentary is currently a work in progress.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
November 14th
Okay, new direction for Brooke. I am going to interview females of all ages and backgrounds on marriage. From little girls to women in their 90's.
Now for photos . . . I have some ideas and I want your feedback. Should I do portraits of these women in their wedding dresses, my mom's wedding dress, no dress when they don't have their own, a veil? Or let them choose their pose and attire?
Same background, cloth back drop (I think I might do some at school here) how do I light it?
I was also thinking of presenting in an audio slide show like a David Hockney piece with various pictures of them materializing one at a time to create their complete portrait as their audio on what marriage is to them runs.
I hope to do some over this Thanksgiving week and will post some of the results.
Now for photos . . . I have some ideas and I want your feedback. Should I do portraits of these women in their wedding dresses, my mom's wedding dress, no dress when they don't have their own, a veil? Or let them choose their pose and attire?
Same background, cloth back drop (I think I might do some at school here) how do I light it?
I was also thinking of presenting in an audio slide show like a David Hockney piece with various pictures of them materializing one at a time to create their complete portrait as their audio on what marriage is to them runs.
I hope to do some over this Thanksgiving week and will post some of the results.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Conference with Christopher James 9/25
My conference with Christopher was directed to the photography that I wanted to focus on which is: memory, loss and more with the emphasis of the passing of my mother at the age of 18. We addressed several ideas on how to convey these topics along with his suggestions on directing those ideas.
When I asked Christopher for ideas of incorporating my mom writings of letters and a journal to me. I thought of photographing them with an image of her projected on the writings or audio of her words with a slide show of pictures. He offered another suggestion and that was taking those words and writing them on my body. Thinking about her words and where they affect me, how they fall on me and write them in those areas. By making it personal, I bring passion to the image, weight to her words.
Further ideas:
Create a diptych of myself wearing my mother’s wedding dress. A photograph from the front and one from the back. The strength in this image that Christopher noted was that the back does not zip up all the way, that would show that one life does not fit all.
The diptych idea actually evolved from a triptych idea I had that would photograph my life from the past, present and future. The Present could pull from the wedding dress photo. The Past would involve wearing clothes that are too big for me, thus my childhood dress up and the future could be represented in my wanting to be a mother one day. Christopher mentioned using the idea of the doll, as practice for motherhood but then he suggested an idea I like more and that would be using an African fetish, tying and doll to hang around my back to ward off evil spirits. I feel this would be more fitting with me and have a cultural backbone that would add depth to the piece.
Another aspect is taking family images and coping them on to laser tran or a similar transparent material, arranging them on me and photographing that.
Use fabric to create a photogram of my mom’s belongings on fabric and then sewn to fit me, photograph that.
There are other ideas to explore with the regard of the projection of images and layering of images on top of each other however, these didn’t excite Christopher as much as the previous ideas. To myself the above ideas seem more directed and the later mentioned ones are ones that I want to experiment with but not sure when I would have the opportunity.
My exploration since the conference:
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Reaction to Workshop, Stepping In Front of the Lens with Sean Kernan
Stepping in Front of the Lens is a class that I took at the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine with Sean Kernan. I took the class to help myself think in a way I have not thought about before and then photograph in a way that transcends my old work and my old habits as a photographer.
Sean Kernan integrates various theater exercises within the class to raise awareness about each other and the world that surrounds us.. As a participant I became very intimate with the other students in my class. From staring at each other’s face, writing about each other, performing in front of each other, it lifted a veil of shyness to reveal acceptance and intimacy.
Kernan believes that good work comes out of discomfort. These exercises dealt with discomfort and led to connections with our selves and with people in our group. Photo exercises consisted of the following: light on the human body, taking a photograph evokes a person with out having to show that person and extending the photograph by presenting an image in a different way.
I took Kernan’s class to find a different way to approach photography. I have been photographing family business and decided I wanted to keep focusing on one family business and began a project dealing with the loss of my mother.
Photographing loss, feeling, memory or the absence of someone can be difficult to do if not impossible though traditional documentary. So when I took Kernan’s class I wanted to begin with ideas I had in showing different aspects of my mom and my feelings that surround her.
I began photographing myself as I had not attempted to do before and I thought that it might be helpful later on in my work. Next I photographed myself thinking of thoughts and feelings related to the sickness and absence of my mom. This practice felt like acting as I was recalling emotions but I think some images surprised me.
Finally, we needed to extend a photograph. This was something I was looking forward to trying. My last mentor, Jan Rosenbaum had incorporated two photographs into a landscape and I found the affect very interesting. I felt this could be a stepping-stone for me because I could use images from my childhood combined with current images revisited in the childhood photographs. Layering the photographs on top of each other and matching up components of the image would be one way to combine the past with the present.
I approached this by taking a photograph of myself I created in a hammock. The hammock felt appropriate because of its interconnectedness, restful, enclosing feelings that could mirror a mother daughter relationship. I tied my digital camera to the hammock, placed it on time and continued to shoot myself while in the hammock. Finally, I took one more photograph of the hammock from afar using my Holga. After I developed the film and printed the two images I arranged them together and matched the smaller picture of myself to the larger picture.
I was pleased with the results and took the image one step further by photographing myself with the new images, again recalling emotions from my past. These images were appealing to me and I feel that I could push further.
Another benefit of the workshops is the opportunity to attend the artists’ slide show. Among the many that stood out to me and I found relevant to my work was Duane Michaels. Michaels posed the question, “How do you photograph something you don’t see? - Disappointment, Loss, Memory, I don’t know.” But Michaels has made the attempt to try to photograph these things through photographs that build a visual story, incorporating hand written text, using wit and humor. It was refreshing for me to see is approach and attack this with such frankness.
Another photographer that was mentioned to me to look at was Cig Harvey. In the fact that she uses herself in her portraits and her work often addresses what has occurred in her personal life. Her approach might be appealing to me.
This week with Sean Kernan and my classmates gave me an accepting environment to push my work in directions I feel it has needed to go to. So I have jumped into the water after taking a long contemplative look at it. Now I need to swim and explore within it.
Residency Summary Spring 2007
Suggestions from critiques:
• Document family and children who have loss.
• Why shoot in black and white and not color.
• Who is seeing this work, audience, how to display it, apple books
• Who do you want to become familiar with this work
• Combination of large images and slideshow
• Is there a way to present the work and get money for it
• Want visual consistency
• You may be editing things out because you have lived it or done it. Where is the boat? Sense of place, what would an outsider want to see.
• What is the story about what are you trying to tell?
• All different angles, zooming in and out a little distracting. Leave your lens set at 50mm, makes you move more give s a different energy to your pictures.
• How many times do you go back? How much do you push?
• Why soft focus
• What is your way of making a connection? You have to make a connection in order for them to reveal more to you.
• What is subject getting out of it? You have to get them to participate in the project or you will lose emotion. When you meet with them. Talk to them what they would get out of it. A set of beautiful prints, book.
• Really analyze what you are shooting and figure out what you are trying to say.
• Schooner shots are much more successful because you feel their relationships because they are letting you into the intimacy. There is a lot more going in these.
• Stronger analytical approach. What does it mean to be running a traditional schooner these days? Tape the conversation; stay only for a little while. Listen to the interview and go back into photographing with a synthesis of what you want to do. I don’t feel as much of the specificity of the family. As you are taking the pictures in subtle ways you can pose them. Portraiture.
• Send blog to Judith.
• Really work with schooner family, if your not being a pest.
• Read, history of documentary photography. Rick Bolton, the contest of meaning, structuralist of photography. Where is your work in straight documentary photography or more art based. Thesis Johnathon Fletcher, Rob Gephart, shalis copy from Louise, Patty Arnold. We now want these to be more subitive in terms of defending the work. Work of Gerskey and Bechers, artists who happen to be working with photography.
• Need to do readings on family and mother and daughter. Barbara Eiright, “nicked and Dimed” living on min. wage. Look at artists whose work inspires you. Read the catalog of the work. Project based element, you need to read about family in general. What do these pictures do, where do they lead you, what are they trying to say. Research and be voiced in your subject matter. Will need to do this for your thesis.
• Read about feminism.
• If you are going for intimacy you have to be with them. You don’t want to fake it. You don’t want to be disingenuous. The kids ones are in a relationship. They don’t have to fake it.
• You have the action but you are not in the right spot to take the picture. I want to see their faces, see what is going on.
• You could do sub series, mother and daughters, sisters.
• Better printing. Show us that you know how to do that. Different papers, you don’t have to print them all like that. At least 11x14, what would the finished prints look like.
• I think the pictures should tell the story. Gallery, you don’t expect to listen to audio when you are looking at photographs.
• Breaks the stereotype, that families who run business are not always so close.
• You have a clear direction. Families that run business. It is a great thing to explore. There is nostalgia. Families in Maine, whether you can frame it in an argument, stuck in the past kind of image, “Maine the way life should be” separates the look from that cliché. How do you separate it? In 2007 if you are not critical about it. The ”should” separate yourself in the tourism cliché. If you stick with this genre, it will come. I don’t want it to be all Norman Rockwell. Non “Maine” families. Ethnic families that are moving into Maine. Get out of your own culture to look at your culture, it will give you subjectivity. One of the ways that is going to be Norman Rockwell, that it is very “white”. Find an ethnic family that runs a business.
• When you have a personal connection, yearning for family atmosphere. Be aware of pitfalls. You have to experience subjectivity when you are creating artwork about your mother. Tear does not make art. Stand back from this subject so you can talk about it properly. Red flag, be aware. How do you introduce work about your mother with out it being so sentimental? People are not critiquing relationship with my mother but my work. How are you going to see your personal story in social portraiture on other people?
• Stepping in front of the camera may or may not work for you but it is worth trying.
• I don’t see this happening only in image. In my head along with issue of your personal family, slideshow with voice, your voice. That is the only way you should be presenting. Along with images of visual clues. Make sure the audience understands that this is the artwork. Make sure the audience understands that the slideshow is the work, not a demonstration of the work. Still slides with writing. You will have to work on the voice yourself, intonation, like a slideshow drama. I see this as the most viable and strongest way you can communicate.
Artist suggestions:
• Nicholas Nixon, works with family and death dealing with aids
• Emmet Gowin pictures of his children and wife
• Harry Callahan
• Justine Kurland, show: another girl, another planet 1997. She started out doing these set up photos of events. Pictures of young girls in the woods. Direct slightly, give them a sinero and have them act it out. Girl pic more successful because she is related more, she is now doing communes.
• Anna Gaskell, series, Alice in wonderland
• Sam Seymour
• Nan Goldin, sister’s suicide
• Earl Morris, documentary films, Thin Red Line,
• You are dealing with documentary and it is across many genres Project specific work is often documentary. Andrea Frazier, Hans Hockas,
• Look at history of conceptual art. Frame what you are doing, figure out where you want to fit in the art world.
Overall, I felt this past residency affirmed the work I'm pursing is right for me. Faculty and students alike have helped with synapses of connections that were in my work, but I didn’t bridge. This awakening happened within my first critique.
My photographs of small family businesses had been focused, which I felt was reassuring to faculty. I will be “rocking the boat” in my next residency, because it's my last semester to experiment prior to having to narrow my focus.
What I will attempt is broad and personal, therefore it will be heavily critiqued.
This past residency opened my eyes to how my personal life is intertwined in my art. I believe in strong families, that there are families that are successful (in my definition) in that they live happily together. I came from one of these families; I want to prove to others these families exist.
I want to do this because I have been in relationships, and have had friends, that have not had this upbringing. Because of this, they have had relationship problems or doubts. I realize the notion they can have a loving marriage or relationship after seeing my photography is naïve, but I wish to offer hope, by showing it through a family similar to my upbringing and what I know brought me happiness.
This slice of family life shown through my images appeals to me, but I know it won’t to everyone.
I recognize my work of photographing small family businesses, I was looking for a family that would exemplify mine. This work was about honoring their families, thus honoring the family that I once had.
The business was an interest because it's a clear example of a family working together, not only in private life, but also in their public, which, I thought, would guarantee a strong healthy family. I realize now intact marriages and families take different forms.
Of the family businesses I have photographed, the family I feel most connected to and emulates my family (and therefore I have spent the most time photographing) is the Finger and Mahle family, which owns and operates a schooner on the coast of Maine.
Feedback from the residency that resonates within the family business documentary addressed the globalness of this project, as well as particular families within this project.
“You have a clear direction, families that run business. It is a great thing to explore, there is nostalgia. Families in Maine, whether you can frame it in an argument, stuck in the past kind of image, “Maine the Way Life Should be” separates the look from that cliché. How do you separate it? In 2007 if you are not critical about it. The ”should” separate yourself in the tourism cliché. If you stick with this genre, it will come.
I don’t want it to be all Norman Rockwell. Look for non “Maine” families. Ethnic families that are moving into Maine. Get out of your own culture to look at your culture, it will give you subjectivity. One of the ways that is going to be Norman Rockwell, that it is very “white.” Find an ethnic family that runs a business.”
This advice for this project is crucial, because it will give me the subjectivity I need in my work and hopefully make the project more credible, because it shows a true diversity of Maine family businesses.
Although Maine is one of the most homogeneous states, it is changing and contemporary work in documentary has to show this in order to be respected.
Along with subjectivity, it was also suggested to investigate the background and history of the individual family business I am documenting, to bring an investigative insight to this work.
“There is a need to bring a stronger analytical approach to your work. What does it mean to be running a traditional schooner these days? Tape the conversation; stay only for a little while. Listen to the interview and go back into photographing with a synthesis of what you want to do. I don’t feel as much of the specificity to the family. As you are taking the pictures in subtle ways you can pose them. Portraiture.”
Interviewing the family about their business will give me an insight as to how they see their world, as opposed to how I think they see themselves. Once I find out more about their thoughts and concerns it will allow for further exploration within my work, to show them through the means they see themselves. I feel this will bring more intimacy to the project, because the collaboration will be among the family and I, not just through my eyes alone.
The Finger and Mahle family represents the family I once had. My family changed, because I lost my mom when I was 18 to a three-year battle with cancer. I want to try to put that experience into my next work; I now realize her loss was the catalyst to the small family business photo essays.
I want to explore this time, and produce intimate meaningful work while discovering more about myself.
This next work is daunting, because I have heard this can hardly be done successfully. This attempt might be a train wreck, but one that I need to experience because it has been prodding me for sometime now. If not successful visually, hopefully it will be successful emotionally and help in my next endeavor as a photographer.
“When you have a personal connection, yearning for family atmosphere. Be aware of pitfalls. You have to experience subjectivity when you are creating artwork about your mother. Tear does not make art. Stand back from this subject so you can talk about it properly. Red flag, be aware. How do you introduce work about your mother with out it being so sentimental? People are not critiquing relationship with your mother but your work. How are you going to see your personal story in social portraiture on other people?”
There are several options I have been considering to how I want to address this topic of my mother through photography. Some ingredients I've begun to play with are: family photographs, journals of both my own and my mother, letters, family interpretations, memories and present-day emotions. The question remains of bringing these together to produce successful work. Using an audio slideshow as a means of conveying some of these ideas was suggested at the residency.
“I don’t see this happening only in image. In my head along with issue of your personal family, slideshow with voice, your voice. That is the only way you should be presenting. Along with images of visual clues. Make sure the audience understands that this is the artwork. Make sure the audience understands that the slideshow is the work, not a demonstration of the work. Still slides with writing. You will have to work on the voice yourself, intonation, like a slideshow drama. I see this as the most viable and strongest way you can communicate.“
I felt the residency opened my eyes to what's obvious in my work. Sometimes you become so involved in your work, that you miss the obvious. I feel fortunate to have this veil lifted; it has enabled me to talk about my work and communicate these connections, now that I understand them better.
And after I show my work from this semester at my next residency, I am sure I will have the veil lifted again.
• Document family and children who have loss.
• Why shoot in black and white and not color.
• Who is seeing this work, audience, how to display it, apple books
• Who do you want to become familiar with this work
• Combination of large images and slideshow
• Is there a way to present the work and get money for it
• Want visual consistency
• You may be editing things out because you have lived it or done it. Where is the boat? Sense of place, what would an outsider want to see.
• What is the story about what are you trying to tell?
• All different angles, zooming in and out a little distracting. Leave your lens set at 50mm, makes you move more give s a different energy to your pictures.
• How many times do you go back? How much do you push?
• Why soft focus
• What is your way of making a connection? You have to make a connection in order for them to reveal more to you.
• What is subject getting out of it? You have to get them to participate in the project or you will lose emotion. When you meet with them. Talk to them what they would get out of it. A set of beautiful prints, book.
• Really analyze what you are shooting and figure out what you are trying to say.
• Schooner shots are much more successful because you feel their relationships because they are letting you into the intimacy. There is a lot more going in these.
• Stronger analytical approach. What does it mean to be running a traditional schooner these days? Tape the conversation; stay only for a little while. Listen to the interview and go back into photographing with a synthesis of what you want to do. I don’t feel as much of the specificity of the family. As you are taking the pictures in subtle ways you can pose them. Portraiture.
• Send blog to Judith.
• Really work with schooner family, if your not being a pest.
• Read, history of documentary photography. Rick Bolton, the contest of meaning, structuralist of photography. Where is your work in straight documentary photography or more art based. Thesis Johnathon Fletcher, Rob Gephart, shalis copy from Louise, Patty Arnold. We now want these to be more subitive in terms of defending the work. Work of Gerskey and Bechers, artists who happen to be working with photography.
• Need to do readings on family and mother and daughter. Barbara Eiright, “nicked and Dimed” living on min. wage. Look at artists whose work inspires you. Read the catalog of the work. Project based element, you need to read about family in general. What do these pictures do, where do they lead you, what are they trying to say. Research and be voiced in your subject matter. Will need to do this for your thesis.
• Read about feminism.
• If you are going for intimacy you have to be with them. You don’t want to fake it. You don’t want to be disingenuous. The kids ones are in a relationship. They don’t have to fake it.
• You have the action but you are not in the right spot to take the picture. I want to see their faces, see what is going on.
• You could do sub series, mother and daughters, sisters.
• Better printing. Show us that you know how to do that. Different papers, you don’t have to print them all like that. At least 11x14, what would the finished prints look like.
• I think the pictures should tell the story. Gallery, you don’t expect to listen to audio when you are looking at photographs.
• Breaks the stereotype, that families who run business are not always so close.
• You have a clear direction. Families that run business. It is a great thing to explore. There is nostalgia. Families in Maine, whether you can frame it in an argument, stuck in the past kind of image, “Maine the way life should be” separates the look from that cliché. How do you separate it? In 2007 if you are not critical about it. The ”should” separate yourself in the tourism cliché. If you stick with this genre, it will come. I don’t want it to be all Norman Rockwell. Non “Maine” families. Ethnic families that are moving into Maine. Get out of your own culture to look at your culture, it will give you subjectivity. One of the ways that is going to be Norman Rockwell, that it is very “white”. Find an ethnic family that runs a business.
• When you have a personal connection, yearning for family atmosphere. Be aware of pitfalls. You have to experience subjectivity when you are creating artwork about your mother. Tear does not make art. Stand back from this subject so you can talk about it properly. Red flag, be aware. How do you introduce work about your mother with out it being so sentimental? People are not critiquing relationship with my mother but my work. How are you going to see your personal story in social portraiture on other people?
• Stepping in front of the camera may or may not work for you but it is worth trying.
• I don’t see this happening only in image. In my head along with issue of your personal family, slideshow with voice, your voice. That is the only way you should be presenting. Along with images of visual clues. Make sure the audience understands that this is the artwork. Make sure the audience understands that the slideshow is the work, not a demonstration of the work. Still slides with writing. You will have to work on the voice yourself, intonation, like a slideshow drama. I see this as the most viable and strongest way you can communicate.
Artist suggestions:
• Nicholas Nixon, works with family and death dealing with aids
• Emmet Gowin pictures of his children and wife
• Harry Callahan
• Justine Kurland, show: another girl, another planet 1997. She started out doing these set up photos of events. Pictures of young girls in the woods. Direct slightly, give them a sinero and have them act it out. Girl pic more successful because she is related more, she is now doing communes.
• Anna Gaskell, series, Alice in wonderland
• Sam Seymour
• Nan Goldin, sister’s suicide
• Earl Morris, documentary films, Thin Red Line,
• You are dealing with documentary and it is across many genres Project specific work is often documentary. Andrea Frazier, Hans Hockas,
• Look at history of conceptual art. Frame what you are doing, figure out where you want to fit in the art world.
Overall, I felt this past residency affirmed the work I'm pursing is right for me. Faculty and students alike have helped with synapses of connections that were in my work, but I didn’t bridge. This awakening happened within my first critique.
My photographs of small family businesses had been focused, which I felt was reassuring to faculty. I will be “rocking the boat” in my next residency, because it's my last semester to experiment prior to having to narrow my focus.
What I will attempt is broad and personal, therefore it will be heavily critiqued.
This past residency opened my eyes to how my personal life is intertwined in my art. I believe in strong families, that there are families that are successful (in my definition) in that they live happily together. I came from one of these families; I want to prove to others these families exist.
I want to do this because I have been in relationships, and have had friends, that have not had this upbringing. Because of this, they have had relationship problems or doubts. I realize the notion they can have a loving marriage or relationship after seeing my photography is naïve, but I wish to offer hope, by showing it through a family similar to my upbringing and what I know brought me happiness.
This slice of family life shown through my images appeals to me, but I know it won’t to everyone.
I recognize my work of photographing small family businesses, I was looking for a family that would exemplify mine. This work was about honoring their families, thus honoring the family that I once had.
The business was an interest because it's a clear example of a family working together, not only in private life, but also in their public, which, I thought, would guarantee a strong healthy family. I realize now intact marriages and families take different forms.
Of the family businesses I have photographed, the family I feel most connected to and emulates my family (and therefore I have spent the most time photographing) is the Finger and Mahle family, which owns and operates a schooner on the coast of Maine.
Feedback from the residency that resonates within the family business documentary addressed the globalness of this project, as well as particular families within this project.
“You have a clear direction, families that run business. It is a great thing to explore, there is nostalgia. Families in Maine, whether you can frame it in an argument, stuck in the past kind of image, “Maine the Way Life Should be” separates the look from that cliché. How do you separate it? In 2007 if you are not critical about it. The ”should” separate yourself in the tourism cliché. If you stick with this genre, it will come.
I don’t want it to be all Norman Rockwell. Look for non “Maine” families. Ethnic families that are moving into Maine. Get out of your own culture to look at your culture, it will give you subjectivity. One of the ways that is going to be Norman Rockwell, that it is very “white.” Find an ethnic family that runs a business.”
This advice for this project is crucial, because it will give me the subjectivity I need in my work and hopefully make the project more credible, because it shows a true diversity of Maine family businesses.
Although Maine is one of the most homogeneous states, it is changing and contemporary work in documentary has to show this in order to be respected.
Along with subjectivity, it was also suggested to investigate the background and history of the individual family business I am documenting, to bring an investigative insight to this work.
“There is a need to bring a stronger analytical approach to your work. What does it mean to be running a traditional schooner these days? Tape the conversation; stay only for a little while. Listen to the interview and go back into photographing with a synthesis of what you want to do. I don’t feel as much of the specificity to the family. As you are taking the pictures in subtle ways you can pose them. Portraiture.”
Interviewing the family about their business will give me an insight as to how they see their world, as opposed to how I think they see themselves. Once I find out more about their thoughts and concerns it will allow for further exploration within my work, to show them through the means they see themselves. I feel this will bring more intimacy to the project, because the collaboration will be among the family and I, not just through my eyes alone.
The Finger and Mahle family represents the family I once had. My family changed, because I lost my mom when I was 18 to a three-year battle with cancer. I want to try to put that experience into my next work; I now realize her loss was the catalyst to the small family business photo essays.
I want to explore this time, and produce intimate meaningful work while discovering more about myself.
This next work is daunting, because I have heard this can hardly be done successfully. This attempt might be a train wreck, but one that I need to experience because it has been prodding me for sometime now. If not successful visually, hopefully it will be successful emotionally and help in my next endeavor as a photographer.
“When you have a personal connection, yearning for family atmosphere. Be aware of pitfalls. You have to experience subjectivity when you are creating artwork about your mother. Tear does not make art. Stand back from this subject so you can talk about it properly. Red flag, be aware. How do you introduce work about your mother with out it being so sentimental? People are not critiquing relationship with your mother but your work. How are you going to see your personal story in social portraiture on other people?”
There are several options I have been considering to how I want to address this topic of my mother through photography. Some ingredients I've begun to play with are: family photographs, journals of both my own and my mother, letters, family interpretations, memories and present-day emotions. The question remains of bringing these together to produce successful work. Using an audio slideshow as a means of conveying some of these ideas was suggested at the residency.
“I don’t see this happening only in image. In my head along with issue of your personal family, slideshow with voice, your voice. That is the only way you should be presenting. Along with images of visual clues. Make sure the audience understands that this is the artwork. Make sure the audience understands that the slideshow is the work, not a demonstration of the work. Still slides with writing. You will have to work on the voice yourself, intonation, like a slideshow drama. I see this as the most viable and strongest way you can communicate.“
I felt the residency opened my eyes to what's obvious in my work. Sometimes you become so involved in your work, that you miss the obvious. I feel fortunate to have this veil lifted; it has enabled me to talk about my work and communicate these connections, now that I understand them better.
And after I show my work from this semester at my next residency, I am sure I will have the veil lifted again.
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