Seeing the Self

Selfportraits are as old as art itself. The advent of photography opened up new opportunities for artists to capture the essence of themselves. Given my current body of work it may come as a surprise that I wasn't always comfortable being in front of the camera. I recall in particular going to Brazil through a high school student travel program the summer before my senior year and actually avoiding being in pictures, opting instead to be the man behind the camera. Perhaps it was in the aftermath of that trip, flipping through my pictures that I realized that I had nothing to fear being on both sides of the lens. One of the reasons I love selfportraiture is the reward of the unique challenge taking an interesting picture of yourself presents. To me, each photo is like a trophy, a symbol of progress whether it denotes a triumph or a failure I look at each of my self portraits as more than a photo of what I was wearing or where I was, but also the acknowledgement that I did something and I am a better person for it (at least that's the goal), a little silent lesson each day. Sometimes that lesson is as simple as don't wear that shirt with that tie or don't forget your equipment at an on location photo shoot. I also love seeing how others interpret the genre. Lee Friedlander is one of the masters famous for his black and white selfportraits. There was a time in my photo life that I used an instant camera with a simple 10 second timer and a tripod to take my pictures. After switching over to my digital setup with an interval timer, I feel spoiled with the ease I can capture selfportraits and make minor adjustments. Knowing how difficult it is to meter and expose and focus digitally makes me appreciate the work of people like Friedlander and Cindy Sherman even more. I would love to try my hand at taking some analog selfportraits someday. I chose a few of my favorite selfportraits of Friedlander to share. He has a very strong sense of composition in all of his selfportraits, nothing is within the frame unintentionally. Mirrors and shadows seem to be a common theme of his and I like how he often incorporates layers and plays with our perceptions of depth in the frame. I've always liked the anonymity of a faceless selfportrait. Many of his photographs would still be compelling pictures without his figure in them, which I think is both impressive and fantastic. I am continually inspired by his work.

The Sight of Sound

Nick Cave is a dance trained performance artist who creates amazing body suits for his live performances. He builds the colorful suits from a variety of resources, including hair, twigs, and other found objects. Not only are they all wearable, but very danceable and moveable. Videos of the performances are mesmerizing as the suits take on a life of their own through the movement of the performer. I love this concept of visual performance art and his suits are grand inspiration for me. I myself would love to create suits for my own photographic adventures someday. Side note, Nick Cave was born in Fulton, MO, so I believe the Ratatouille principle holds true for artists as well, anyone can be and artist and an artist can come from anywhere. 

My War

Put This On is an excellent menswear blog that I follow. They recently posted this article about a Japanese guy who wears a t-shirt with the same design on it every day and documents it on Instagram. I could help but share this because I admire his dedication both to the band and to the documentation as well as his creativity in the variety of outfits based around a single t-shirt image. I would love to do similar type of challenge someday. Here are a couple of my favorites.

They Do Exist

Kevin Wilson teaches my Design I class and he is a big proponent of having a broad understanding of the art world. He not only shows us artists relevant to the principles we are learning in class, but also contemporary artists just doing cool things. Tessa Farmer is one of the latter. She is a feature artist of the Saatchi Gallery and is famous for her installation art involving her rendition of faeries, which she crafts out of sticks and debris, and other animals seemingly frozen in the middle of miniature wars. I had never seen any kind of art like hers before. First ,I think the concept is fantastic, but I am also amazed at how she masterfully crafts these tiny creatures on such a small scale. When it comes to installation art such as this, photography plays an important role in preserving the art work as well as offering another level of experience for viewers. Seeing this in action is particularly exciting to me as I continue on my own journey towards the artist I want to be.

Cut It Out

Henri Matisse is a name I have heard and whose work I have seen before, but it wasn't until just now that I discovered that he created an entire body of work using paper cutouts. As it turns out some of the famous pieces I had seen were actually created using this method as opposed to painting, for which he is also quite famous. I am very fond of stencil because I feel it helps give my work a presentable and professional look and is easily repeatable. I don't have much confidence in my drawing and painting ability so I rely on stencils and rulers and tracing to render much of what I create so that the finished product on paper can be more similar to the idea in my mind with my limited skills and tools. This work is fascinating to me and I would like to do something like this myself in the future, perhaps somehow tying in photography to give it a personal touch. Matisse turned to this art form at the twilight of his career and was able to create them on such a grand scale with the help of an assistant, so the story goes. In addition to the sprawling wall sized installations he also made smaller sized, but no less amazing, framed pieces as well.

Ernie Trova

Having recently passed the century mark, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find locations for my daily self-portraits. Some days I have more time than others and that usually eases the pressure in terms of competing against a clock to find some thing suitable, but it also makes me more critical of potential locations. And so when the photo gods smile upon me and lead me to a perfect location, I am always eternally grateful. This happened to me the other day. While I was on my lunch break, I found out that I didn't have to return to work and decided to explore University City. I ventured down a side street because I thought I saw a potential wall and stumbled upon a parking lot surrounded by some really cool sculptures, one of which happened to be pink and perfect for my outfit. Some workers informed me that the sculptures were by one Ernest Trova. After making my self-portrait I took a few shots of some of the other sculptures. Whatever metal they were made of was really cool reflecting against the sun and set against the clear blue sky. I did a little research on Mr Trova and it seems like he was a renowned local artist and sculptor and even enjoyed some national fame. It was through his gift of 40 of his own works that the Laumeier Sculpture Park was initially established (another really cool place to photograph). And he also has a star on the St Louis Walk of Fame. I don't often take pictures of sculptures, but this was fun for me working different angles and doing something different than I normally do. It is fascinating to see how dynamic a static sculpture can be.

Paste, Pots, and Models

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to see Nigel Barker, of America's Next Top Model Fame, speak about his new book Models of Influence.

(This is me doing my best Nigel Barker pose.)

It was around this time that I volunteered to decorate one of the flower pots for campus and it seemed fitting for me to make America's Next Pot Model. I had never used wheat paste as a medium before, but had seen some street artists (like JR) use it to cool effect. I cut out pictures of various women from advertisements and catalogues and pasted them around the pot. I am pretty pleased with how the pot turned out, I sprayed some acrylic varnish to help protect from the elements but of course it stormed right after I finished and then continued to rain for a couple days. I would probably give the paste and varnish more time to dry the next time I do a project like this.

Action shot of pot pasting

I really enjoyed the wheat pasting and so I did a little research on other artists and found a video about Johanna Tagada. I would love to do something like this someday.. It looks like her recent work has been off the street, but the idea of street art and street photography is very enticing to me.

(website and instagram).

A photographer I follow on Instagram, visualmemories_, recommended a fellow photographer by the name of Tamara Peterson. I initially started following visual memories because of his work with instant film, but he also takes compelling street photography. Seeing both of these photographers capturing scenes in the city really makes me want to move to New York…

How New Photographers Can Find Their Way

How New Photographers Can Find Their Way



Another great article from the Phoblographer.

Assignment #2 Light & Form

(all the large prints)

Photo Walks

There was a recent article in The Phoblographer (one of my favorite photo blogs) about going on photo walks. If anyone is ever interested in going on a walk and taking pictures I would love to do something like this. I have noticed that I tend to see a lot of things in the same way when I am out shooting so it would be refreshing to have a different set of eyes on the same scene. Also I really like the genre of street photography, but sometimes have trouble finding good streets to take pictures here in the city. Or perhaps we could organize a class field trip one of these days if we have time and all go somewhere together.

adventure is out there

Color-full

After watching the documentary about William Eggleston I have been very intrigued by the era in photographic history of early color. Color has been the de facto mode for our generation so it's hard to imagine a world before its ubiquity. Saul Leiter is another name that is highly regard in the hierarchy of color photographers and I find myself amazed by many of his compositions. Street photography has always been fascinating to me and the more I research famous photographs the more I am inspired. Many factors go into the construction of a street photograph and I admire those who are able to capture the fleeting moments that move by us every day. I like how the addition of color reinforces the compositional decisions and make the overall image more powerful. There's something alluring about the softness of color film as well that I think is difficult to replicate with digital.

and a parting shot because I love self-portraits