"International Velvet with Andy Warhol."

This photograph, taken by Steven Shore, is a really interesting one. In a sense, the photograph shows someone in the foreground who is impatient or otherwise upset at the photographer. There is a reason for this. At the time, International Velvet was dating Andy Warhol. So was Steven Shore. This resentment is captured perfectly in this photograph. 

Shore also plays on light and dark in a number of his photographs. The top-left half of the picture is significantly lighter than the bottom-left half. In a lot of pictures, light is used to represent good and dark to represent bad, but Shore thought the opposite of how he represented these people. 

This particular photograph is a silver print, much like we use in class. 

"International Velvet with Andy Warhol 1965-67." Stephen Shore. Accessed from Pinterest. 

Take Two: Contemporary Photographs

Jimmy Coble

11/4/2015

Philadelphia Art Museum Reflections

Take Two: Contemporary Photographs (read "Multitude...." entry first)

This second exhibit was much less engaging. Many of these photographs were of inanimate objects as opposed to real people. It was also a collection of works by different artists. Many of these works were in color. There were a number of interesting pieces that stood out as individuals. I thought the picture of the person inside the photocopier and the picture of their face was something that drew me in but it was quite absurd. Another that I thought was really inventive was the black and white picture of a face that had been painted over. This was a process that I thought worked, and something that I want to try in the darkroom at some point.

Though there were cool pieces, I felt as if the exhibit made little sense as a collection. Many of the pieces seemed like pictures of life, but not of interesting parts of life like the other show.

I also thought that the use of color took away from some of these pieces. It looked like the artists artificially made these pieces brighter in the development phase and gave them a fake looking quality. Also, several of these pieces were quite old and not contemporary. 

Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of David Heath

Jimmy Coble

11/4/2015

Philadelphia Art Museum Reflections

Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of David Heath

This was an interesting exhibit to see. I was struck at first by how dour and stern almost all of the subjects of the photographs were. As I went through the exhibit, I saw the contact sheets from his film. Two of the negatives showed a crowd. In one, there was a man smiling at the camera and another laughing. In the next negative, it was the same crowd taken maybe a second or two later that showed all of the subjects frowning. These were pictures of events in real life, and without context, I would interpret very different things. For the rest of the pictures that I saw, I kept this in mind that photography shows an instant, but without background into the picture, it doesn’t mean anything.

I personally liked this exhibit more than the other one. This could be a number of things. I first of all felt that it was a more cohesive theme. I also thought that the photographs were related in that it was all by the same artist. This made it easier for it to seem more linked. But more than anything, I thought this show was more interesting that the other one in a visual sense. These photographs made me want to look at them, whereas in the other exhibit, I looked at the photographs without feeling that pull. It felt like there was an order to view this collection of prints. 

"Burnside Bridge 4"

Jimmy Coble

Photo Entry #4

10/6/15

This photograph, taken in 1862 by Alex Gardner just after the Battle of Antietam, shows a bridge that was destroyed in the battle. This photograph uses a number of Szarkowski’s components. Being that it is a picture called “Burnside Bridge 4,” this photograph is very much of the thing itself. The bridge is front-and-center in the photograph. It shows the wear and deterioration that came from the battle. One can only imagine the violence that occurred on and around the bridge.

There are also three figures in the top third of the picture in the middle. These look like they are veterans. This is interesting, because without them, it looks like a picture of the bridge, but the people are the focus of the photograph. One can assume that they are soldiers. Two of them have much darker uniforms than the one in the foreground, so it seems like it is two Union soldiers talking to a Confederate soldier. That is a detail that Gardner intentionally left in the photograph.

The vantage point that Gardner used is obvious. He is pretty high, taking a picture from almost a birds-eye-view at what seems to be tree level. This vantage point lets the viewer see much more about the landscape behind and around the bridge than if Gardner were standing on the ground.

As the first photograph was taken in the 1820s, photography was a relatively new form of documenting life. Photographs were not yet seen as an art form; they were a tool to see reality as it was. This picture definitely does that, but by using these techniques that I mentioned, it becomes an art piece. 

Gardner, Alex. "Burnside Bridge 4." September 1862. NPS. http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=2412F92B-1DD8-B71C-0728A9DF066D2649 Accessed 10/6/15. 

"From the Chrysler Building"--George Tice

In his photograph “From the Chrysler Building”, George Tice used a larger size camera and film to produce a physically larger picture than he would have been able to do otherwise, such as with the 30mm camera film that we use. The cars on the lower right-hand side of the picture are not blurry, so either they were stopped at a long traffic light (which is entirely possible in New York City) or the shutter speed was really quick. The picture has the art deco style of the Chrysler Building in the foreground, making the picture appear much older than it actually is. One of the things that struck me seeing the picture in person in the Berman is that (and this would make sense) all of the lines of the buildings close in on a point off to the right of the picture. In a city, the buildings would be straight in line with the streets and with each other. This creates a one point perspective situation that the artist uses very well. 
The striking thing about this photograph is that it combines the art-deco style of the Chrysler building with the hodgepodge of other buildings below. This effect makes the city really look like a city.  By having the lower part of the photo in shadow, Tice brings the viewer's eyes down to the bottom before looking up at the horizon which is broken by some taller buildings. 

Tice, G. A. (Photograph.) (1978). From the Chrysler Building. [Photograph]. Collegeville, PA. Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College.

The Tetons and Snake River

The next picture I wanted to look at was taken over 70 years ago. Like the picture of Mt. McKinley that I did last week, this picture has a distant, sharp mountain and a dynamic sky.

In this photograph, the artist plays with the light of the sky on the right side and the dark of the left. The tops of the mountains are also lighter with snow, whereas the lower sections are black with rock. In the foreground is a river that snakes through what looks like a swamp.

More than anything, this picture makes me want to go there and see this landscape. I think the photographer is trying to show the beauty of such a remote location. This picture uses a number of techniques. First and foremost, the picture is of the thing itself. It is a mountain and a river. But it also shows quite a fair amount of detail. Time is also played with. If I had to guess, the richness of this photograph is made possible through a long exposure. Also, the photographer plays with the light and darkness in the clouds to show the progression of time.

"The Tetons and Snake River." Ansel Adams. 1942. From Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adams_The_Tetons_and_the_Snake_River.jpg

McKinley-Denali

        This photograph was taken atop the tallest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley, which has been re-named to Denali. This is a very dramatic picture, showing a number of different layers. At the bottom of the picture is a deep valley surrounded by jagged rocks and snow. Towards the middle of the picture is a layer of cloud cover that casts some of the lower segment in shadow. Above that are more dark mountains, and above that, the mountains are covered in snow. Combined with the top quarter of the image, the cloud cover over the mountain range, this gives a sense of one-point perspective to the peak in the middle of the picture. This is a successful picture because it shows how vast the mountain range is, and even from just the picture, one can get a sense of how cold it is. The artist is trying to portray the  vastness of the range of mountains, and how Denali stands tall in the distance. The photograph also plays with shadow in a very interesting manner. At certain points, the clouds above are thicker and darker, and the rocks below are in layers of shadow. 

From a photo essay on Mt. McKinley, Alaska, 1956. LIFE Magazine. http://time.com/4017660/mount-mckinley-denali-ascent-hoax. Web. 

George Tice Show, Berman Art Museum

September 1^st, 2015

George Tice show, Berman Art Museum

This evening, a professional photographer named George Tice came to the Berman Art Museum to discuss the ongoing show of his work. All of his black and white photos were really impressive. One of the benefits to black and white photographs is that rather than having the quality of pixelation that a picture would have in a digital medium, the resolution of the picture is much stronger. This makes it so that the film photographs can capture much more detail than what could be captured with a digital picture.

One of the things that I thought was interesting that George Tice spoke at length about was that the film he used was a lot bigger than the 30 mm film that we will be using in this class. This made it so that he was able to make his pictures a lot larger than we would be able to do.

Another thing that he talked about was the amount of time that he left his photographs exposed to light. As we talked in class on Monday, exposure times vary for different mediums and different amounts of light. Some of his photographs were taken at sunset, sunrise, or even at night. Therefore, he needed to keep the camera shutter open for much longer than if he took photographs during the day.