Wanderlust

After realizing the difficulty of my last idea, I have altered it to imitate a different photographer in a very different style. I want to follow the fashionable elegance of Irving Penn’s portraiture, but in the form of shadows. These pictures will be self portraits and I will attempt to replicate the posing in his portraits but in shadows.

Some Inspiration:

http://101quickandeasysecrets.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/irving_penn.jpg

http://graememitchell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/2114721_fotografia1300.jpg

http://twentyteneightyfour.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/irving-penn-balenciaga-dress-1950.jpg

http://www.reinasugiyama.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/irving_penn4.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dDI4lxWwmf4/Ss0-Em615TI/AAAAAAAAAGY/urTTMTFEgvA/s800/irving_penn_girl_drinking.jpg

http://www.thelmagazine.com/images/blogimages/2009/10/07/1254947027-irving_penn_images.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ubVXeA0AASc/Sw3mKBifpWI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/xewdeqdFurs/s1600/irving_penn1.jpg

For this project, we were asked to imitate a renowned portrait photographer. I struggled with this because I have a hard time coming up with concepts that I like, and all of these photographers seemed to capture images that I wouldn’t find in my environment and that would be very hard to recreate. Thus, I did a number of outdoor photoshoots to try my hand at this type of photography and see if anything came of it. After I dabbled a little bit, I was able to settle on a photographer to imitate: Gillian Wearing. During my shoots, I noticed a lot of really interesting signs, especially the setting in which they are placed, which often juxtaposes the actual message on the sign. Wearing does a lot of portraits involving signs, and this is the element that I am going to “imitate” for this project. I will be taking portraits of some of my peers in the environments where they feel most uncomfortable, with signs containing messages that are important to them.

Inspiration:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron/journal/9118/fig1.jpg

http://timefrom.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/p78351_9.jpg

http://www.vvork.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/GillianWearingSignsHelp.jpg

http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_173885_510502_gillian-wearing.jpg

http://www.tate.org.uk/collection/P/P78/P78349_9.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/frontrow/media/Gillian.jpg

For Project 4, The Trace, I’ve been thinking a lot about the objects that people leave behind that tell us so much about their lives, and therefore serve as a kind of connection to them.

These images from Flickr (artist unknown) illustrate the type of trace that I will be attempting to show, however with the limited surroundings here at Beloit I may have to alter it a little bit.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schicchi-indipendentemente/1945379046/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schicchi-indipendentemente/2053769216/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schicchi-indipendentemente/2062329444/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schicchi-indipendentemente/2067251437/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schicchi-indipendentemente/2081229429/in/photostream/

Project Three was decidedly tricky to shoot in Beloit, due to the limited population and range of setting and activity. Thus, I decided to move my shoot to Madison to get more photo opportunities. Madison worked out pretty well. I went on Sunday, when the weather was nice, people were shopping, and there was a parade for St. Patrick’s Day. It was difficult to know what and when to shoot, so I took as many pictures as possible simply by “shooting from the hip” – that is, I rarely aimed the camera unless I saw a golden opportunity. The picture entitled “Happy Birthday,” for instance, was a set-up shot, but all others were candids.

The most successful part of my project was when I really started looking at what was around me. When I started to fully observe and attempt to understand people’s actions and expressions, I got shots that were full of emotion and interesting expression. I noticed after the shoot that I couldn’t stop looking around for more. I was fascinated by what I saw, the way that people act when they think no one is looking, and the daily interactions that we so often miss.

Weather Appropriate

Spring Cleaning

Good Morning

In Dependence

Glory Days

Happy Birthday