Sam Abell

Here is a photographer that I'm not crazy about but has a few really nice photos.   I go through my notebooks every couple of months and weed out artists that I don't like or rather whose work I don't feel connected to and whenever I come across his name I am always tempted to cross it out but then I see these few images and realize why I keep him around.

This image in particular is a specific one I would miss if I crossed out his name.

Final Day

So we just finished up class and we had some alumni speakers speak, which some where very helpful like Tiffany and Ariel, but I wasn't so impressed with the others (sorry!) although I highly appreciated them all speaking!!!  Loads of thanks!  I am going to upload some of my photos that I have worked on for my final for Photo since, like I said in my proposal, I am going to branch off of this project for my thesis.  Hopefully I won't have to re-upload them like I had to do with the Vivian Maier photos I posted.

These are just some, and I also have a bunch on my phone but I want to find out if there is an easier way of transferring them from my phone to my computer rather then sending them one by one by one to my email.  These are from two different shoots (obviously); he falls asleep very very easily, but I like taking photos of him like this because it is a very vulnerable moment/position, for anyone, and it's at the same time it is a very intimate moment for a significant other to appreciate and experience. 

Final Crit

Just got back from my final crit and I think it went really great.  I super super Super SUPER appreciate the Bruce High Quality guy being there!  It's funny because on my way to school this morning I was thinking how it was kind of unfair that Crit Group A got a guest to come and look at there stuff but Group B didn't and then BAM!  It was cool :)  I am excited about my project idea, however at the same time I feel like my point of it being a portrait won't come across, instead it will just come across "non-arty", so that is a concern.  I don't know how concerned I should feel about that though only because it's my work, I'm making it for me and not for anyone else.  The aspect of privacy in it is a huge challenge to myself, since I am a very private person, but I don't want to sit in a box, I want to push my work to possible uncomfortable areas, I shouldn't feel like I need to ignore certain characteristics of myself and my life in this project in order to paint a more controlled image.  The point of this project is to not control anything, especially the image.  I picked my relationship as the subject matter for this project because I can't control its image, I can't always make it look good and not allowing my boyfriend to know that he is part of this project gives it that natural habitat that I'm looking for.

Updates

I have been pretty busy lately and my anxiety has been running rampant!  So here are some updates:

Photo Transfer project: I used water as the solution to transfer the image and it didn't work that great.  I am going to redo it for my final portfolio.  My teacher said that mineral spirits works best.  I plan on doing more with it too, like collage photos together.

Thesis Idea: For my final in 3A I have decided to do a documentary on my boyfriend, Pat.  Because this is a topic I am very familiar with and comfortable with and it is something I am constantly doing I have decided to elaborate on this idea and present it as a triple portrait of Pat, myself, and our relationship.  It will deal with privacy, sex, snapshot, and of course portraiture.  I have not informed my boyfriend yet because I want him to be unaware and as a result he will be more himself, although he was not thrilled about me wanting to photograph our sex life.  It is also a topic that I can talk about comfortably and easily.  I am pretty happy with this idea and it just seems to fit.

Vivian Maier

I posted this the other day but for some odd reason the pictures no longer show up, so this is my second attempt to make it work.  She was recently discovered in 2007.  She's easily my new favorite person. 

Photo 3A

The project I am working on for my Photo 3A class now has to do with fabrication.  I feel like this should be a fairly simple concept and I should be able to execute it quickly, however I am having no such luck!  I FINALLY came up with an idea for it tonight after freaking out about it for the past two weeks and I hope it falls into the fabrication boundaries.  It kind of kills two birds with one stone since it is something I wanted to experiment with anyways.  I am going to try out photo transferring with images from this past weekend.  I am excited but not at the same time since I don't really know if I should consider it fabrication or not.  I feel like if I fabricated the subject in the image it would come out too cheesey, or at least the ideas I have been coming up with so far have all be quite cheesey.  It is due on Wednesday so after I get the feedback I will scan some in and report back :)

Ideas and Photo 3A

In the next two weeks I am going to start working on my final for Photo 3A.  We had a little one-on-one meeting with Annie today and I think mine went pretty well.  I went in not really having an idea but walked out with one!  I am constantly taking pictures of my boyfriend without him knowing or of him sleeping and I've decided to combine this with my love of portraiture and my new interest in the snapshot for this final project.  I am pretty excited about this, my boyfriend is a fun subject and I really enjoy taking secret, voyeuristic pictures of him! 

Concerning my ideas for thesis I am thinking of using a square format instead of the traditional rectangle.  I also just purchased a Ciro-flex twin lens camera and I want to play around with that and its medium format to see what aesthetic I get from it.  I feel like I am finally heading in some sort of direction however not as quickly as I'd like.  Hopefully I will get some sort of inspiration on Friday when we go on the trip!