Artist Blog -- Toby Burrows' "Fallen" -- 3.22

from "Fallen"

from "Fallen"

from "Fallen"

Toby Burrows is based in Australia and constructs beautifully edgy and often melancholy images.  While this particular body of work seems a bit out of the norm when looked at in conjunction with the rest of his work, Burrows has created a graceful and unnerving series.  In these images, the woman spans from looking like a rag doll tossed carelessly about by an unseen force to soaring in throes of ecstasy.  Part of what makes these images successful is the unexplained nature of the woman. We can only speculate why she is being soaring through the air and the story that we give her -- whether it is focused on her ascent to the heavens or rapture or what-have-you -- is likely a root of series.

Toby's Website 

Idea Post -- Contextualizing Location -- 3.10

One thing that was mentioned in my critique that I really grasped onto was what can be said for the amount of creature that cannot be seen outside of the frame.  In a comment on my critique blog post Sarah Hauser commented that perhaps I should contextualize the location in order to show where the prop is coming from. For example, in the tentacle image, perhaps have the model in a pool or bathtub.  In the image with the chicken foot, maybe have a table next to the model with the foot extending from that.  While I don't think this is necessarily a bad suggestion, I think it would take something away from the mystery that stems from not knowing where the object is coming from or why.  I think it is much more eerie and unsettling to have a kind of phantom limb coming at you from an unidentified place.

Unaffiliated Post: Izabella Demavlys Quotation and Work

“I want to disturb people’s oblivion; like I’ve pointed out before, I want to make people feel something. It’s easier to turn to the sport channels when news about the war comes up. It’s easy to talk about how depressed we are as a rich nation, and we do this even though 1.4 billion people live at the poverty line or below. Many of us in the West live in a bubble, but I still believe we can shake people up from their daily routines.” - Izabella Demavlys in a conversation with Paul Schmelzer

from "PAKISTAN: Without a Face"

from "AFGHANISTAN: Bamyan Hospital"

from "NEW YORK: Portrait"

Izabella's Website

Artist Blog -- Klaus Thymann -- 3.8

Klaus Thymann is an internationally recognized photographer who works mostly in commercial fields.  Although it seems like often in art related conversation, commercial work is frowned upon, Thymann's work is more than able to stand separately from any advertisement or campaign that it may have been created for. His images, despite having characteristics of artifice, are still very believable with some even having a documentary feel to them.  I'd like to believe that my work has something that is somewhat similar, at least as far as the artifice/reality aspect goes.  Although it's clear that what is happening in my image isn't really happening as it appears to be happening, the items that I am using are real so it may seem as though it is actually happening.  

Klaus' Website

Idea Post -- Agency -- 3.3

Going back to what I'd said in my individual meeting post, Paul and I had discussed the necessity for my objects to have the illusion of agency, or rather,  the ability to make a decision to touch or not to touch.  This factor is what we decided made the tentacle image more successful than that of the strawberries or the portobello.  With this in mind, I've come up with a few ideas (not without help from the ever lovely Ms. Hobson & Ms. Hauser) that I will list below.

fox tail
coyote paws
beaks
chicken feet
fish heads
jelly fish
pig feet
cow tongue

My favorites so far are cow tongue and chicken feet so I plan on shooting those first. I really think this is going to recapture the glory of the tentacle picture that I haven't been able to repeat thus far.

Artist Blog -- Elene Usdin -- 3.1

"Garance" from Femmes d interieur

"Ines" from Femmes d interieur

"Marianne" from Femmes d interieur

"Solange" from Femmes d interieur

"Sylvie" from Femmes d interieur

There isn't a lot I could find about Elene as far as a biography goes, but her series Femmes d interieur was very clever to me.  The way she uses the furniture as the body for all of these women was quite clever, especially Sylvie and the way the pillows are used to create her gown.  Solange is also interesting as the form of the chair echoes the form of a sitting woman so well that I almost see an actual woman before I see the sculpture.  I appreciate the sculptural aspect of her work in conjunction with the photographic aspect as both are achieved spectacularly. It's a bit funny how these women are combined with furniture that seem to relate back to their garments. The only one that is a bit asynchronous in that regard is Marianne but I can almost look past that because her adornments are quite minimal as is. Usdin's imagery remains fresh despite the similarity of the content which is paramount in a series where the same sort of things are appearing in all of the images.  My series is ultimately going to be in the same vein, so creativity of vision is going to have to be something I am considering throughout (as should always be the case, I suppose).

Elene's Website

Unaffiliated Post: Repost from Blake Andrew's Blog (kind of)

http://blakeandrews.blogspot.com/2010/02/northern-exposure.html

I think it's rather interesting how the same type of photograph can be a grand prize winner year after year. This is also a bit disheartening to those of us who do not find ourselves compelled to photograph the lifestyles of winter bound folks.