Duality Essay

            I recently re-met, if you will, an old friend that I used to cheerlead for during his wrestling matches in high school. He transferred his junior year and was shy coming to a new school. I always thought he was mysterious and attractive, however, I never really talked to him all that much. Over Christmas break, I ran into him at a western club and he worked up the courage to ask me to dance. I’ve talked to several guys, been in a few serious long relationships, and this kid, I knew after I officially met him that night, our connection was strong and had the potential to be a long term relationship. We both love to dance and love wrestling. He enjoys nights with his boy friends and has a passion for hunting. He has been through a lot of tragedy in his lifetime, with his parents divorce, constantly changing schools, an injury that ruined his main passion, and experiencing the death of a best friend. A specific memory that I associate with him was from senior year, after he tore his shoulder and had surgery; he finally got the chance to wrestle again. The match was very intense and close, but since the shoulder pain was too strong, he had to forfeit the match. This was something very difficult for someone like him to do. He and the team were devastated. His players stood by his side, but he never seemed to get over the fact that he could no longer wrestle. I enjoy talking to him because he immediately opened up to me. He has such great stories and is so set on his life decisions. He is very tall, strong, driven, determined, loyal, and hard working. He is the eldest of many siblings. He is a protector. And finally, he has chosen to serve his life for our country as a US Navy Seal. He leaves again this upcoming Monday, February 18^th. He was a good friend and I hope that when he finally returns, I will see him again.

Masters of Illusion response

"Masters of Illusion" was interesting to view because I have absolutely no idea how film and photography can manipulate the eye to see what they want us to see, however, we may not be seeing what is actually there. One challenge was making a flat picture into a 3D reality. Our visual perception is controlled by those behind the scenes. In order to learn all these illusion tricks, we have to go back to the renaissance and credit the original illusionists.  Italy is full of some of the greatest masterpieces. Brunelleschi demonstrated the principles of perspective. He introduced the vanishing point. This is interesting to me to figure out when this type of scientific art was developed because it is something I am just now started to get down. "The Trinity" painting, is the first painting to achieve true linear perspective. I learned about this painting in Art History. When viewing this painting, the lines are very strong. The perspective is evident and it is visually appealing and real. 

Ways of Seeing Video Response

This video was very interesting to view. It was quirky because it was years old. The speaker in the video tells the viewers that  "the camera allows the eye to be in places where it is not present." We take what is being photographed out of it's original context and surround it with the room and the people around us. It is a very true statement. For example, I have never been to Australia but I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what it would be like through the photographs that I've seen. I feel like I can know things that I have never experienced because I have experienced them through photography. It really is an amazing idea and gift. Images come to us, rather than us to them. The pilgrimage days are over, he says. Original paintings are very unique nowadays. Everything is so mass-produced, when you actually experience an authentic painting, it is "unlike anything in the world." This and maintaining the market value are reasons why it is so important to preserve original paintings. Without doing so, mass-production would take away value and art would be ambiguous.

Errol Morris Response

In this video, Morris discusses the connection between the photograph and the world. He calls it an investigation. It is an investigation into the world where the photograph is taken. He also discusses the question, "what makes an honest photograph?" Some people believe the photographer should not try any type of manipulation in taking a photo. Morris, however, disagrees. He thinks that every photograph is posed and some times manipulation is OK. 

Seizing little details, Morris says, is a great way to begin to understand photography. This information helps me because I am definitely an amateur when it comes to this subject. 

Another issue Morris addresses is photography propaganda. He gives the example with the young woman and the corpse. She was tricked into being staged as the murderer with this corpse. Although this is a big example, it really does show the power that photography holds. Not always is the power good, this photograph proves; but often, it can work against us. That is an important lesson to people my age, considering the current generation and all the things that are captured on camera. It is definitely something to take note of.

Project Summary and Reflection

The photography montage project was something completely different for me. I have not been exposed to much photography before college. The thought of a montage was somewhat scary considering I had no idea where to start or how to create a montage. If it weren't for the in-class montage examples, I would not even know what a montage was. Although the thought of doing this project was intimidating, I was also excited to work with photography and try something new. My original idea was to photograph people, thinking the profile of someone's face would photograph nicely and I would be able to place the pictures together like a puzzle. My montages of my roommate and my friends turned out nicely, using close-up and distant shots to piece together their faces. I varied the scales and angles and it turned out dramatic but pleasant. I changed my idea to taking pictures of a tree and myself, with the point of view changing from me to the tree. It was a challenge to take pictures in such a way that I could print them off and piece them together without cropping or cutting or by using any form of manipulation on them, however, throughout the course of making smaller to larger montages, I learned what montages are, how to create them, and how beautiful they are. I enjoyed being able to do a photography project and I was very pleased with the end result of my project.

Project Description: Photo Montage

For the Photography Montage project, we were instructed to create a portrait of a person or location by the method of collage/montage. In order to build a montage, one must "compress, extend, and alter" the photographs to create a final piece. The class' first assignment was to create 4 small montages consisting of 5 to 7 pictures each. For this task, I took pictures of my friend laying down. I took pictures from the angle of her chin, all the way down to the tip of her hair. I really liked the way the montages turned out. They were morphed and pieced together from different perspectives. I also took all the way around a bottle of Arizona Tea. I overlapped the pictures and pieced them together so one could see each side of the bottle of the tea in the montage. The second assignment was making two montages with 20 pictures in each. This time, I used my roommate and my friend laying next to each other on the floor of my dorm. I spread out my roommates braid and used this as detail in the montage. I had them lay down on my chevron rug to give the pictures a nice background. For my final montage, consisting of 75 photographs, I decided to steer in a different direction and take pictures of myself and a tree and to finish the project, I mounted all 75 pictures on a foam core for presentation.

Arizona Tea Test Collage

People Test Collages

Susan Sontag Photography Reflection

Sontag explains photography to be "an ethics of seeing." She says that photographs give us a sense that we can hold the whole world. They are light, cheap, easily made concrete objects that we can carry around with us and hold. I was really interested on how she mentions that photography is power. It is the ability to "put oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge." 

Books have been the most commonly used method of arranging photographs. I never really considered this before. There are several different uses and things you can do with a photo, however, placing them in books is most popular. The problem with this, however, is it takes away the essential quality when it becomes mass produced. 

Photographs capture what lays before the photographer's eyes and photography is therefore, a way of seeing. If seeing is believing, then original photography, without any manipulation, is evidence. I like this idea because I have always used photography as evidence but I have never "called" it evidence. 

Another thing I found to be interesting was that photography was not always considered an art; not until it's industrialization. The camera was used by professionals and by others in a casual manner and it had no clear social use. I understand why people would have trouble calling it art, however, some photographs taken deserve the artistic title.