Tyrras Warren
Art 101
2 February 2011
Numba 4
This week, the topic was Photography. Craig Hickman decided to bless us with his presence, and teach us about the abstract wonders of photography. Although I say that photography is abstract, it is ironic because one of the big reasons Craig decided to go into photography is because the realness of it. He first started in high school, and was really not influenced really by a photographer in general, but mainly by magazines and things that he would see. Although I don’t know his exact age, he told us that photos were black and white when he was starting, so I can imagine that photography wasn’t as big a thing as it is now.
He showed us a bunch of photography by a variety of different photographers. One of them, Martin Parr, had a crazy website that at first looked like a PleasantVille scene or something, but his art was viewed as books. So he would have like a picture book style, that would turn over like a book (obviously). Yet his art was not at all pleasant like the style of his website seemed. It was actually kind of grotesque. He had many pictures of gross looking food that, in my opinion, might have shown his view of American diets. It also shows an underlying culture of the average American (again, in my opinion).
Another photographer that he showed us was Fraenkel. Who had a very modern, vogue feel. Fraenkel was from San Francisco and I could see that his photos had a very San Franciscan feel, as far as the stereotype goes. It was very rebellious and unseemly in that liberal view that a lot of bay area artists express. A lot of voluptuous women, some naked, some not. Almost the opposite of the next photographer he showed us, Yossi Milo, who was focused on modern architecture. Really cool buildings that were usually black and white and in urban settings. The fact that they were in urban settings was probably the only similarity between the two, if I were to hazard a guess.
These all seemed to be under the foundation of why Craig started in photography, which is what I think (hope) that he was trying to show us. They all were very real looking. Expressing views that seemed to be right in front of ones face, although that might not be what they were trying to express with their photos, this is what I at least got out of it. Kirk Thompson, another photographer had very modern, digital, pictures of landscapes that seemed to have an abstract meaning behind them, but I just thought they looked cool. I don’t know if that’s the wrong way to approach it, but Craig didn’t seem to have any explanation of his own, or the others art
After reading the article, “Photography as a Weapon” my whole view on photos has changed. Well, maybe not so dramatic as a full turnaround, but it was definitely something to think about next time I see the news, or any photo, for that matter. I already knew a bit about Photoshop, and although I am more computer “savvy” than most, I cant say that I am an expert, especially in Photoshop, something I have never used before. Yet, I know a fair amounts of the limits, which are almost non existent, as far as I know. What I didn’t expect was that something like the LA Times would have a photo that was photo shopped. I mean, how does a company with that much power and revenue not have experts checking these things? And if they do, maybe they don’t even care. Its all about manipulation, my dad has been telling me for years on how little things like the shows we watch on TV, their commercials, the news, its all manipulative. These people just want money, and if they can convince you that the things they put in their media is accurate, and dramatic, why wouldn’t you read it. I guess the old saying, “Bad news is the best news” pretty much sums it up. If there is blood in the paper, people will read it, and they will be interested.
This also changes my view on digital photos. Although easier (as far as I know) to manipulate, they also are of such a high resolution that it might even be easier to spot fakes, or things that improbable. The other readings; on Chilean, Alfredo Jaar, expressed a similar point of view on manipulation. He was more on scale of how media can be influenced more for people in developing nations. These people, obviously, are less tech savvy than people end up growing up in industrialized nations. Thus, they are more prone to be manipulated by these things, they believe what they see, because being less informed makes them more naïve.
Believe me, I don’t mean that in a bad way, its just the basic truth, while there are plenty of developing nations that are far from naïve, the general population of these countries sometimes are not even accounted for. In the two articles, Jaar talks a lot about how people become manipulated to, in the case of “The Rwanda Project”, criminal indifference, and desensitization to violent photography and ideas. People are seeing these images, and just throw them away in their minds. It happens so much in the present day and media just throw them at us, and of course the response to such repetitiveness is just non existent almost. The other reading, “ The Gramsci Trilogy” seemed to me to be more informative as to how people connect to media differently. To steal the example of the article, “The Chilean audience will read this peace in a totally different way than the people of Milan”(Jaar). It is hard to make something with a meaning that is universal. This all ties back to Craig’s original thoughts on his starting to be into photography because of the reality of it. Now that I have read this article, I realize why he doesn’t explain any of the art that he showed us. The deeper meaning of things can be totally different than what we think, so in a way he is just telling us to, screw it, and take it how it is.
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