working critique

Crossed processed slide film... ugh. 

Posting work for a working critique tomorrow

 

Light 1

Light 2

Light 3

Light 4

I was disappointed in myself today. I really want to start using these lights more to my advantage. How to make shadows with NO slide projector. :) 

 HIP! HIP! ONE MORE MONTH FOLKS.

After a lovely Easter dinner, "Well, I'm going to go find a busy intersection and look like a fool." Vickie, "Oh my god, don't get hit."

What a busy weekend! From one assignment to another, and another.

I'm really humored by my ideas of studio lighting. Who the heck decides that they are going to light shadows... hand raised over here. I realize that I always assume that light is like using interior wall paint, but just a little thinner, right?

 "Well, we'll add a touch of light over here to highlight these balloons, then we'll add the projector light
over here, and oh crapahoy.



Balloons like nice!

Projector stealing the magic and the show.




So this is what I ended up with. I don't like balloons anymore. I do like shower curtains.

My arch enemy of all time is Photoshop. Whenever I do stuff like this, I think to myself, "What can I do that it cannot". I'm still working on this problem, but I like the idea of letting the shadows of these figures star as well. I would have liked to see more cars and people, but for the sake of taking the day off, I didn't stress.

CLONING

It's two am..

 Look at what  a simple eternal flash can do! Blue shadows! 

Starting to brain storm.. artist statement.. thoughts... This is so hard at 12pm.

Artist Statement

I find myself more and more often wanting to talk to people about the everydayness of life that makes you and I feel isolated from others. Are you dealing with boredom? Are you dealing with rejection? Are you dealing with irritation? Guilt? And so on. I want to be able to relate to people so that when they look at a photograph, they are looking at therapy. I don’t really want to impress anyone. What the hell does that do for them? And what does it do for me? Ego boosts never last, and when you or I have landed on earth after having one, we only need more. It’s a drug.

This past semester has been a tug of war. I realized that I wanted both to act in my photographs but also to document other people in their natural environments. I want to go to your house, get to know you, drink some coffee, and take some pictures! Well this direction hasn’t come to fruition yet, and until it does, I’m going to have to deal with looking at me for a while longer.

I love working with a generic problem in a specific way. 

This next work is going to be talking about being embarrassed. 

I did a shoot of myself outside in a towel looking as if I had just gotten out of the shower. I play a scene where I realize that I am in public and I don’t know what to do, but try to cover myself up. When I find out that no one really is looking to begin with, I forget that I am in such attire and once again, find beauty in life.

I am going to take these images of me, create cutouts and then actually photograph them in a lively public context. Perhaps during rush hour...

I’ve always struggled with this notion that people are watching me (which is logically not true if everyone were thinking that). So to get over it, I make light of the situation. 

Sincerely,

Sig

Grandma Never Threw Away Tinfoil

As kids, my Grandma used to scrape our plates at the dinner table and pile the scraps on her plate and eat the leavings. All five of us would always say, "Eww! That's gross!" (little kid style).  But Grandma never thought anything of it. As we grew older her habit seemed to cease, but Grandma still would scrape our plates with her short red handled spatula to in order to save the scraps for the dogs dinner.

And she never wasted a thing. She washed tinfoil, plastic bags, and  margarine tubs. She saved tinsel for decades, birthday cards, (cards are always reusable), and she never bought clothing. To this day, I don't know if I have ever seen my grandma go clothes shopping for fun. And if she did, she went to the used clothing store to get the $1.50 bag deal.

 Everything could be used again if the right job was needed for it. And boy could she store things...

My grandma is a veteran of an age past. I am spoiled in comparison.

But in a way, I have found that I'm doing a similar thing in my classes. Ideas form in one and I use them in another. I'm trying to squeeze every drop of life  out of this silhouette thing. During the semester, I have hit a lot of frustrating walls, but today was a precious moment. I am seeing a window open...

Today, I had two objectives:
to start to feel comfortable in the 3rd floor studio, and to make art for Whitney.


I used different hot light gels and a flash to get some color. I covered the flash in the gel paper and covered the flash with my hands. the more the flash, the lighter the silhouette.. and the lighter the color. This was very interesting to me. See another idea! I am hoping one day to start incorporating people to interact with shadows, but for now I am keeping it simple.

What Can I Say

... and it has been another great long day.

We're going to do a run in Bartlett tonight right? That was the plan for a few of us at school who wanted to participate in tonights activity. The location was Chris's house and he lived in Bartlett, the same city as I. The only problem was that he lived on the other side. The side that I don't dare go unless I feel like loosing every ounce of my sanity.

7 pm after class:

Me "I follow you Natalie right"

Natalie, "Oh I was going to follow you!"

Me, "I can get to Bartlett, but I don't know where Chris lives."

And so the evening began with three cars trailing each other down the freeway to get to his house.

 I have gotten lost innumerable times this semester, and realize that when this happens, I tend to loose head and all hell breaks loose. It's like caging a wild bird in a cardboard box. My ears begin to hurt and all I see are lights and cars. No rational thoughts, Nothing. Just pure pain. lol

Natalie drove in the lead, but after about twenty minutes,  she pulled over, rolled down her window, and told me that her GPS was lost and she was confused.

"Oh, I think we missed the exit anyways!" I said oddly confident. "It was back a bit. Exit 12".

I took the lead this time, driving back the way we came. But as soon as I was getting onto the freeway, I noticed a familiar landmark and realized that Natalie had been indeed going in the right direction after all. But it was too late, I zipped back on the road and drove to my "Correct" Exit before pulling of to a gas station.

It was getting dark and I was a little embarrassed. Natalie and Emily pull up to my window, "I looked at her dryly, "I think I'm lost." Natalie burst out laughing in unstoppable way. "You looked so confident though!!" I mentally hung me head and followed her back on to the freeway.

Natalie, "We'll try this one more time, and if we get lost, we'll call Chris.

Me, "Tell him to bring his running clothes, we'll just run where we are."

Natalie laughed. Her GPS was now working and we went back the same way we had come.

Now did I mention it was getting dark out? I was a little concerned. Not only for me, but for Emily  who was driving behind me. I was hoping she could keep up with us. I noticed our exit coming up.  Ya, the correct one.... Natalie didn't take... oh heavens... she didn't take it! We are going the wrong way again.

Or maybe it's just my mind. Maybe it was this next one. I kept looking behind me. Poor Emily is going to get lost! Yup, I spied Emily's lights. She was taking the wrong exit. OH NO!

Natalie kept going and made the next exit in due time. I followed behind her. I was good at following...

Natalie soon enough pulled into a housing community area. But curiously, she began to speed up. "Wow, I thought" Doesn't she know I am trying to keep up!! I kept my eye on her as she began to zip around houses making a few quick right and left's onto smaller roads. In an effort to maintain her in my sites, I began to quicken my pace as well.

Soon enough she pulled into a drive way and I slowly pulled in too and parked along side of her, partially in the grass. Natalie sure took up space... Gosh.

As I looked out my window, my heart dripped to the floor. A strange woman was looking at me through the glass pane. That was not the woman I was following twenty minutes ago!

Now all mature adults at this time would have rolled down the window and apologized for the irregularity of such a meeting, but for me, it was only the dust my tires that begged her pardon a second later.

What can I say.

Panic Attack...

Lost...

Oddly enough,  after having nearly loosing it and giving up, I found myself in familiar spot and by the grace of God, located Chris's house.

It was a fabulous run!!!

The End